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New MacBook Pro series

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Re: New MacBook Pro series

#251

Post by barik »

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.

"The plastic casing is brittle and just breaks off after a certain amount of time"

This is apparently a known issue with certain models of the Macbook. I had mine replaced free of charge as well, even though I'm out of warranty. Apple is aware of the issue and I'm happy that they at least replaced my case without a fuss.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#253

Post by mrinterweb »

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#254

Post by rmc »

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.

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

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#255

Post by dotBen »

jhancock wrote: post #197
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).

Agreed. Try going 4 years older. My IBM branded X41 is the finest laptop I've owned and ubuntu works flawless on it. I bought a replacement battery for it and get a good 5 hours and a few days standby. I like it so much, I even consider not telling people so I can buy up more used ones and set aside for future parts. But hey, what's life if you don't share. Considering the cost of these on ebay (as much as some new n…

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 display.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#256

Post by scott_s »

lean wrote: post #163
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.

(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.

And the assurance that it will actually work as advertised. I don't want to spend the time and effort to get OSX working on non-Apple hardware. Maybe it will take little time and effort. Maybe it won't. I'm willing to pay to not find out.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#257

Post by whyenot »

Uchikoma wrote: post #162
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).

My 2 year old X200 still gets a good 3-4 hours of battery time with a cycle count of 670, so YMMV :)

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.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#258

Post by evilduck »

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…

Day to day tasks, I'm pretty equally efficient in any OS, but OSX's significant "lifetime of ownership" time savings for me has been system maintenance. I've never needed to reformat and reinstall a Mac, and when I've voluntarily done it (hackintoshing), restoring a complete system from Time Machine backups has been absolutely painless.

Major OSX updates have never been a problem either (although I've read accounts of errors happening), I've carried one Macbook from 10.4 to 10.6 without ever reinstalling. I've been burned a couple times trying to do distribution upgrades with Ubuntu, I've never had a Windows install that didn't need an occasional refresh for some reason, and I wouldn't dare upgrade from XP->Vista->7. I've not owned Win 7 long enough yet to determine if that will still be the case, but Windows' history has me skeptical.

Just my experience. The Mac price difference has paid for itself many times over for systems I depend on and family I support.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#259

Post by scott_s »

Stormbringer wrote: post #229
demoo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is having a bigger SSD going to help him burn stuff to disk or watch a DVD? His point was that he still uses the optical drive. So you say, well, your DVD will be 'in the cloud'. Never mind that pushing that much data up most connections will take all month, how will he even get it onto his computer with no optical drive in the first place? Well, you might say, all your new stuff will be on the cloud, so don't wo…

Streaming Netflix is $8 a month. Its library now is okay. In the next few years, it may approach total coverage of the movies most people want to watch. (There already is plenty of overlap with my collection and what's available through streaming.)

The parent did not assert optical drives were unnecessary. He only suggested they may not be necessary for that person.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#260

Post by trezor »

TillE wrote: post #171
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.

Apple has never attempted to be everything to everyone. Why would you expect anything different? And why not just use a USB dongle?

Why not have everything as external dongles? How about an external soundcard? Or external wifi-module? External card-reader? External auxiliary videocard for hooking up external monitirs?

There's a value in having stuff built in. Where do you draw the line?

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