New MacBook Pro series • Hacker News Board

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#71

Post by ssharp » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:33 PM UTC

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…

>Thunderbolt port (count on buying another $30 display adapter like every generation)

Existing (edit: mini)displayport adapters will work. Per the Apple Thunderbolt site (http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/):

"And because Thunderbolt is based on DisplayPort technology, the video standard for high-resolution displays, any Mini DisplayPort display plugs right into the Thunderbolt port. To connect a DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, or VGA display, just use an existing adapter."

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#72

Post by Tichy » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:33 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #63

[deleted]

I recently bought an Acer TimelineX (14'' version) for my mum, installed Ubuntu on it, and my impression is really good. Of course it is not all-aluminium, but apart from that, the specs are nice. It cost 620€ - About half of a 13'' MacBook Pro.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#73

Post by honopu » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:34 PM UTC

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.

I agree with you. It'd be great to be able to run 3 monitors from a closed mbp as a tower replacement. We'll have to see what kind of display adapters they come up with. I use a Diamond NV usb-2 video adapter and it works well for excel or mail, but if you are trying to actively use spaces it gets very laggy due to bandwidth constraints on usb2.0

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#74

Post by Stormbringer » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:34 PM UTC

pclark wrote: post #10

Torn wrote: post #5

Interesting they've included an integrated graphics controller (Intel) but also a discrete ATI card with 1GB of its own memory. I wonder if real-world gaming benchmarks will really have near the promised 3x improvements over the last gen MBP's...

hasn't Apple always done this?

The combo of built in and also discrete graphics is a relatively new phenomenon for them.

I remember back when they introduced the first MBPs with the two different built in graphics chips they were hyping it up, but the audience reaction was stony to say the least, because the previous MBPs had had a moderately good (for the time) graphics card, and built in graphics were perceived as being of a much lower capability, so that was a step backwards in power.

It might have given them great battery life (I seem to remember that as their big selling point), but it meant you couldn't play graphics intensive games on them.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#75

Post by gimpf » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:35 PM UTC

yread wrote: post #36

tsycho wrote: post #12

Interesting that they are now offering a SSD drive......does this mean they have now added the SSD TRIM command (or planning to add it in Lion)?

newer SSDs (Vertex 3 Pro) actually perform worse after a TRIM

_worse_? I'd expect worst-case no-change, if it would hurt, the vendor would make TRIM a NOP. However, I'm always open for a source. (AnandTech for instance writes, TRIM just doesn't help, at http://www.anandtech.com/show/4159/ocz-vertex-3-pro-preview-...)

[edit] Well, if you look at the numbers, one column actually got worse. Wow.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#76

Post by ugh » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:35 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #61

ugh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never had events for speed bumps.

Thunderbolt and FaceTime HD aren't exactly a speed bump.

Holding an event for that kind of minor change would be pretty pathetic and boring. It’s also not exactly great demo material.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#77

Post by Stormbringer » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:35 PM UTC

pclark wrote: post #10

Torn wrote: post #5

Interesting they've included an integrated graphics controller (Intel) but also a discrete ATI card with 1GB of its own memory. I wonder if real-world gaming benchmarks will really have near the promised 3x improvements over the last gen MBP's...

hasn't Apple always done this?

The combo of built in and also discrete graphics is a relatively new phenomenon for them.

I remember back when they introduced the first MBPs with the two different built in graphics chips they were hyping it up, but the audience reaction was stony to say the least, because the previous MBPs had had a moderately good (for the time) graphics card, and built in graphics were perceived as being of a much lower capability, so that was a step backwards in power.

It might have given them great battery life (I seem to remember that as their big selling point), but it meant you couldn't play graphics intensive games on them.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#78

Post by SandB0x » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:36 PM UTC

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 good link now.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#79

Post by nicksergeant » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:36 PM UTC

honopu wrote: post #73

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.

I agree with you. It'd be great to be able to run 3 monitors from a closed mbp as a tower replacement. We'll have to see what kind of display adapters they come up with. I use a Diamond NV usb-2 video adapter and it works well for excel or mail, but if you are trying to actively use spaces it gets very laggy due to bandwidth constraints on usb2.0

Yeah, I've got the Diamond BVU195, too. Slows everything down, especially spaces and other things that use Core animation.

Re: New MacBook Pro series

#80

Post by ericd » Thu, Feb 24, 2011, 2:36 PM UTC

CountSessine wrote: post #54

tsycho wrote: post #12

Interesting that they are now offering a SSD drive......does this mean they have now added the SSD TRIM command (or planning to add it in Lion)?

Not sure why you were voted down - I really want to see Apple support TRIM, too. Does anyone know whether there's a next-gen interface standard that's being worked on that might supersede SATA, with more elegant support for flash memory (beyond SATA's hacky NCQ+TRIM)?

Built in garbage collection in newer SSD's makes it unnecessary.