I agree, but you forgot to mention the killer issue (for me): there's no '#' key. Having to press Alt+3 for a '#' gets annoying pretty quickly when you're coding.
It's even worse if you're running Linux on the MacBook. You have to fiddle with a mysteriously named keyboard preference ("Key to choose 3rd level") to get even the Alt+3 combination to work - and once it does, you can no longer Alt+Tab to switch between windows. Fortunately you can choose a different key; the best compromise I've found so far is to the right Alt key. That way you can enter '#' symbols and Alt+Tab back and forth, but it turns what should be a single keystroke into a two handed combination.
That and the lagging OpenGL support are why my next computer won't be a Mac.
I'm confused by what you're saying here - do you have a keyboard with '#' as a primary key? Every keyboard I've ever used requires shift-3 to generate a '#'.
Your reference to 3rd level keys seems to refer to an international keyboard. Is your keyboard not a U.S. layout?
To be honest I've never tried. I use a standard UK keyboard at work and I've got a vague feeling that there'd be too much cognitive dissonance for me to learn a new layout without the right labels on the keys.
It's even worse if you're running Linux on the MacBook. You have to fiddle with a mysteriously named keyboard preference ("Key to choose 3rd level") to get even the Alt+3 combination to work - and once it does, you can no longer Alt+Tab to switch between windows. Fortunately you can choose a different key; the best compromise I've found so far is to the right Alt key. That way you can enter '#' symbols and Alt+Tab back and forth, but it turns what should be a single keystroke into a two handed combination.
That and the lagging OpenGL support are why my next computer won't be a Mac.