of bitching about things, I have one qualm with my new MacBook Pro.

(Backstory: After many attempts at repairing my old one Apple decided to replace it with a brand new unit so I now have a 2.8GHz unibody with a matte display and it’s gorgeous).

But an SD slot? Really, Apple? SD is not “pro”. At best SD is “semi-pro”. I realize the MacBook SemiPro would not sell well, because everyone who is semi-pro thinks they’re pro. But by putting this slot here, Apple, you’ve conceded to their fantasy. You’re indulging them.

All this would be perfectly fine with me, save for what was sacrificed. The SD slot replaced the ExpressCard. If it had supplemented it, fine, who cares. But now I’ve lost the ability to use the following types devices with my computer:

-3G modems (if I want to use one I have to give up one of my precious two USB ports)

-High quality audio on the go - Expresscard was faster than USB or Firewire so it could push more channels at higher bitrates

- HDMI capture cards - if I ever have a camcorder that outputs HDMI, I will be unable to buy a card that captures its raw output before it gets compressed to tape/flash/whatever

-Additional video cards - a Macbook Pro could be made to drive quite a few displays with the right ExpressCard

-Storage - fibre channel/Serial Attached SCSI/eSata - all of the above are faster than Firewire 800

-Any PCIe 1x device - cards were available that basically attached to an external enclosure into which you could put any desktop-size expansion card you wanted - including DSP cards for high end audio plug ins, RAID controllers, you name it.

And yes, I’m aware that ExpressCard still exists on the 17” model because Apple does not want to alienate people who flatout rely on one of the above devices. I’m more of an occasional user so I didn’t pay for the upgrade and will just deal. What actually bothers me here is that Apple is basically conceding the 15” model to prosumer territory, even though it otherwise matches its bigger cousin in specs. Apple is saying to its user base, “not enough of you did cool stuff with your ExpressCard slot so we’re taking it away”. I used mine! I had an eSata card!

My next post will be positive and uplifting, I swear. There is lots to be happy about, I just thought I would get all the complaining done at once.