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New MacBook Pro series

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Re: New MacBook Pro series

#241

Post by KeithMajhor »

ugh wrote: post #112
KeithMajhor wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen a more beautiful laptop. What can they really do besides include faster components and add features to software?

Ditch the two spinning drives and build in a SSD by default? That would allow for a redesign as well as a larger battery and would certainly warrant an event. After the MacBook Air, it’s only a matter of time until they do just that, maybe next year. (I can only hope. I’m actually seriously considering schlepping my 2007 MacBook Pro around another year.)

I understand that there are pretty HUGE technical differences between SSDs and traditional HDDs. But from a user perspective it's just a faster component that uses less power...

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#242

Post by tesseract »

russell_h wrote: post #239
tesseract wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ditching the optical media for longer battery life 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.

I think he meant (or this is certainly what I was hoping for) that removing the optical bay would leave space for a much larger battery.

Ah, that makes more sense. Although a battery is a lot denser than an optical drive, so that would kick the system weight up. If you use some of the space gained to instead make the system thinner, you start to get essentially a Macbook Air. And I think it's fairly clear that Apple is moving in the direction of converging the Air and the 13" MBP.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#243

Post by ugh »

KeithMajhor wrote: post #241
ugh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditch the two spinning drives and build in a SSD by default? That would allow for a redesign as well as a larger battery and would certainly warrant an event. After the MacBook Air, it’s only a matter of time until they do just that, maybe next year. (I can only hope. I’m actually seriously considering schlepping my 2007 MacBook Pro around another year.)

I understand that there are pretty HUGE technical differences between SSDs and traditional HDDs. But from a user perspective it's just a faster component that uses less power...

It’s not the SSD per se, it’s the saved space. A speed bump is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for an Apple event ;-)

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#244

Post by polynomial »

kloncks wrote: post #118
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…

30 hours (claimed) battery life? That sounds ridiculous. How close (or far away) to the truth is that? Anybody know more?

battery life > battery life while actually using computer.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#245

Post by synx508 »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #187
Uchikoma wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Strange. I never had any problems with my Thinkpads, but my Macbook has had several. The plastic casing is brittle and just breaks off after a certain amount of time, the battery died and needed replacing, the hard drive died and needed replacing and the power supply died and needed replacing too. Seriously considering getting one of these new Thinkpads and sticking Ubuntu on it. Maybe the T420 or T520.

Your Macbook sounds as though it came from the same batch as my wife's Macbook. The Apple store replaced her battery free of charge well out of warranty and also offered a replacement casing. This could be a UK thing as it's pretty clear that there was a period where Macbooks were being manufactured below acceptable standards, the "Sale of goods act" would apply.

I bought a Macbook about a year after my wife and mine has been absolutely fine, no cracking and still with a good original battery.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#246

Post by code_duck »

I dread this because it makes the model I bought last year feel outdated! I can't see upgrading something like an MBP more than once every two years, though. That's reassuring since I know whatever that model is, it will be fantastic by current standards.

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#247

Post by hrktb »

moe wrote: post #226
pmjordan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the laptop versions of the Core i* have 3 memory channels (neither do the Socket-1155/1156 desktop versions), so 3x4GB of RAM would be a strange/suboptimal configuration. There probably isn't enough physical space in a 13" laptop for more than 2 modules anyway (unless you sacrifice battery or optical drive space). Even soldering them to the motherboard wouldn't save much space - I think all current 4GB…

unless you sacrifice [...] optical drive space 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?

It's 2011, when have you last time used an optical drive?

I see where you're standing. But actually I receive two DVDs per week in my mailbox, so last time was today. And I still buy CDs, yes.

I think what you really want is the next iteration of the Air with whatnot is missing from the current model.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#248

Post by Groxx »

>Thanks to the new microarchitecture, the graphics processor is on the same chip as the central processor and has direct access to L3 cache.

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#249

Post by mquander »

code_duck wrote: post #246

I dread this because it makes the model I bought last year feel outdated! I can't see upgrading something like an MBP more than once every two years, though. That's reassuring since I know whatever that model is, it will be fantastic by current standards. 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 have been pretty satisfied with my HP Envy 15 purchased last March, for roughly the same price that a MBP would have cost me. Differences between it and a MBP:

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#250

Post by robotresearcher »

stanmancan wrote: post #227
jarek wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is hard drive replacement in an MBP really difficult enough to warrant any mention when high-end SSDs are in play?

Nope. I got my 13" Macbook Pro in early January of this year and it took me a total of 10 minutes to replace the stock HDD with an SSD.

If you ignore the hours of data copying or fresh install.
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