I just received a new MBP to replace a failing iBook.

The last two laptops I have owned are an iBook G4 800 and a Powerbook G3 400.

In all but a few cases, those laptops were 100% silent when running... the iBook's fan has kicked on maybe 4 or 5 times in the 3.5 years I've owned it.

The MBP (C2D, 2.1 GHz) fan appears to be on all the time and is about the same volume that the iBook fan is when it kicked on. Is this normal? It is really distracting. Note that it is not "loud", it is just not the silence that I've been used to working in the last 8 years.

Additionally, the bottom of the unit gets uncomfortably hot even when the machine is sitting idle.

Are these things that I should be contacting Apple about or are they "normal"?

reasonably normal

I have the first edition MBP and I've only heard the fan once. I can't remember the circumstances, but it's certainly not normal for the fan to kick in all the time. I do have mine on a podium coolpad.

I'd call and get the issue logged, see what they say.

It does get very hot, by my fan rarely kicks in, only problem I had was with buzzing behind the speakers that Apple was aware of and promptly fixed.

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My fans only come on when doing some heavy duty stuff and using >150% processor usage. Hot-- all the time.

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Just got off the phone with Apple... they are sending me a label for them to FedEx it back to them for a refund.

Once thing calm down again in a few weeks, I'll reorder.

wasn't there a problem with the heat sink compound on a lot of these?