Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New MacBook Pro series

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 359 posts

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#161

Post by ryanwaggoner »

stuhacking wrote: post #139
demoo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is indeed this overlap and clutter on the 13". I think this is because much within the Air is still pretty new stuff for most people: SSD, ditching optical drives. So if people want to pay for performance as they now know it, they'll go for the Pro version. But I doubt there will be a next generation of 13 inch Pros.

More like, so much within the Air is still bloody expensive. I'd rather have space than SSD speed for the associated price. I want to be able to watch DVDs or burn off a quick disk. I don't want to have to step up to a bulky 15" machine just to retain these features. The Air is not, in my opinion, a really useful machine.

Totally depends on what you use your computer for. I use my optical drive about once every 12 months and all of my important files fit easily into 128GB. With the proliferation of media services in the cloud, that number continues to drop...I now listen to Pandora 10x as much as my iTunes collection.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#162

Post by Uchikoma »

SandB0x wrote: post #78

Didn't get as much coverage, but there are also new ThinkPads this week: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/lenovo-trots-out-new-thin... 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…

My 2 year old X200 has 1.3 hours battery time, decreasing rapidly. The display plastic is broken, the camera is broken and the mouse tracking nob is broken. It's the worst piece of laptop hardware I've ever had (compared to older IBM Thinkpads, DELLs and iBooks, Macbooks and MacbooksPro).

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#163

Post by lean »

achompas wrote: post #117
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 ?

Have you used OS X before? 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.

(1)That support, in the form of AppleCare costs money, something like $350 at time of purchase. (2)OSX will run on most PCs, it's not specific to hardware anymore. The additional price paid to Apple is ostensibly for attention to detail in hardware and software design.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#164

Post by demoo »

stuhacking wrote: post #139
demoo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is indeed this overlap and clutter on the 13". I think this is because much within the Air is still pretty new stuff for most people: SSD, ditching optical drives. So if people want to pay for performance as they now know it, they'll go for the Pro version. But I doubt there will be a next generation of 13 inch Pros.

More like, so much within the Air is still bloody expensive. I'd rather have space than SSD speed for the associated price. I want to be able to watch DVDs or burn off a quick disk. I don't want to have to step up to a bulky 15" machine just to retain these features. The Air is not, in my opinion, a really useful machine.

So you are one of the reasons there is still a 13 inch Pro. In a couple of years, with a new Air with bigger SSD and more of your data in the cloud, it might make more sense to you.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#165

Post by [deleted] »

maweaver wrote: post #149
xuki wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your configuration is about $1600, not $1049. Did you actually try to configure it? http://d.pr/jSut+

You did the 2720QM instead of the 2620M he specified, and added a few extras (windows ultimate, 750gb hdd, etc). What he claimed is almost true, except he missed that the $1050 model's display is not 1920x1080, you have to pay an extra $150 for that.

[deleted]

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#166

Post by larrywright »

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…

My US$.02:

- 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).

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#167

Post by tcoppi »

DocSavage wrote: post #87
tcoppi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can't program cuda in os x anyway, apple only uses OpenCL. As far as I know, os x doesn't support OpenCL on the intel graphics chips either

The people in this forum would be very surprised you can't program Cuda on Mac OS X :) http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=75

Oh wow, I was pretty sure I read somewhere that Apple was only allowing OpenCL. Good find

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#168

Post by b3b0p »

xuki wrote: post #45
xubz wrote: post #34

No BluRay combo drive.. I was very much expecting it to be present in the series update.

Apple will never include a Bluray drive. Period.

I honestly wish this were not the case. Nearly everything on iTunes seems more expensive than the Blu-ray version on day / week 1 release. To make it worse, the Blu-ray version will often come with the iTunes digital copy on a separate disk or with a code on the inside.

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#169

Post by Uchikoma »

mmt wrote: post #144
trezor wrote: post #67

Will you be able to get a MBP with a builtin 3G-adapter yet? No? Ok, I'll just go back to Dell then. 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.

3G? What about 4G? 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…

I second [2]

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#170

Post by jasonkester »

tomkarlo wrote: post #137
achompas wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used OS X before? 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.

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…

Well said. Though a cynical contractor could counter that having less productive tools means you get to bill more hours for a given task. Sort of a flip side of the old job creation parable:

"Why are those men digging that ditch with shovels? Wouldn't it be more efficient to use a backhoe?"

"Yes, but this way we create more jobs."

"OK, but if that's the case, why not give them spoons instead?"

Post reply on HN