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New Apple MacBook Pro Reviewed
adeelarshad82 writes "As fate would have it, an Intel chipset glitch delayed shipments of almost every laptop manufacturer, save one. Apple, which has typically been last in transitioning to new technology, is now among the first to launch laptops with Sandy Bridge. The Apple MacBook Pro (Thunderbolt) is the fastest laptop out there. Powered with a Quad-core Core i7 processor and AMD Radeon HD 6750M, the MacBook Pro has a lot of fire power to offer. Unfortunately though it is still a bit expensive and there is a lack of Thunderbolt devices to take advantage of the new interface."
It's bad news when TFS is a troll.
Caveat Utilitor
I can't imagine how Macbook shipments would be affected, given the flaw only affected SATA ports beyond the first two. Presuming that SATA devices linked through Thunderbolt don't count either.
It costs $2199 which for many means an additional $150 for the screen resolution it should have as default. Worse that $150 is the only way to get a non-glossy screen. So lets just say 2349 to get off the ground. Want a three year warranty? Considering your down 2349 its worth it to pay off the risk of that, but at 349 its 15% of the cost of the laptop.
Then you can go on with the extras beyond those two requirements. Sorry, in a day when you can buy a laptop for under 399 these premium laptops are absurd. I know you get what you pay for, but you really don't. The price difference stops somewhere well south of this things price point. This is like saying you need a Porsche for your commute because parking at Starbucks in a Chevy is so not your perceived status.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iMac, but I can at least see some of the value in its 27 inch screen. I can't find the value in their laptops. I know other companies make expensive laptops but damn, there are near equivalents for 90% of the apps most people will run for half this price let alone a quarter.
Amazing laptops in the range of workstation prices (looking at the real Mac Pros - the tower units).
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A rumor that Intel quickly denied. Others can support it, Apple was just first. The original statement was to the effect it'd probably be about a year before others would support it, because it would require new hardware, etc.
I'm no Mac fanboy. I'd probably attract criticism for being a Mac hater. In any case, I think some negatives are just unfair.
TFS says that Light Peak doesn't have peripherals yet, and paints this as a negative on the MacBook Pro. Why do all reviewers feel a compulsion to make up shit if they can't think of anything negative? That's like some video game reviews I've seen, where they can' t find anything to complain about, so they take a star off because they just don't like the genre. That's a good reason to fire a reviewer, in my opinion.
And whose girlfriend has a race-to-the-bottom HP laptop, both of which are paperweights, I'm willing to pay a little more for my next laptop, one made by a company whose business model isn't razor-thin margins and cheap-as-possible components, and slipshod engineering. Go do a search of the laptop forums for "Dell Inspiron," a horrendously flawed design, and see the hate. Then go look at the customer satisfaction ratings for Macs.
My next lappy will be a Mac, and I can use Boot Camp when I need Windows.
There's a difference between cheap and value.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Someone is a retard who can't tell the difference between a first and second-gen i7...
Not according to Intel, they don't.
"Other system makers are free to implement Thunderbolt on their systems as well, and we anticipate seeing some of those systems later this year and in early 2012."
Thunderbolt will appear on PC laptops as soon as the Sandy Bridge chipsets without SATA problems start shipping. Apple has the head start here because their machines don't have the eSATA port that is standard on most PC laptops today.
http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/
I've been planning to put an SSD in one of these into my MBP for a while.
My mistake, I read another article wrong. Actually, several vendors are supposed to have products out this Spring.
The parts falling off my Inspiron were of the very highest quality.
Interesting how the thread topic has slipped. When the initial criticism, "Apple...has typically been last in transitioning to new technology" was pointed out to be not merely false, but flagrantly so (Apple not only has not been last, but in terms of transitioning, they have tended to lead the pack in abandoning old tech), those looking for some excuse to pick on Apple pretend that the question was whether whether Apple was first to use new technology.
My complaint with every Intel Mac I've purchased to date is they get too damn hot, even if you take matters into your own hands and spin the fans up to max. Then their video cards melt. I had three burn out in my last Mac Pro desktop. The current one is still hanging in there, but the exhaust is still pretty warm. I haven't had a Mac Pro laptop video card burn out, but the video card in my Mac Pro is also woefully underpowered. I also haven't experienced third degree penis burns, but I'm pretty sure that's because I put a book on my lap when using the laptop.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I see you also didn't RTFA.
The reviewers tested five laptops. On the MobileMark 2007 test (which runs on Windows 7, for which the new MacBook Pros have not yet been optimized) the MacBook 15-inch (Thunderbolt) lasted 4 hours 40 minutes. That was much longer than the Dell XPS 15 (3:48), Asus N53DV-A1 (3:51), and Asus N53JF-XE1 (3:15). It was only outlasted by the HP Pavilion dv7-4283cl (5:46), a much inferior system that scored last or second-to-last in all the other tests, losing sometimes by a huge margin.
So I would say that yes, the new MB Pro has a very, very decent battery life especially for such a powerful portable machine.
The Intel site lists a whole list of manufacturers who support it now for their peripherals. Of course, there may only be a MacBook Pro to connect them to for a while.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
If thats an option for you, go right ahead. I know i am fairly inconvenienced when shitty hardware dies on me when I'm in Mali or Kazakhstan for business, or somewhere actually nice whilst on holiday. I deal with busted computers day in day out at work, for my own use I want something that is going to give me as little grief as possible and am willing to pay for it.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I'll admit it-- you nailed us, right on dude.
And then we shall bomb your country and export democracy with our backyard-manufactured junk Apple computers. And take your oil. We're gonna bomb you until you bring us flowers. Haliburton all over your bitch. You might as well surrender right now, it's what the Republican Guard did.
Think of how a nice fresh coat of white phosphorous will make you look bright and shiny. And there's gonna be waterboarding. That's pretty much a given. Depleted uranium fertilizing your lawn.
You might as well just give up and start mailing us bulk fuel today. I prefer 87 octane, thx.
It's your own fault for being such a terrorist, really. You know Jack Bauer is right.
Yep-- I've owned a lot of cheap laptops, and laptops that weren't so cheap. My Fujitsus were made in Japan, and cost more than my 13" MBP... but surprisingly, the MBP is significantly better made out of superior materials.
Another thing people overlook in laptops is the display. The brightness, contrast ratio, black levels, and color gamut on the Apple LCDs is vastly superior to almost everything else out there. I've seen a Dell with a better screen, but Dell discontinued that screen option shortly after it was introduced. And it's like that for all the high-end PC notebook screen options I've seen on Anandtech -- you can't actually buy them. While the TN LCD isn't amazing compared to the better S-PVA and IPS panels on desktop monitors, it's almost unequaled among notebooks.
There's the little touches too, like the external LED battery check, the MagSafe power connector, backlit keyboard, glass touchpad, compact power supply, etc.
You get what you pay for. A $1200 MBP is a lot better than two $600 budget laptops.
Yes, they are overdue for a redesign. In my case, support expires this year on my wife's late-2008 Macbook. I suggested upgrading but she has no interest. Her reason? The new Macbook looks almost exactly like her old Macbook. So her old computer still "feels" new.
This has gotta be bad for Apple. The lack of cosmetic design changes is going to cause a lot of their users to not-upgrade and stick to old hardware, which is also more likely to be running old versions of OS X. By not changing their unibody aluminum chassis, Apple's new hardware ends up competing against their old hardware.
technology advances too fast for you to hang on to the same piece of electronics for years and years.
Technology might advance, but that doesn't mean needs do. For 80% of the people buying these things, the power of a laptop from 3 years ago is more than sufficient - a bit of document editing/spreadsheets, emails, internet, photos and the like and you're hardly likely to notice a change. From personal experience, many would prefer to have a laptop that doesn't break and goes along perfectly fine for 3 years rather than have to upgrade every 12 months.
(posted from my 2008 MacBook Pro)
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
When you look at Apple's tech support it is really scattershot. Some things they jump right on, and force people in to before it is ready. USB is a great example. It was real early in the development cycle, peripherals were starting to appear but it was still ramping up. Apple forced it as the only solution and made everyone deal with it.
However other things, like the C2D in the Mac Mini, which is now one of your only options for a server, they lag behind. With the release of Sandy Bridge that is two full generations out of date.
Also note that just being early is not a good thing all the time, probably not very often. A good example would be gigabit Ethernet. Apple jumped on that pretty quick after chips were available. At the time it was damn near $250/chip in volume for the NIC stuff. That means a significant cost for the Mac Pros. Also there was nothing out that could use it hardly. A 4 port switch was over a grand. So most consumers paid extra for something they didn't use.
Well it was future proofing you say, they wouldn't need to get it later. Yes but that is fiscally a poor way to do things. The price only dropped and dropped and dropped. 3-5 years down the line, when they actually wanted it and had a network to support it, a card could be had for $50 or less. It would be cheaper to wait and get the card (even cheaper when you factor inflation) and have paid the $3ish dollars for the 100mbit built in NIC back in the day.
Being first for the sake of being first is not worthwhile. There are costs, that aren't always worth paying. Also as pointed out they are NOT always on the cutting edge, and will let some technologies languish. It is largely showmanship a "Well we have that and you don't," kind of thing. That isn't a useful thing to do. Much better to be pragmatic and adopt things when there's a reason.
The reviewer doesn't even enlist the glossyness of the screen. If you look at reviews over at notebookcheck.net, you'll see this review is just 'lame'. A laptop is taken outside, how does it behave under conditions with a lot of light (even indoors)? Stuff a buyer would want to know.
Ok, maybe not a mac-user, but still.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Usually, there's a practical or strategic reason for these things - even if you don't agree with that reason. Apple don't want to introduce Blu-ray because they're trying to ditch the optical drive anyway (...besides, the only place I want to watch 1080p movies is my living-room TV, and flash or external HD is better for backup).
However other things, like the C2D in the Mac Mini,
...which is there because of the spat between Intel and Nvidia meaning that there were no Nvidia chipsets for the Core i, and the Mini and 13" MacBook Pro didn't have space for a discrete graphics card . Apple decided that the C2D+Nvidia chipset combo was better all-round than first-gen i3 with Intel on-chip graphics.
Now that the 2nd-gen i3, with better on-chip graphics, is out, and its clear that there never will be Nvidia chipsets for Core i, expect the mini to be upgraded, eventually (it will probably have to wait in line behind iMac and Mac Pro).
Also, the sort of server use that Minis will see isn't exactly processor intensive: they're really for workgroups who need something better than a NAS or as an alterntative to a shared/virtual hosting acount.
As for USB3 - if Apple/Intel are going to get behind Thunderbolt then they're hardly going to support its prime competitor. If Mac users want something a bit faster than USB2 then they have Firewire 800 to tide them over until Thunderbolt devices (or Thunderbolt-to-eSata adaptors) start to appear.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If disk performance is important to you, then get the 7200rpm option or use an SSD. Otherwise, why waste the battery life if you don't need the I/O performance?
Purchase price is only one factor. My macbook pro will cost less over a 2-3 year period. And you will still carry around a portable mouse because the 2 the thinkpad ships with are un-usable. The multi-touch trackpad on the Mac means you never see people with a macbook using and external mouse. 3 years down the track, I will sell the macbook to upgrade - I will re-coup the difference in purchase price on resale value. How long will it take you to migrate machines? I plug my new macbook in, it detects my old one on the network, asks me if I want to copy everything (including applications) an hour later the machine is IDENTICAL to my old one - settings, files, applications!! You will spend that long getting rid of IBM crapware before you even think of how you will copy all your old files and re-installing (finding DVD's or downloading files) all of your applications. And I don't pay the Windows tax and run a virus checker. How much time over the life of the machine will you waste starting/stopping windows? My macbook is usable and connected to the network by the time I open the lid. Your machine might cost less in purchase price. But I think my total cost of ownership will end up a LOT less.