If Batman had an iPod, I bet he
would protect it with this.

I recently bought the new black-keyed MacBook Pro. Because this was such a serious chunk of change, at least for me, I wanted to protect the investment. Granted, the unibody shell is carved from a solid piece of aluminum, but I still wanted to protect it. I’ve had good luck with the Speck line of rubberized protective products for my iPod (while mountain biking down the Galvin Parkway in Tempe, my iPod managed to jump out of my Camelbak and bounce across the road. Picture an expensive black brick hopping through traffic), so I went to them for a laptop cover.

Enter the Speck See-Thru Satin hard shell. Feels like soft rubber, yet sturdy enough to protect it from the wear and tear from my daily routine. The only drawback to this design, in my opinion, is that it does take away from some of the Apple-esque sexiness of the MacBook Pro. The new laptop has a graceful sloping bevel to the edges, where as the last one was pretty much a silver rectangle with rounded corners.

They did a good job with making the cover semi-transparent so the trademark illuminated Apple logo still shows through, but I think you really have to be looking for it unless the room is dimly lit. While they have a collection of colors available, the black color that I purchased really accentuates the black keyboard of the MBP. Fits like a glove, and doesn’t interfere with the operation of the screen or hinges. And now it’s easy to tell my laptop from the others in the sea of laptops at the coffee shop.

It’s the MacBook that looks like a Dell.

One issue I had is that even though the cover is thin, if you have a laptop bag specifically designed to carry your MacBook Pro, it may not fit with this cover on. The extra few millimeters width added to my laptop now render the padded area in my briefcase useless. Again, not a huge deal, but if I had just purchased this bag to fit this laptop I’d have been disappointed.

Over-dramatic diagram

Another issue is that the cover seems to be too heavy for the MBP’s screen hinges. Open the screen past, say 125°, and the screen has a tendency to slowly drift open to it’s maximum. While it isn’t a deal breaker, it was a little annoying at first.

The MBP has a glossy screen (no other option at the time), and while it makes everything on screen look amazing, I don’t enjoy looking into my screen and seeing my reflection all the time. My cheap work-around was to open the screen a little further than I normally would, thereby eliminating the mirror effect.

Perfect for the utilitarian.

Of course, two weeks after I buy this laptop Apple introduces a new anti-glare screen on their 17-inch models, but that’s the nature of the industry, I guess.

At any rate, if you’re in the market for a decent laptop cover that adds that that extra level of protection for a laptop or iPod, I think you’d be well-served to look into the Speck products.

I wonder if they make car covers…because that would be an idea I could get behind.