I ordered the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro on opening day a couple weeks back.  Its release was welcome after weeks of reading those frustrating Apple rumor sites in anticipation of the CPU bump.  Anyway, it’s a wonderful upgrade from my older PowerBook G4.  As expected, the new machine is a lot faster, but what really surprised me was the quality of the display.  The LCD is quite bright, the contrast is great, and it has a very wide viewing angle.  It’s the little touches like that that set Apple apart from its competitors.  I’m spoiled now and expect the software to be easy to use, but their hardware design always reminds me of BMWs.  They’re fast, overengineered, and every feels solid.

I’m also digging the Magsafe AC adapters.  Being something of a couch coder, I regularly manage to disconnect the magnet.  Not knocking the machine over onto the floor with it is probably a good thing!  Anyway, for the programmers out there, my compilation and unit tests times have been reduced by about 40%.  CPU-intensive tasks are probably quite a bit faster, but the hard drive is still an effective limiter for the speed of IO-oriented tasks.  Civilization 4 also plays smoothly, which is a huge improvement over the jerky performance on the Intel Mac Mini.
It says in the product guide that “You and your MacBook Pro were made for each other,” and I’m inclined to agree.   I love the machine, and although it hasn’t yet betrayed any signs of becoming self-aware, I maintain vigilance.