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New MacBook Pro series

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Re: New MacBook Pro series

#291

Post by calloc »

wildmXranat wrote: post #120
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 ?

Do you need Apple specific software? If not, go with the gear at a good price that lasts long. I had a Dell business grade laptop, Compaq, and a 13" macbook pro. Dell died twice and was repaired on their dime, Compaq lasted 8 years and still works except the sound card burning out, and my 3 year old macbook, is a-ok as well. Compaq was $1150, Dell was $1500, and the MBP was $1350. For my software dev, all of them wor…

I do my software Dev on Mac OS X. I am a backend systems software engineer working on daemons that run in the background on top of FreeBSD. Mac OS X helps since it is so similar to FreeBSD it makes it easy for me to test on my own laptop, and I have access to all of the tools I need to do my job in Terminal, such as mercurial, python, easy to install open source software using MacPorts and whatnot. On Windows I would have to dick around with msys, and cygwin, also I would be vastly less efficient because of having to deal with various inconsistencies and possible issues because the code I just wrote might not compile correctly on a POSIX system.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#292

Post by dotBen »

litewulf wrote: post #285
dotBen wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

arhh yes, the X41 - the last laptop I had before I went Mac. I called it my Darth Vadar laptop - strong, sleek black frame, powerful, ugly yet strangely beautiful at the same time. The problem is the X41 always suffered from poor resolution, and certainly that is true by today's standards. I wield a MBP with hi-res matte screen and 1680 x 1050 in a 15" package used at 2 feet from my eyes is basically like a Retina di…

I upgraded the resolution on my X61t to 1400x1050 on a 12" display. "Retina display"? Hah.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/retina-display.html

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#293

Post by whatusername »

DrJokepu wrote: post #270
rmc wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Linux user I find it funny when OSX is compared to a Unix OS since it has a terminal. That's like saying Nextstep (what OSX is based on) is an acceptable OSX

OS X is a fully POSIX compliant operating system (as opposed to Linux, which is not fully compliant). It is officially branded as Unix. I don't understand what you mean?

Aside from OSX -- I wonder how many people on HN actually have much dealings with a real UNIX (a Solaris or AIX etc).

I would hazard a guess that *nix means Linux to a large % of the population.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#294

Post by tedunangst »

litewulf wrote: post #285
dotBen wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

arhh yes, the X41 - the last laptop I had before I went Mac. I called it my Darth Vadar laptop - strong, sleek black frame, powerful, ugly yet strangely beautiful at the same time. The problem is the X41 always suffered from poor resolution, and certainly that is true by today's standards. I wield a MBP with hi-res matte screen and 1680 x 1050 in a 15" package used at 2 feet from my eyes is basically like a Retina di…

I upgraded the resolution on my X61t to 1400x1050 on a 12" display. "Retina display"? Hah.

How did you do that?

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#295

Post by catch23 »

kenjackson wrote: post #201
tomkarlo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This... the cost of my computer hardware is basically inconsequential given that these days I'll often get 3-4 years out of it. If I'm using it for work, that's like $2 a day total cost over its lifetime. I'll happily pay an incremental $1 a day for a system that saves me 10 minutes of dicking around and forgo starbucks if that's what it takes. Justifying choice of your primary work system on the basis of even a $1,0…

That assumes you save any time at all. I use a ThinkPad with Win7 and I think honestly say that I lose no additional time vs using a MBP. In fact I'd argue it saves me time as I generally like the keyboard more and I can't stand trackpads (I turn mine off and use the stickpoint -- which I actually even prefer over a mouse). My point... the $1000 savings for many comes with no penalty at all. With that said, I don't h…

Depends what kind of developer you are. If you're a developer that requires a posix environment, you're definitely better off in the mac world. Thinkpad with Linux is sometimes an option if you're confident that everything is supported, but very often you'll be wasting time dicking around in the xorg.conf file to get the external display to work properly with certain monitors/configurations.

I'm also a bit surprised that you hate the trackpad -- that's the one thing I love about the mac. It supports many kinds of gestures that just wouldn't be possible on a single stickpoint. For example, I use the 3-finger swipe for navigation in chrome every day, and a 4 finger swipe for jumping to specific apps.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#296

Post by elithrar »

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…

That they kept the optical drives wasn't a surprise. For most of us (power-users) — who download software and/or use disk images — it's not a necessity, but a lot of regular Joe's still burn CD's/DVD's.

I've had a lot of people look at a MacBook Air and then ask me "where's the DVD drive?".

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#297

Post by rmc »

DrJokepu wrote: post #270
rmc wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Linux user I find it funny when OSX is compared to a Unix OS since it has a terminal. That's like saying Nextstep (what OSX is based on) is an acceptable OSX

OS X is a fully POSIX compliant operating system (as opposed to Linux, which is not fully compliant). It is officially branded as Unix. I don't understand what you mean?

POSIX is irrelevant, Linux is POSIX compliant, no-ones bothered to pay the money for the piece of paper the important thing is the tools.

The main thing lacking from OSX is a package manager, in Linux its build in. On OSX you have to use 3rd party ones. Just look at mark pilgrims 'how to install mysql on ubuntu' for an example of how It Just Works on Linux and on OSX you have to tweak lots of config files.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#298

Post by wtallis »

MrFoof wrote: post #265
siglesias wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>• 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.

I'm not sure if they're being more realistic. 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…

I think the TDP increase is mostly due to the integrated graphics being moved on to the CPU. Overall platform power usage should be lower than the previous generation.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#299

Post by ashamedlion »

mrinterweb wrote: post #253

I find the benchmark graphs on http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html frustrating. What is the baseline Apple is comparing to? I have a MacBook Pro with a core 2 duo 2.53GHz processor. I am sure that the 2.2 GHz quad-core processor on the new MBPs is faster, but by how much. How do the processors stack up when running single treaded applications? I suppose I'll need to wait for the third party reviews.

Apple always say what the stats are of the machines in the footnotes: http://grab.by/98Pq

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#300

Post by trotsky »

MrFoof wrote: post #265
siglesias wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>• 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.

I'm not sure if they're being more realistic. 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…

The increase in TDP mostly has to do with the increased GPU power - I think (speculating) that if you were running the 2010 CPU + the nvidia gpu hot for equivalent performance you'd be seeing at least as high a total power draw.
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