Review - Apple's MacBook Pro

Provataki writes "OSNews posted a 2-editor review of Apple's MacBook Pro laptop. The whole review feels like a long conversation between the two editors with agreements and disagreements on several issues and topics. They both agree that the laptop is too hot, but there is disagreement on the screen quality for example."

Comments

Summary

[ThinkingInBinary]

• Screen: Adam likes the bright screen, Thom dislikes the viewing angle (color distortion) problems
• Speed: Both of them love it.
• Speakers: Both agree, the speakers are too quiet and distort at loud volumes. Thom notes it has digital optical audio out.
• Keyboard: Adam likes it, Thom finds the layout too cramped, calls it "form over function". Both like the backlighting.
• Airport: Adam has no problems. Thom finds the reception worse than his iBook.
• Heat: Both agree, it is too hot.
• Rosetta: Both agree, it is awesome, but native apps are eagerly anticipated.
• Build Quality: Both like it. Adam wants more USB ports.
• Battery: Both agree, battery life is skimpy.
• Running Windows: Thom says it's "a breeze", Adam doesn't plan to try it.

Frankly, I guess this points out that the MacBook Pro isn't "above" anything else. It's got its share of problems, and feelings are mixed about many features. Unlike the MacBook, though, the MacBook Pro isn't priced competitively with other brands. (The regular MacBook, surprisingly enough, since Apple is usually overpriced, matches up pretty well with PC manufacturers. It's hard to compare it directly because of the odd screen size, but it's only $100-$200 more than a PC, if even that.)

Re:Summary

[Aiku1337]

(The regular MacBook, surprisingly enough, since Apple is usually overpriced, matches up pretty well with PC manufacturers. It's hard to compare it directly because of the odd screen size, but it's only $100-$200 more than a PC, if even that.)

This is probably my Apple fanboyism talking, but the MacBook (or, previously iBook) has always been competively priced. The entry level iBook was going for 1000 USD and included more standard features than any PC laptop did, for that price. I wouldn't say Apple is usually overpriced, maybe just their pro line. But then again, the pro line is targeted towards business and professionals. You'd expect to pay more.

Re:Summary

[pVoid]

Frankly, I guess this points out that the MacBook Pro isn't "above" anything else.

Well, I'm a long time Microsoft'y, in that I've worked mainly on windows platforms (professionally) for the last decade. I just recently got a mac book pro. I'll tell you this much: I looked for a LONG time for a PC laptop that I could get instead. The only thing that came near in ergonomy was the LG laptops which were ridiculously overpriced. I mean, compare a Dell laptop (which looks like a tank) to a macbook pro, i.e. hold both in your hands, and you will see there is an order of magnitude in difference.

That being said, there are aspects of my Macbook that I am surprisingly disappointed about. Namely: Apple.

From everything I had read - especially anti microsoft bashing comparing how Windows has so many bugs etc - Apple is unbelievably bad at both hardware and software tech support.

Examples: there is a high pitch whining noise that comes from the MacBook Pros. It is quite obviously an electrical leak, which consistently goes away if you switch off the second core. Apple has yet to *officially* acknowledge this problem. It's one thing to acknowledge, it's another thing to replace. They could easily say "yeah, sorry, that's not repairable", but it's quite insulting to go to an authorized dealer and say "there, don't you hear it? it's driving me insane" and get an answer "uhm, sorry, no, I don't hear it". Same for AppleCare.

Speaking of apple care, they treat their custommers like idiots. I had a problem with my fan making a rattling noise - clearly a ball bearing problem. I call apple care, it was so loud she could hear it on the phone without my even putting the phone up to the laptop. I was just laughing when she took me step by step through how to put the installation CD in, boot off of it, and run checkdisk (which btw, yielded all green, to which she grunted in disappointment - I guess people shut off their computers often enough that they always get red warnings about filesystem problems...) Anyways...

And last but not least, they recently came out with a patch for Quicktime that would effectively freeze your entire UI if you ran certain programs. When contacting AppleCare, they asked me which program did this, and I said "Unrar", "Graphviz" and "Adobe apps", to which his 'straight faced' reply was: we're sorry, Apple can not take responsability for third party software. Which is preposterous because it wasn't the third party software failing so much as the *entire* OS freezing up.

They later reissued a new patch that fixed this problem - but Apple *never* admitted that their initial fix was broken.

All of this is that kind of stuff that would turn into a flame storm for Microsoft.

All that aside, I still like my mbp.

Re:Summary

[Darsovit]

Funny, I have found that the Macbook Pro 17" is cheaper than a comparably equipped Dell XPS M1710 17". I've left the Macbook Pro with the default settings (although the hard drive can be changed to truly match the Dell's 100GB 7200 rpm drive since the Dell doesn't have the 120 GB 5400rpm option that the Macbook Pro has) and it's listed on the online store at $2799.00. For the Dell XPS M1710, I chose the basic model, then upgraded the processor to 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo, added the Remote for Windows XP Media Center (the Macbook Pro comes with a remote standard, $29), upgraded the hard drive to 100 GB as noted ($215), upgraded to the CD/DVD Burner combo drive ($50), and added the Bluetooth ($49) and the total at their online store is $3118.

I could upgrade the memory on the Macbook Pro to 2GB and still be under the Dell with 1 GB of RAM.

Granted, this is only a comparison with one competitor, but with the use of the Intel processor in the Mac it can now be compared pretty closely and it would seem to be competing fairly well, at least with this brand.

Re:Summary

[hlimethe3rd]

The fact that the G4-based laptops weren't competitive on performance was largely due to the lag in technology. The 1.25 GHz (or whatever) G4 chip in your brother's iBook G4 probably was competitive with the PC laptops that came out at the same time, but realistically it had been three years since the G4 chips had been significantly refreshed (yes, I'm not counting moving from 1.25GHz to 1.33). Apple's portables were very, very long in the tooth looking just at the chips.

Re:Speaker quality?

[drinkypoo]

As gearheads say, "there's no replacement for displacement".

Only the lames say this. And there's a lot of lames. There are several replacements for displacement. Most significantly, High RPMs and high compression. High compression comes in two versions: forced induction, and just having high compression in the first place.

As we all know, there are small speakers that kick the shit out of cheaper speakers several times their size. Now, with speakers, it's true that there's no replacement for displacement, but you should be aware that displacement comes from two places in the case of both engines and speakers, though the terminology is different. In engines, we call it bore and stroke; AFAIK it's still stroke in audio, but the "bore" would be the "diameter".

In addition, both engines and speakers have the concept of "response", and it works much the same way in both places. In engines, you make them respond quicker by lightening the rotating mass, this allows you to achieve higher RPMs. Speakers are made lighter; this allows them to move faster, improving high-frequency response. Low-frequency response (consistency without distortion) is also achieved in the same way in both engines and speakers; You have more mass, but you use more energy to move it. A car with a heavier rotating mass is harder to stall, and thus less susceptible to small perturbations. Ditto for a speaker.

Anyway, just trying to bust up some myths. I know a lot more about the cars than the audio, but I know enough about physics to make some generalizations :P