While you wait for my full reviews on the Mac Pro, 30″ Apple Cinema Display, and the Canon PowerShot TX1, I decided to post a little “First Looks” post on how I’m finding these new toys due to many requests.

Please keep in mind that my full reviews with complete performance testing are around two weeks away, I want to do as much testing as possible before I publish anything. If you have any questions you’d like to see answered in the review regarding system performance, feel free to drop them in the comments below. Enough with the chit-chat, on with the first looks.

Mac Pro & Ease Of Use

This machine really is a beauty, installing the RAM and hard-drive upgrades was a very simple process which only took a matter of minutes. I expected the tower to be much louder than it is, I have it sitting under the desk and can barely hear anything apart from the occasional disk noise. It’s whisper quiet even under heavy usage.

It has been very handy to have so many ports on the machine, the front USB and Firewire ports are lifesavers, I’ve used these constantly over the past 48 hours of data transfer and Skype calls.

Overall, I’m very impressed with this machine. It will be put to good use over the next few years (yes, it’s going to last me a long time).

Having 3GB Of RAM

I was a little skeptical if 3GB would be enough for a machine with 4 cores, since then my skepticism has been wiped - 3GB is plenty for general multitasking I’m doing. I have around 12 apps open at the moment, and still have 2.06GB of RAM free for the taking. This is a much appreciated improvement from my iMac, which is now sitting in the family room acting as a web browsing machine for the family.

Having 4 Processor Cores

One of the main factors which make the Mac Pro so fast is not its 2.66Ghz processor, but the fact that the machine has two, dual core processors.

When I’m doing general work, which includes having the regular applications open such as Safari, Mail, Skype, iPhoto, iTunes, NewsFire, iChat, etc, the machine barely eats up 3-5% of the processor load. When I launch into heavier applications like Aperture and Final Cut, I can still operate all my other programs smoothly without a hitch, even when exporting video (which is super fast).

30″ Apple Cinema Display

The first time I saw the box, I was wowed. When I opened the box, I was wowed. When I placed it on my desk, I was wowed. When I turned it on, I was blown away - literally.

Now I’m rather accustomed to the size and resolution of this display. It’s really nice to be able to scan applications, rather than switch to them. If I get a new email while browsing in Safari, I can scan with my eyes to the left to view it rather than going down to the dock, clicking the app, reading the email, then clicking back to Safari which is what I had to do when I was using the iMac as a primary machine.

This screen has already saved me so much time, I highly recommend a 30″ display if you love multitasking. I couldn’t go back to anything smaller. For those interested, here is a little video tour of the office.

On a final note, if you have any questions for the final reviews, please let me know and I’ll do my best to incorporate them into the articles.