Review - Apple's MacBook Pro 108
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."
Speaker quality? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just one of many misinformed statements TH makes about the machine.
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not for production work, but it's nice to be able to get good audio quality out of the speakers. No one's expecting miracles, but it should be able to reproduce a normal range of sounds at a decent volume, without major distortion. My laptop, for example, completely ignores bass frequencies, and, if they're loud enough, they distort everything else and there's a little "gap" in the audio where the bass beat was. That is bad.
There are laptops with good sound quality--a friend of mine has the Dell Inspiron e1705, and it has pretty good sound. (It's a 17" widescreen, though, so it's got room for bigger speakers.)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:1)
You know what would be really cool? A laptop where the entire wrist rest portion of the case could be used as a large speaker. When you were watching a movie, you wouldn't be typing, so the speakers could move freely. Either that or a way to fit a subwoofer into a laptop. It's been done, but like you said, it's all about available space.
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:2)
Yeah, I realized I went through that sentence too fast right after I hit submit. It lets you get up to RPM quicker, doesn't help you reach higher RPMs - balancing the rotating assembly (and, often, upgrading valve springs) is what raises your peak RPMs. Well, t
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:2)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:1)
It's true, PC users might enjoy function over form more, I don't know but I think his complaints about the enter key and the arrow keys are justified. Any pc user who switches to Macs will notice the keyboard is designed with aesthetics in mind before comfort or functionality.
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:2)
But "aesthetics" concerns personal preference; you might not care about the visual balance of your workspace if you're not a visual person, and you might not care about vertical scrolling if you, um, don't scroll vertically.
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:1)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:2)
I don't expect dolby surround sound, but my beat-up thinkpad plays reasonably good sound at an acceptable volume.
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:1, Flamebait)
misquoted parent (Score:3, Informative)
This is what actually appears on the second page of the review.
Re:misquoted parent (Score:1)
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2, Insightful)
Competitive on price? Yes. Competitive on performance? Not until Intel came out. My brother h
Re:Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
/me admits that maybe his chip was old. But in any other industry, if the product is obsolete, or just older, and isn't competitive with the current products, the price drops. It should have cost less since it doesn't perform as well.
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Re:Summary (Score:2)
/me did accidentally recommend a G5 to his dad. Sure, it was faster than our 500 MHz, Pentium III, but (since it was single-CPU, not dual) it was nothing like Steve said it would be. It wasn't blazingly fast, it was a little laggy. (Although the startup time started off fast--it's slowed down over time--and the shutdown time has always been fast. That's one good part.) And it cost $2500. I could have recommended a much faster Dell for $2500, but I didn't want to maintain a Windows box, and I wasn't co
Re:Summary (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Apple doesn't do ultra-cheap, if that's what you want to say, but feature for feature the MB is reasonably priced.
Re:Summary (Score:2)
The problem was, and seems to continue to be, quality. In 2001 the iBooks had quality problems. Same thing now. Apple does seem to cut costs on these machines, and that may be a reason to avoid them.
OTOH, the pro machines are typically good, and always seem to get be
Re:Summary (Score:2, Informative)
This is also the case than with the PowerBook G4 (non titanium) when compared to the iBooks. iBooks always got better reception.
Many people seem to forget that the MacBook (and also the PowerBooks) are aluminum cases. the iBook is plastic. Here's a fun experiment. Take your cell phone (or notebook) and wrap it in aluminum. Those little gray plastic strips on either side of the display are for the antenna.
Re:Summary (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Your point about MS is off target: MS doesn't keep old functionality to keep its OS from functioning, it keeps around old functionality to not break badly written apps - that's a choice that you can chose to say is unnecessary. But it is completely a different class of problems. Any OS that can be crippled by
Re:Summary (Score:2)
With apple updates
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Indeed. I'm posting from 10.4.6 Server right now, and it's fantastic. Patches are good almost without exception, and the same techs are generally well versed from iPods all the way up to Xsans. Perhaps you experienced a piece of bad hardware?
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Re:Summary (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Comparing MacBook Pro and Dell Inspiron e1705 (Score:4, Informative)
Of course Dell's high-end gaming laptop is going to cost more! A much more realistic comparison would be with the Dell Inspiron e1705. I set them up with the following config: 2.16 GHz processor, 2 GB 667 MHz RAM, 120 GB 5400 RPM HDD (available on the e1705, if not the XPS M1710), remote (added on the Dell), DVD burner, Bluetooth. The Dell came out to $2708; the Mac came out to $3099. With 1 GB of RAM and a 100 GB 7200 RPM HDD, the Dell comes to $2638 and the Mac comes to $2699. A lot closer. But that's the highest-end configuration of the Dell. If we start with the second-lowest and configure it the same, it comes to $2480. Pretty much no matter what you do, you get the same specs for $200-$400 less with a Dell.
Correction (Score:2)
Sorry, I made a mistake. The $2480 one is with a 5400 RPM hard drive. So it'd probably end up around $2600. The prce difference scales with how high-end the components are; a RAM upgrade from 1 GB to 2 GB costs a lot more from Apple ($400 more) than from Dell ($175 more).
Re:Correction (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Correction (Score:1)
Re:Comparing MacBook Pro and Dell Inspiron e1705 (Score:2)
They usually run $750 coupons about every other week, sometimes you can find 40% off coupons also.
Oh yeah, and watch the warranty. Apple only offers you 1 year.
Re:Comparing MacBook Pro and Dell Inspiron e1705 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Comparing MacBook Pro and Dell Inspiron e1705 (Score:1)
Yeah, that's gotta be worth something :-)
Re:Comparing MacBook Pro and Dell Inspiron e1705 (Score:2)
No, you don't.
A Mac comes with mac OS X. A Dell comes with what? Windows? Linux?
This comparision about what "speccs" you get for the buck makes absolutely no sense.
It would make sense if your onyl application you run is Photoshop, or Outlook. then you could say: my computer X is $400 cheaper and has a faster DVD drive
Re:Comparing MacBook Pro and Dell Inspiron e1705 (Score:2)
The Mac/PC spec comparisons have always been a purely academic wanking exercise. Fun, but at the end of the day just playing with yourself.
The only day they'll be worth anything is if you can run OS X on a PC, and I'm not talking about some weird hack that's probably unstable and definitely illegal. And that'll be a cold day in Cupertino.
Very few people actually compare Macs and PCs model to model based on price. They compare Macs to Macs, and PCs to PCs -- beca
Re:Summary (Score:1, Insightful)
included with MacBook Pro
* Dedicated VGA port (no DVI-VGA cable required)
* Dedicated S-Video port (no DVI-S-Video cable required)
Cables are included with the MBP; no need to buy them.
* Windows XP Professional included (familiar to more people, more software available, more hardware compatible)
* 0.2" wider, 1.1" deeper, same thickness
* 1 lb heavier
These aren't exactly features...
Re:Summary (Score:2)
It looks like you made an honest effort (unlike many other Slashdot comments) to configure a "comparably equipped" Dell to a Macbook Pro 17", but there are several significant unchangeable differences that make it an improper comparison:
Re:Summary (Score:3, Funny)
Only $200 more? You're forgetting the value-adds of the bundled apps. It's more like $400 more when you add in the value of Windows bundled apps like calculator--and clock. They provide hours of fun, or at least minutes...
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Re:Summary (Score:2)
$100-200 is about right. You can buy a Lenovo 14" 512Mb 80Gb 1.66Ghz Core Duo w/ DVD+RW for $899. That's $200 of a difference. I expect other makers will be equally competitive with their Core Duo models as they begin to appear.
But is $100-200 justifiable? It certainly sounds like a pretty large markup for a basic system. And by all accounts the MacBook has its fair share of build quali
Actually, it is (Score:3, Insightful)
It has Mac OS X. For me, that puts it high enough above everything else.
Re:Actually, it is (Score:2)
Why? I'm much happier with Linux... the directory names are easier to type, the GNU command-line utilities beat the crap out of the BSD versions most of the time, there's much more software available, features that should be free (virtual desktops, for example) are free, and so on. Why do you like Mac OS X? (Seriously... I'm curious.)
Why I prefer Mac OS X to Linux and Windows (Score:2)
That's why I said "for me". I don't claim that Mac OS X is best for everyone, and in fact, the MythTV box in our living room runs Linux (obviously). There are valid reasons to go with Linux over Mac OS X - especially if you know what you're doing.
For my personal computer, though, I prefer something that actually works for what I want to do and does what I want it to do, and for me, that's a Ma
Re:Summary (Score:1)
how timely (Score:3, Funny)
screen is important! (Score:5, Insightful)
The weakest link in user experience is one of the most important features to have maximum information. This is an ongoing frustration -- for me, the screen is the weakest link in interacting with a computer (assuming disk, cpu, and memory are reasonably up to snuff). If the screen isn't pretty, I ain't happy.
In this review as often occurs there is little feedback objective or otherwise on the screen quality. From the article:
I want to know screen resolution! I want to know measured viewing angles! (For $2000, or $2500 you get 1440x900 -- so-so, for $2800 you get 1680x1050 -- not bad, but way too expensive.) I want to know contrast ratios.
Unfortunately lots if not all of this information is rarely included in discussions and ads for laptops -- I think it's intentional. And, it's the reason I would never buy a notebook or laptop sight-unseen. The screen is something you can't change on a laptop, you'd better be happy with it when you get it. (This has been an excellent policy for me -- I've been very happy with the last several laptops I've had -- if the screen's pretty, I'm happy.)
Also (Score:4, Insightful)
Even after seeing them in person I am still unsure which I'd prefer.
I agree with you it would be nice to see more technical details on the laptop screens.
Re:screen is important! (Score:1)
Re:screen is important! (Score:2)
Re:screen is important! (Score:2)
However, the color accuracy does suffer mor
Re:screen is important! (Score:1)
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html [apple.com]
Display: 15.4-inch (diagonal), 1440 x 900 resolution, TFT widescreen. 17-inch (diagonal), 1680 x 1050 resolution, TFT widescreen
This irked me (Score:1, Interesting)
Umm. No?
The iPod-centric portion of the Apple lineup is all Intel, but how about a real desktop? What Intel Mac do I want to buy if I'm not making a media center, or going to college, or bringing it with me? What if I just want a fast-as-balls Mac with a full sized keyboard, top of the line video, and expansion slots? Sadly lacking.
Its not like it matters, as I'll still wait for a while before going to intel. I guess I still carr
Re:This irked me (Score:4, Informative)
Consumer portable (MacBook): Intel.
Consumer desktop (iMac): Intel.
Pro portable (MacBook Pro): Intel.
Pro desktop (PowerMac): PPC.
Rack-mount server (Xserve): PPC.
4/6 of Apple's computer models are now Intel, and these 4/6 comprise the bulk of Apple's sales. The two stragglers await the chips from Intel.
That Apple's transition isn't complete enough for you doesn't make the transition any less nearing completion.
Re:This irked me (Score:1)
Maybe its just the way I read the original statement I referenced, but the connotation to me was that the "real" Apple line had jumped ship to Intel, and there were just a few lesser products to be nailed down. A flagship model (powermac or equivalent) should not be classified as such. Xserve is well, considerably more specialized.
I
Re:This irked me (Score:2)
Mac OS X Server 10.0 was very similar to Mac OS X 10.0.
Mac OS X Server 1.x wasn't like anything else at all.
Re:This irked me (Score:2)
No, the iMac is the flagship model of Apple Computer, and has been ever since the first one was introduced back in the 1998 Stevenote.
Their towers are sold to developers, production labs, and a few others, but Apple is a company that sells home computers, and that means the iMac and their laptops.
I say this as an owner of a dual-G5 tower, who has an old blue-and-white G3 down in the basement and never owned an iMac. It just the way it is.
Apple does not have an Intel tower yet probab
BeOSnews (Score:4, Funny)
Re:BeOSnews (Score:1)
Review (Score:2, Insightful)
ME: Agreed. There were definitley two points of view on most of the subject covered.
ME: I think that a review should be more talking about pros/cons and not just agreeing with another editor.
ME: I totally dissagree! Seeing two people converse about a certain item seems to get the point across quiet nice!
ME: Dude! Shut up about your DELL!
ME: Agreed. Dell is quite the SUX0R!
Battery life (Score:2)
What upsets me the most is the lack of autonomy; whereas the old iBooks held up to +5H, the new ones only last for 3.5H, not enough for a day's work.
I sure hope that the next generation of Intel Chips will consume less, so they can bump up the autonomy.
2 day review of the 1.83/intel dual core (Score:5, Interesting)
The machine is definitely nice and speedy though. The fact that the "emulation" mode works so well however I honestly a reflection of how bad the old motorola g4 chips were. I benchmarked code on the g4 and it was about as fast as my old p3 800 that it replaced. Native apps work remarkably well (as they should) and emulated apps aka word seem at least as fast as on the motorola chip. I have a feeling these machines will likely really shine once everything goes universal binary.
Where the machine really shines is some of their attention to detail. The camera built into the screen is seriously genius in this day and age of ichat/aim and everyone being permantly logged in. The new frontrow app is so awesome I actually ported that over to my desktop g5 machine at home. (where it is a bit more useful). The weird glowing keyboard thing is a bit pointless if you know how to type but is eye candy, and a fun way.
Battery life: If I unplug it it says I get 3 hours off of it which is about what my old g4 got when I first bought it. (I am surprised the # is that high considering how much heat this thing generates).
Other random things, the machine is dual core but the version of top that it comes w/ only shows one cpu (this is my first dual core machine). I have not benchmarked the machine but i have a feeling it'll be decent. I did try running two video/quicktime apps simultaneously and it seems like each app gets 50% of "the cpu" via top and it doesn't seem like they are both running as if alone (some of that may be drive issues of course, but i have 2 gigs of ram so it should be able to cache it). At least in theory having a dual core unix laptop is totally sex
I'll benchmark our mpich/g++ code soon just for fun. Hopefully there is an intel port of their compiler as that is going to make a huge difference. (I had heard somewhere apple had compiled the OS/apps using intels compilers, i hope thats true, i do know however they never used xlc/xlf aka ibm's compiler for the ppc machines).
Incidentally, I think the screen isn't as bright as I was expecting it would be (but same as the g4) and my keyboard "squeeks" in a weird way when i type!
-bloosqr
Ported? (Score:2)
An überhacker you ain't.
Re:Ported? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:2 day review of the 1.83/intel dual core (Score:2)
Re:2 day review of the 1.83/intel dual core (Score:2)
-best,
-bloo
Re:2 day review of the 1.83/intel dual core (Score:4, Informative)
Re:2 day review of the 1.83/intel dual core (Score:2)
Re:2 day review of the 1.83/intel dual core (Score:2)
Both processes are pegged at 100% which is what I was expecting i.e. each processor is pegged at 100 i was expecting the video jobs on the mac to do the same.
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
5193 thoppe 25 0 21312 1512 1188 R 99.8 0.1 341755:45 sendrec
5281 thoppe 25 0 19604 1536 1212 R 99.8 0.1 340497:51 sendrec
And this is our 4 pro
Existing owners' CPU whine-logic board replacement (Score:4, Informative)
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Existing owners' CPU whine-logic board replacem (Score:1)
Re:Existing owners' CPU whine-logic board replacem (Score:2)
Cheers,
Ian
That wasnt a review..... (Score:1)
I bought my MBP 15" back in May and have been fairly well satisfied. 90% of my apps are now native mac apps ( 50% are universal ) - definitely need MORE universal apps...
And, to provide a benchmark of anything I
The lack of games is a plus... (Score:2)
I have a Wintendo for running games, and it stays at home. There's already too many games that run on my Macbook Pro as it is, but luckily I don't like most of them. The last thing I want is a wider selection of timewasters.
Re:The lack of games is a plus... (Score:2)
I am happy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I am happy (Score:1)
1st Generation (Score:1)
Wait, buy 3rd generation, sometime in the late fall of 2006.
Re:1st Generation (Score:1)
I don't agree with the idea that this is Apple's first kick at the can. Having screens which
Love the memory bus, hate the keyboard. (Score:4, Interesting)
They keyboard is just as bad as the Powerbooks, and the one-button trackpad is all but unusable even with Sidetrack to simulate 2 buttons. When I say "bad", by the way, I mean "a couple of days using it and my RSI was flaring up again". I got a tiny bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and even if my boss thinks I'm nuts for using it with a Logitech keyboard balanced on it my wrists aren't hurting any more.
They really need to get Lenovo to make a "businessman's macbook" with a Thinkpad shell and keyboard, and Apple's electronics. I don't miss Windows on my Thinkpad at all, but I sure miss that keyboard. And I prefer the Thinkpad's white LED above the screen that illuminated the whole keyboard area to the illuminated keys.
The speakers are (as they say) apalling, but it's not just the speakers. I get more distortion at the same volume level over my harman/kardon speaker system than with my Mac mini. They really need to do something about the whole audio system.
And they need to release a software or firmware upgrade to let us choose between running the fans more and running the computer hotter. I'd be happy to have the fans whooshing away most of the time if it let me actually use my laptop in my lap!
Rosetta works pretty well, but it's all-or-nothing. I've got a boatload of plugins and drivers I can't use until they get upgraded... and since some are abandonware I suspect I'm going to have to find replacements. The big one that may be a show stopper is Palm Hotsync, unless I can find some kind of bridge... I am not using iSync with my Palm, its syncing model if you have multiple computers is completely screwed up unless you use ".MAC", possibly deliberately so.
Wake from sleep is completely unreliable. I've taken to unplugging everything and waiting half a minute before closing the lid, but last night even that failed.
Parallel's Desktop is pretty well done. It's apalling that it's necessary, but I'm grateful that it's possible. Palm Desktop and Hotsync still runs under Windows, maybe I can keep synced that way.
Re:Love the memory bus, hate the keyboard. (Score:2)
I would really like to give Apple $2500 and replace my Windows laptop, and almost did, but that's a lot of money for a machine with such obvious flaws. Now with the hardware issues, I'm really glad I waited, figuring ev
Kernel panics related to wireless (Score:2, Informative)
version 2 (Score:1)
Re:version 2 (Score:1)
It's a thing called "Lapinator" which costs about $25 and is a very well thought out simple solution. It insulates the bottom of my laptop so the surface underneath barely gets warm at all. And it still gives some air circulation to the laptop too.
I have no connection with them at all, I'm just a very happy customer. The standard one is plenty big enough for a 17" MBPro.