MacBook: First Impressions from a Switcher

Many months ago when I started this blog I'd just acquired a PowerMac G4 having rescued it from a skip, I installed OSX and started using it.  I enjoyed the experience but the Mac quickly fell into disuse as I still had all of my regular apps, email, music, etc. on the PC.  I couldn't have switched to the G4 as my PC was newer and more powerful and besides that I didn't really want to abandon the PC as a platform, until now. 

In order to make traveling easier and provide me with a little more flexibility I decided to get a laptop, I thought this would be an ideal time to make a first serious step into the Mac world so I went to the Apple Store on Regent's Street (London), watched their "Switch at Six" talk and spoke with a few employees about the practicalities and after much deliberation I bought the 13.3" Macbook.  Whilst the extra power of the Macbook Pro would be great I think the size makes it much less portable and when you start thinking about spending that much money on a laptop you might as well say "screw it" and buy an awesome desktop for the same money. 

I've had it for a few weeks now and I'm enjoying it, I've found that I'm using the Internet much more for fun as I can sit in the living room with the TV on and talk to my flatmate at the same time, I also can just pick it up and take it out with me if I need to.  I plan to clear some space on my desk so that I can run a cable to my 22" CRT to get a better experience for editing photos, etc. - but these are just benefits of having a laptop - so how am I finding the Mac?

Overall, it's been positive, I've had difficulty overcoming certain hurdles (lack of right mouse button, the fact I hate Preview) but in general I love some of the cool features such as: pressing F9 tiles all of your open applications and allows you to pick which one you want to use and F11 pushes all of your apps to the side of the screen so you can get access to your desktop.  They're only little things and probably exist in Vista but that's one of my reasons for switching - based on everything I've heard to date I really don't want Vista and am getting fed up of being tied to Microsoft software so this is my first step towards application freedom.  Now I barely use my PC and I'm wondering whether or not the Macbook will become my primary computer - time will tell I suppose.