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New MacBook Pro series

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Re: New MacBook Pro series

#151

Post by CountSessine »

pclark wrote: post #104
wheels wrote: post #18

Color me disappointed. I was hoping for: • 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 (coun…

To add to your list: 3G internet.

Yeah, why not? Among top tier laptop and cellphone manufacturers, the only name that appears on both lists is Apple (well, I guess Samsung makes laptops too...). Adding a SIM/RUIM slot and a 3G chip makes so much sense. I know a lot of laptop manufacturers in Europe have offered this as an option. Why not Apple?

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#153

Post by damoncali »

siglesias wrote: post #64
wheels wrote: post #18

Color me disappointed. I was hoping for: • 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 (coun…

>>• 3 hours less battery life 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.

Yep. My MBP, which was hte latest verison as of last week, gets about 3-4 hours on battery. Way less than they advertised. In the past they've been pretty reasonable. Not so much any more.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#154

Post by jseliger »

DanI-S wrote: post #145
sandGorgon wrote: post #100

hmm - you need to go to 1799$ before you end up with a half decent graphics card and 2199$ for a decent card. 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'm also interested in becoming a 'first time mac buyer'. As such, I have some questions: - 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 so…

- Do these offer a significant enough improvement over the last generation to justify not buying a refurbed older model?

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#156

Post by jarek »

kbutler wrote: post #121
hackermom wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost choked on a sip of tea when I noticed that the 13" "Pro" is still stuck with a 1280*800 display. Talk about boneheaded move.

Market segmentation.

Yeah. It segments away people who want more than 113 dpi in a sub-5 lb laptop with a hard drive larger than 256 GB quite effectively.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#157

Post by rufo »

nicksergeant wrote: post #31

Does anyone know if Thunderbolt will support multiple displays? If I hear a yes, I'm off to the Apple store.

Supposedly DisplayPort is theoretically capable of at least one extra display, but Apple's tech specs page still says "an" external display, so I don't think they've implemented that yet.

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#158

Post by TillE »

eof wrote: post #130

No USB 3.0 is surprising/bad.

Is there any technical reason they'd stick with USB2?

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:

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#160

Post by Maro »

DanI-S wrote: post #145
sandGorgon wrote: post #100

hmm - you need to go to 1799$ before you end up with a half decent graphics card and 2199$ for a decent card. 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'm also interested in becoming a 'first time mac buyer'. As such, I have some questions: - 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 so…

No, just get an older model off ebay.
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