1. In terms of UI (where Apple prides itself); you cant get around the OS to customize away from the Gloss BLUE & GREY default. You can change a few colours but thats it. [if somehow one can hack that, its for sure not evident]

2. They dont have a 14 inch version for the Pro. A 14.x” is the most comfortable size; yes it fits great on your aircraft economy tray table ..a 15″ is a little to big.

Ok superficial reasons so far??..

3. The KEY BOARD : The most annoying part; the chicklet keyboard (which looks like a stone age tablet) is for sure NOT cool. The SONY VIO tried to copy them! Apart from that; Apple thinks its cool to ignore important keys like Home & End. Ok, you can do a Home using “FN Left Arrow” or “COMMAND Left Arrow” depending on the app?! If its a combination, it should at least be consistent! There are other annoyances other people have commented on so I wont go there. This will never end.

4. No VGA port — Yah, Apple is so far ahead they dont want to comply with standards. You need a DVI to VGA adapter to connect a standard Monitor from the market. ..Now I see how they get their sleek look; just Omit anything that looks a little FAT and Call it “COOL”. Im sorry, I dont accept this brain wash; certain things are essential and you better well put it unless its a completely phased out standard. (like a Floppy Drive). The VGA adapter is still pretty standard and supportive of good every day graphics if not the best (HDMI Out).

…If They could improve the KeyBoard and the VGA port I’d overlook the little other nuances. I may live with the 15″ in some situations thats good.

Of the things I like about the Mac Book Pro:
1. LED Monitor quality superior
2. Multi Touch trackpad is the most sophisticated
3. You can run, Windows, Linux off it (so you can virtually ignore all your software issues by switching to another OS over it).
4. Sleek — This is an Oxymoron; I know why its sleek and they gave up on certain things that I’d like like a few keys, ports etc. So while I complain I also complement on this point. ..but in 15″ they have more space to figure it out so i’ll still be critical.

Alex thinks it’s something about the combination of the intel chip and this version osx… I don’t know.

(Digression: it’s too bad there isn’t some SLA-linked warranty for computers. Having something run perfectly well one week and then dog slow the next is just as bad as any hardware failure, but no warrany service will ever take it as proof of anything.)

That said, something sounds very wrong based on your description, and none of what you mentioned is at all consistent with my experience using a 3-year-old Powerbook. Sure, Firefox is a bit slow sometimes. (With Firebug installed, it needs a restart at least twice a day because it leaks so much memory.) But “a bit slow” means I occasionally wait a few seconds to switch tabs when I have a bunch of Firefox windows, Pyro, iTunes, Mail, TextWrangler, iChat, and a dozen terminals open at the same time. That’s with 1GB memory just like you, and with a 1.5GHz processor from yesteryear. And (the most important part), I can switch to some other program and *it works just fine*.

So yes, the experience you’re describing is completely unacceptable, whether you’re on a Mac or otherwise.

I don’t use FREAKING MACBOOK … thank God … but Windows Microsoft Outlook and when I receive emails from people using MacBook, the message goes all weird, becomes an attachment, distorted, and when I try to do a reply, bits go missing, etc. etc.

I HATE MACBOOK basically!!! Cannot comprehend what’s all the hype about!