For the next month I’m putting away my Macs to use Microsoft Windows 7. For the record, I do use Windows XP on a monthly basis, but it’s never tempted me to sell on my MacBook. I’ve used Vista fleetingly, and have to say I’m surprised at the bad press it’s received, but again it wouldn’t encourage me to drop the Mac OS.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not your stereotypical frenzied Mac nutcase who takes every opportunity to argue the toss over who invented what and which OS in more intuitive than the other. I’m just a Mac user because that’s the computer I learnt on. I have flirted with Mac evangelism in my time, but I’m no fanboy. You won’t find me criticising XP as difficult to use, for example, as I know it’s only because I don’t use it all that regularly that it feels unnatural to me.

Obviously, I’ll need a PC and I’ve gone for a HP Pavilion DV3-2055EA. Not quite as snappily named as the MacBook Pro, but I can live with that. I’ve never really looked at PC hardware as it’s not been on my shopping list, but I tried to guess how much the laptop was before I found out the price.

Much like my MacBook this PC has a 13.3in LCD screen, 2 USB ports, built-in webcam, remote control and DVD burner. Unlike my MacBook it has a HDMI connector, an eSATA connection and a digital memory card reader, oh and a D-SUB connection. The HP also has a 500GB hard disk and 4GB of RAM.

I guessed that this laptop was probably in the region of £1,000 to £1,200. Turns out I was very wrong. The HP Pavilion DV3-2055EA is available for about £800. However, I’ve always known that PCs are cheaper than Macs and if at the end of this month I’ve used the HDMI, D-SUB or eSATA connections I’ll be surprised.

Design wise it’s very nice, but do computers really need stickers to proclaim that they have Intel Inside and GeForce with CUDA? What’s CUDA anyhow? Am I supposed to know?

I’m not going to cheat and ask my many learned friend who do use PCs to help me out when I’m stuck. I’m going to try and work things out for myself. If this leads me to make some elementary mistakes I hope you’ll forgive me and perhaps point me in the right direction in the comments section.

I’m really hoping to have as open a mind as possible with this month-long experiment and if at the end of that time I’ve decided to switch you can be sure it’s not a decision that’s been taken lightly.

The most exciting of the new models is the EasyNote TR series, which takes a leaf out of Apple and Sony’s books by concentrating on design just as much as hardware. And it’s not just any old in-house designers who are putting together these latest laptops, either – Packard Bell has enlisted the help of Italian design house Pininfarina to make sure that the TR can match up to the best in the business.

A glance at the chassis reveals that the experiment has paid off: the TR is stylish without being garish and includes several neat touches. While the lid is finished in a glossy black that’ll surely become a fingerprint magnet, the interior boasts a good-looking matte coating that brings to mind the far more expensive, and revered, Sony VAIO AW-series.

Sound design

The speakers, meanwhile, seem to be totally original: while they still sit above the keyboard, they sweep upwards when the laptop is open, meeting the edge-to-edge screen in a seamless curve – it’s a good look, and we were pleased to note that the curved speaker didn’t protrude from the laptop when the lid was closed, although this did make the back end of the machine feel a bit bulkier than your average 15.4in notebook.

We’re also assured that the Dolby technology inside the curved speakers will make the TR sound as good as Toshiba and HP’s premium machines, which come with harmon/kardon and Altec Lansing speakers respectively and are routinely best-in-class for audio quality.

The keyboard has flat rather than traditional bevelled keys and, in the short time we had to try them out, the individual keys felt comfortable with a reasonably positive typing action – although, like the new range of netbooks, the base of the keyboard still felt a little spongy.

The trackpad was better: wide, responsive and with two good buttons, it includes the multi-touch functions that are also incorporated into the new series of netbooks: move two fingers towards and away from each other to zoom in and out, for instance, and rotate a finger from a right-hand corner to the centre of the trackpad to scroll a document up and down. The same motion from the left hand side rotates a document or picture, and swishing two fingers horizontally across the pad skips to the next picture in a series.

Inside, the Packard Bell is a little less exciting: Core 2 Duo processors, Nvidia GeForce GT graphics chips and decent-sized hard disks and allocations of RAM are the order of the day – so it sounds as if the new TR series will be a stylish and comfortable notebook without really innovating on a hardware level.

T is the magic number

As well as the new TR series, Packard Bell also introduced a few more notebooks. While the EasyNote NJ, TJ and LJ-series machines don’t benefit from the Pininfarina design that made the TR look so special, they’re reasonable-looking machines that also have multi-touch trackpads, decent keyboards and what felt like solid build quality – although, during our brief time with the machines, the screens did appear to be a touch too reflective and a mite too pale for our liking.

Inside, again, little has changed – with Core 2 Duo processors, Nvidia graphics chips and all the requisite bells and whistles, we can expect these notebooks to be good performers without excelling themselves in our comprehensive benchmark suite.

Packard Bell isn’t resting on its laurels, either, after its buyout by Acer earlier this year. We’ve been assured than an 18in version of the TR-series will be released in time for Christmas, and that the majority of the new machines will be available in several colours and configurations, ranging from 14 to 17in screens and white, black, blue and red exteriors.

These new notebooks could make a return to form for a revered old brand, then – one that’s been around since 1926 but, recently, has been delivering merely average notebooks that don’t stir the soul in the way that those from Sony, Apple or Dell manage.

It’s looking up for Packard Bell, then, and we’ll deliver our definitive verdict as soon as we get our hands on any of these new notebooks in the PC Pro Labs.

A quick glance at its page of ‘tech specs’ for the new 17in MacBook Pro reveals that the machine has either a 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 320GB hard disk with an optional SSD and an 8x slot-loading SuperDrive. But there’s no mention of which model of CPU it is, or the amount of cache on the hard disk.

That’s not the end of Apple’s vague spec-babble, though. I wanted to confirm the technology behind the extraordinary screen that I raved about in my review and, to ensure that I got proper information rather than rumour and gossip, contacted the company directly – and it seems that the vagueness of specification is prevalant throughout Apple.

I wanted to check, specifically, if the screen uses a similar RGB LED technology to that seen in the Dell Studio XPS 16 a couple of weeks back – and I’ve since found out that it doesn’t – but the reply was somewhat vague.

“We don’t go into that level of detail”, claimed the Apple representative, going on to reassure me that “the display is the best ever put in a Mac notebook.” It may be the official company line, but it’s not ideal for the creative professional who needs to know about the technology behind their screen, which is surely a market that Apple is squarely aiming at with this latest MacBook Pro.

I suppose I can take solace in the fact that it’s the finest screen to ever go into a Mac notebook – according to Apple, anyway. I’ve no reason to doubt its quality, of course, but sometimes it’s just nice to go into technicalities.

Unsurprisingly, I’m really impressed. The new chassis is wonderfully neat and tidy, sturdy and not as heavy as I was expecting. It’s certainly a good looking machine. I’ve only got one little criticism (if you exclude the hefty price) – the touchpad.

Getting rid of the button is an inspired decision. Under Mac OS X I rarely find myself using the physical button at all, opting instead for a light tap on the pad itself. This works perfectly well, all the time, as you don’t need two mouse buttons. The problem here is that Apple has chosen to make the whole pad a physical button, instead of just taking away the button below the pad. Press firmly and the whole thing depresses, and it’s distracting.

I found myself trying to press and stroke as lightly as possible, so as to not press the button. Sure, after a week or two I might get used to it, but my first impressions are not good. I seriously think that if I was to replace my current (and suddenly very old-fashioned) MacBook, I would have to attempt to open up that innovative new case and jam up the button with a thin piece of card.

Of course, I could always just opt for another manufacturer, but it seems unlikely. That case is very good looking…

Admission number one: the publisher of PC Pro is also the publisher of MacUser. Admission number two: he uses a MacBook Pro. Admission number three: he likes it.

I was admonishing him about this in our local pub the other night, when he came up with what I at first thought was a ridiculous argument – but I’m now starting to believe he might be right.

“The thing is, Tim,” he took a sip of beer to punctuate his point, “the thing is, the bottom of your laptop is ugly. Horribly, horribly ugly. The bottom of my Mac is a thing of beauty.”

And he’s right. I wrested it off him for long enough to take the photo you see before you, and I can’t deny the smooth, unblemished contours. In contrast, take a look at my (otherwise fantastic) ThinkPad X60’s underneath. No other word for it: ugly.

So what can we conclude? That the future is beautiful-bottomed laptops? I think so, but that’s only part of it. The fact is he won’t be buying another laptop unless it looks good from all angles. And it’s not only PC manufacturers who should take note, it’s every manufacturer.