• Ditching the optical media for longer battery life
• 4 cores in the 13"
• Max RAM of 12 GB (this one isn't listed ... maybe?)
• The higher resolution 1440x900 resolution in the 13" that the Macbook Air has
Altogether it's a pretty wussy update. Basically it looks like the diff (on the 13" model, which is what I care about) is:
• Faster CPU (finally!)
• Thunderbolt port (count on buying another $30 display adapter like every generation)
• 3 hours less battery life
Existing (edit: mini)displayport adapters will work. Per the Apple Thunderbolt site (http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/):
"And because Thunderbolt is based on DisplayPort technology, the video standard for high-resolution displays, any Mini DisplayPort display plugs right into the Thunderbolt port. To connect a DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, or VGA display, just use an existing adapter."
The old battery tests were unrealistic. They advertised 8 hours on the 17'', but who really got even close to that under normal use?
I'm thankful they're taking the hit on pure battery life numbers to report an honest, realistic test.
That said, when I'm traveling and going for extended battery life (read: trans-atlantic flights) I get pretty close to the rated number by dimming my backlight and shutting off wifi and bluetooth.
The previous MBPs had CPUs with a TDP of 35W. The TDP of the CPUs in the 2011 MBPs are 45W. Battery life seems to have dropped inline with the increase in power envelope.
We should see improved battery life next year with Ivy Bridge, or if there's a mid-year refresh with Sandy Bridge processors with new steppings.
Regardless, I plunked down for a 15" today so I could rid myself of the large brick my workplace saddled with me. They didn't believe me when I said I'd buy my own laptop with my own case. Hell, I meant it.
The move from Core2Duo to Core i* alone should bag you a substantial improvement in processing power, at least; the lack of a quad-core model is presumably a battery life and cooling system trade-off.
What they really sacrificed here was the opportunity to make a compelling product. It's 2011, when have you last time used an optical drive?
See the Intel Core i7 2620M (the 2.7Ghz part in the high-end 13" model) spec sheet for example: http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=52231
Also worth checking out is what scale they are made at, I remember some of the core i processors were only being made at the higher nanometers scale (e.g. older less heat efficient technology).
It would be ironic if the Core i5 four core model was more battery efficient and produced less heat than the core i5 two core models...
Edit: no, I'm not referring to the recent thing with the sandy bridge architecture, but a previous architecture. Did some more research and it sounds like back in September some of them were produced at 32 nanometers and others were produced at 45 nanometers. Also there may have been some initial problems going to their new 32nm process.
Presumably by now they've got the issues that I remembered sorted out (so that they can have new and different issues like sandy bridge ports and so forth).
[updated] it is backwards compatible - source: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html
I've had a lot of people look at a MacBook Air and then ask me "where's the DVD drive?".
Or they could design the bay to accommodate an optional battery that would be factory installed.
Love the quad core.
Hate the CD drive - fill up that space with something useful, not a dead weight. I'd have to install an optibay adapter with SSD but I don't see why I'd want to to hack a brand new laptop.
Lugging around my Core2Duo MBP weighing at over 2kg does get quite tiring. :( I need its battery life though.
I doubt the optical drive uses any significant power at all when it's not in use.
That said, I ditched my own in favor of an SSD + HDD setup and haven't looked back.
(see: http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/magazine/6/4/... )
If anything, 1400x900 on the new MBA seems a little bit small (and Apple doesn't allow you to bump the size of everything up like you can in Windows). It's interesting that 1680x1050 is still an upcharge on the 15".
If Apple put in a 1900x1080 screen, what you'd hear instead from consumers is that everything is too tiny to read.
My MacBook Pro 15" from a couple of years ago has a 1440 by 900 display and that is MUCH better than this 1280 by 800. Shame that Apple still thinks that is acceptable.
Compare it with a Dell XPS 15 Sandy Bridge - $1049 for i7 2620M, 1920X1080 display, nVidia GT525 Optimus card, HD Camera.
For a first time possible mac buyer (me) - is it well justified ?
I pay the Mac premium for two reasons: (1) my laptop is supported by tons of Apple Stores across the country, and (2) OS X is awesome (and since it's Unix-based, I can work in the terminal without a problem). There's also a great reselling market for Macs.
If (1) and (2) don't really matter to you, go with the Dell. I'll pay the extra price to get exactly what I want in my computer.
Justifying choice of your primary work system on the basis of even a $1,000 price difference is generally penny wise - pound foolish. I don't think that's a Mac/Win/Linux issue, just common sense when it comes to work tools.
Dell's coverage is usually next day onsite.
For my software dev, all of them worked well. For gaming, they all sucked.
I was a first timer on the first unibody. I still LOVE it. I've never loved a PC, Dell, Sony, HP, ACER, Lenovo or otherwise. Part of that is OSX. I find it so much better than Windows, even after having using Windows most of my life.
Comparing Apples to Apples, you might look at high-end Sony laptops. The MBP 13" close to the S series, both in price and quality. The F series (big, bulky powerhouse) is much cheaper, and has much better specs - but it's a desktop replacement (like the Dell XPS 15).
Apple doesn't make desktop-replacement laptops. It doesn't even make desktops! I wish it did - I'd love a $1500 Apple mini-tower, and a $1000 MacBook (not Pro) 17", but it's just not going to happen.
Huh? What about the Mac Mini, the iMac and the Mac Pro?
- Do these offer a significant enough improvement over the last generation to justify not buying a refurbed older model? - What's the real conceptual difference between the three models? I know it's not just screen size - how do they differ in intended use case? - I want a laptop I can lug around everywhere and curl up on the sofa with as well as sit at a desk. Is the 17" too big for that?
- Unless you need the higher processor speed or the Thunderbolt port, previous gen refurbished should be quite a deal.
- The 15" high res (1920x1080) is the sweet spot for portability and desktop use. I have a 17" now, and it's really just too big. When I bought mine though (late 2007), the 15" didn't have a high res display. If I were buying one now, it would be the 15" 1080p or the 13" Air (ultraportable).
Depends on what you do: if you do anything that's heavily CPU-bound, the answer is "yes." If you don't, the answer is "no."
If you want to see all three, go to an Apple store. If it were me, I'd probably want a 13" with an aftermarket SSD and an external monitor at home.
13": you do work on the laptop, but you also do a fair amount of travelling. In this particular case, the MB Air is also quite good.
15": you do quite a bit of work on the laptop, including connecting it to an external monitor, but would still like the laptop screen as a second monitor. This is definitely the best all around option, especially if you do some travelling/commuting but not all the time.
17": you need the extra screen real estate for something like video editing/graphics editing while on the move. Other than that, it's a bit bigger and heavier than most people find comfortable.
In addition to that you've got the battery life, the thinness and the great touch pad
Really miss my thinkpad. Never again.
The 14" models look good: 30 hours (claimed) battery on the T420, 0.83" ultrathin T420s with discrete graphics.
Edit: Here's the official announcement, which took a bit of digging around to find: http://news.lenovo.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1421 . synacksynack has posted a good link now.
UPDATED:
Noticed the Tech Specs PDF. Looks like the 14" does offer a 1600x900 resolution, so that's really cool. I'll have to see what the configurations look like once that part of the page is working (in late march, apparently). Thanks for the link!
- Severe quality problems (broken cdrom plastic part on the side, white pixels screen, discoloring and wearout of plastic)
- Broke down completely once in the guarantee time, exchanged it freely but with penalty ( I had to get my data of the disk, but guess what, you can't access the disk easily you have to take apart the whole laptop for that. Putting it together was no problem, but they noticed you did that and thus let you pay penalty.)
- Broke down now again, probably again something with the power supply. No guarantee this time.
Don't buy Sony.
Seriously considering getting one of these new Thinkpads and sticking Ubuntu on it. Maybe the T420 or T520.
I will say, though, there have been some quality issues with my x200 as well. The fan has a tendency to get stuck, the case feels like it's starting to come apart, and the screen surface has some smudges that are impossible to remove (and increasingly annoying). Still, not bad for a laptop that has traveled the world, been treated very roughly, and used almost every day for several hours a day. I'd buy another Thinkpad in a heartbeat.
That sounds ridiculous. How close (or far away) to the truth is that? Anybody know more?
Early preview from Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4190/hps-business-notebook-hat...
Please see this link: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/apple/2010/07/01/mac-ssd-pe...
I have been using two Intel X25-M SSDs as RAID 0 in a Macbook Pro almost a year now and I've yet to see any loss in performance. Apple has been offering SSDs as BTO for quite some time now. If you can use a screwdriver I suggest you buy a Sandforce-based SSD and install it yourself as those are immensely faster than the Apple-provided ones.
However, TRIM support is mostly a moot point if you go with the Apple offered SSD upgrade, since the Toshiba drives they ship features very aggressive background GC (making TRIM rather redundant). There is still a question mark as to how severly this constant background GC will affect the durability of the drives though:http://www.anandtech.com/show/4010/kingston-ssdnow-v-plus-10...
[edit] Well, if you look at the numbers, one column actually got worse. Wow.
Does anyone know whether there's a next-gen interface standard that's being worked on that might supersede SATA, with more elegant support for flash memory (beyond SATA's hacky NCQ+TRIM)?
IANAHDS (I am not a hard drive specialist)
The volume is smaller, but the HDD, optical drive, keyboard, trackpad, and several other parts stay the same size. Of course the smaller laptop is going to be less stocked with features.
Frankly, I'm amazed they still offer a 13 inch MBP (which is not to say that it isn't a good little machine, but that Apple likes to segment their market clearly)
I can't see the prices and options at the moment, but it may be that the MBP is just a couple of hundred bucks more than the top end MacBook, which means that some people might stretch that little bit extra.... but the Apple lineup is becoming very cluttered around that small portable computer strange attractor.
While true, it is their best selling laptop, I can imagine it happening in a few years once the air gets a few spec bumps and lowers in price.
Edit: While my comment may come off trollish, this is a requirement for me when buying any mobile gear. That Apple still doesn't provide this for their top of the line laptops still baffles me.
It may not fit your needs, but in the parts of the world where 3G is way more ubiquitous than wifi, it's very neat having. And it's extra neat to have without the need to bring up the phone and setting up tethering.
Dell offers it as an option, just like everything else. I fail to see why Apple can't do the same.
I'm a little irked that there's no system bus [1] slot, into which I could install a 3G/4G combo card.
However, in the past, I've turned out to be unwilling to spend the extra money on the dedicated hardware and extra subscription. I'd rather have a (nowadays quite tolerably small) USB dongle that I can use on any laptop or even a battery-powered wireless access point [2] than the sleek convenience of something built-in that only supports what was available when I bought it.
[1] e.g. ExpressCard, though, since the 802.11 on the pre-unibody generations appeared to be mini-PCIe, I do wonder if there's hope for a combo wifi/wwan card, even aftermarket.
[2] I'm a huge fan of the Cradlepoint PHS-300
And why not just use a USB dongle?
There's a value in having stuff built in. Where do you draw the line?
Still, I'm thinking there might be Thunderbolt-compatible external video cards. Since the wire protocol is PCI Express, it seems possible, and performance should be better than external USB video cards.
I love movies, but I don't buy many DVD disks nor did I ever, at 480x720 it just seemed not worth it. Blu-ray though I find that I'm more willing to purchase with the greatly improved quality.
The battery is more important to me than Thunderbolt.
Politically, I think they want to skip it and push "Thunderbolt" as the better standard, since USB3 adoption is still pretty low. Just look at their comparison chart:
Maybe the sweetheart deal with Apple over being the first ones to implement this tech included a "let's not do USB3 too fast, shall we?" clause.
Either way the Apple product line up is just getting better and better in my eyes.
I wonder if real-world gaming benchmarks will really have near the promised 3x improvements over the last gen MBP's...
I remember back when they introduced the first MBPs with the two different built in graphics chips they were hyping it up, but the audience reaction was stony to say the least, because the previous MBPs had had a moderately good (for the time) graphics card, and built in graphics were perceived as being of a much lower capability, so that was a step backwards in power.
It might have given them great battery life (I seem to remember that as their big selling point), but it meant you couldn't play graphics intensive games on them.
i5 processor in 13"
Thunderbolt 10Gbps integrated into DisplayPort connection
AMD/ATI Radeon graphics chips
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MBUPDATE: Answer appears to be "yes."
"...the fastest way to get information in and out of your PC and peripheral devices..."
Compact size, internal SSD, and only two cords to plug in each time I sit down - power and data - and data happens to also carry video to a large external monitor setup.
Same here. For years, my biggest compliant about laptops has been the speed bottleneck between my laptop and large external storage devices.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4638324/nvidia-vs-amd-gpg...
Does anyone have any experience with OpenCL versus Cuda?
But the 15" and 17" inchers look awesome with quads
The only time my MBP breaks a sweat as it is, though, is on games: Half Life 2 and the PlayStation 2 emulator make the fans come on like it's trying to dry my hair.
I'm not 100% sold on my next laptop being an Apple, though. While my MBP is very impressive, it is also a quite expensive piece of hardware... and I'm not impressed by Apple's policies regarding iOS and the App Store. But what is the alternative? It doesn't seem like there is any other manufacturer successfully designs elegant, high performance luxury notebooks.
I paid $1900 for my core2duo macbook pro and got four years and counting out of it. Before that I was buying new Windows machines every two years. They were half the price, but didn't last as long.
My next machine, when this one dies, will definitely be a mac. :)
Slightly lighter.
No cool magnetic charger thing; instead, power brick.
Battery life is comparatively awful -- I usually get about an hour and a half. (I don't personally care about battery life.)
Envy has better resolution at 15" -- 1920x1080. Envy has what appears to be slightly better graphics card. (That is, a slightly better graphics card a year ago as opposed to what the new MBPs have today. It kicked the crap out of the last-generation ones.)
Envy has SSD+HDD instead of having SSD + built-in optical drive.
I'm personally much happier with it, since resolution and being able to play games on it are a big deal for me. Not sure what HP's offerings look like today.
Other laptops that don't appear to suck, but which I have no personal experience with, include IBM ThinkPads and some of Sony's Vaio series.
BTW: I'm not affiliated with Henge in any way, just a satisfied customer. If you need a dock for your MBP, the Henge is it!
Henge looks nice, but having a bunch of plugs sticking out from a piece of plastic seems like such a kludge.
I've been waiting for this kind of thing for years. Up until the iPad, I never would've guessed it'd be Apple that beat everyone out the door. That kind of proximity has the potential to change how we use GPUs, because moving data back and forth can be so much faster.
Make up your mind, Apple.