New MacBook Pro Short Review

[angry_geek]

I just finished setting up a new 15" pro for a customer. It's the first chance I've had to really play with the new ones.

Pros: Fast!! 2.66 Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR3, 320 GB Hdd. This thing just flat screams! Great screen, looks fantastic. I love the huge track pad and the new multi-touch features. 7-hour battery. More like 4 or 5, but still better than the past. Decent weight. They finally added a DVD R/RW without charging an extra $200.00!

Cons: 2 USB ports!! WTF? Even my netbook has 3! Display port. Why can't I just have a standard DVI or HDMI port? Internal battery. Can't remove it without pulling 10 (yes I counted them) screws. Virtualization. Performance while running XP still seems slow compared to virtual machine on linux or windows. Price. $1,699.00. To get a comparably spec'd dell runs about $500.00 less. Snow Leopard. Even though he just bought this, he is still going to have to shell out $30.00 to get the upgrade. Heat. This thing gets as hot as Phoenix in July. I still have a red mark from the thing sitting on my lap. The all-aluminum bottom is a great heat conductor. It conducts right onto your leg. I wish they would forgo this for some nice ventilation, so I didn't have to worry about blisters or fires.

Other: I didn't pull the bottom panel, but I'm assuming you can access everything under that one panel. HDD, RAM, etc. The only drawback to this is they also put the battery under there. Access to the battery should be immediate. You shouldn't have to pull all that crap. I wish they would figure out they could put a full keyboard on there instead of having all that wasted space.

Overall not a bad machine. Definitely a huge improvement. If the cost were more reasonable, I would consider purchasing, not convert, just nice to have around.

Edit on pricing: it's the $1,999.00 model. Comparable Dell runs about $1,250.00 or so.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Heat. This thing gets as hot as Phoenix in July. I still have a red mark from the thing sitting on my lap. The all-aluminum bottom is a great heat conductor. It conducts right onto your leg. I wish they would forgo this for some nice ventilation, so I didn't have to worry about blisters or fires.

Other: I didn't pull the bottom panel, but I'm assuming you can access everything under that one panel. HDD, RAM, etc. The only drawback to this is they also put the battery under there. Access to the battery should be immediate. You shouldn't have to pull all that crap.

Yeah, those things do run hot! The MB Pros have always ran pretty hot, it seems like they are getting even hotter the newer they get. I think with the unibodies since everything comes apart through the bottom opposed to the top on the older versions, there is but one thin piece of removable aluminum to shield between your lap and the logic board. But good luck trying to find info from Apple on what is considered to be normal operating temps for those things. Next time you see this one or another one download istat prohttp://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/istatpro.html to get some temp readings.

Yeah the battery thing is typical Apple. Make it impossible for the average user to remove. Whats hilarious is they have the access door which you remove to get to the hard drive and battery, but you still need to remove the bottom case to remove the battery or hard drive. So what is the point of the access door?

On Snow Leopard, they really should provide buyers this close to the release of 10.6 a free upgrade coupon even though its only $29. Wait a month or so and these same machines will be released with Snow Leopard anyway.

 

[nibblesandbits]

Umm? What are you guys talking about? There are NO screws to take out a battery on a macbook or macbook pro... ever... :\ I'm confused

/writing this on his unibody macbook pro

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Umm? What are you guys talking about? There are NO screws to take out a battery on a macbook or macbook pro... ever... :\ I'm confused

/writing this on his unibody macbook pro

Umm? let me guess, your machine is probably:

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed; or 2.53GHz or 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB shared L2 cache.

If yes, this is a late 2008 model for which you do not need to remove the bottom case + 3 other screws to get the battery out.

The specs angry_geek is talking about is 2.66 Core 2 Duo, which points to a mid 2009 model which are available in:

2.53GHz or 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed; or 2.8GHz or 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 6MB shared L2 cache.

For this machine you do need to remove the bottom case consisting of 10 screws plus an additional 3 T6 screws to remove the battery.

 

[angry_geek]

Thanks mac tech. As the date and title of my post reveal, this was a brand new macbook pro, manufacturing date of July, 2009. The battery issue is apparently getting a lot of talk. Nobody likes it except for the people who didn't know there was a battery in the first place.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Thanks mac tech. As the date and title of my post reveal, this was a brand new macbook pro, manufacturing date of July, 2009. The battery issue is apparently getting a lot of talk. Nobody likes it except for the people who didn't know there was a battery in the first place.

Sure thing! That's Apple for ya! They love to throw the so-called turd in the punch bowl. They definitely keep everyone guessing.

 

[greggh]

I love my macbook pro. I've got a c2d 2.33 with 3 gigs of ram. Got it for free from a customer about 4 months ago. Gave my lenovo (which was only 2 months old) to my sister.

Luckily its one of the mid-2008 models and it does not get anywhere near as hot as the brand new ones. And of course the battery is easily removable. It runs windows 7 in vmware fusion at full speed and full screen very nicely.

The best thing that happened to me in the last month was getting another one with a dead logic/motherboard. I now have spares for nearly every part

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

I love my macbook pro. I've got a c2d 2.33 with 3 gigs of ram. Got it for free from a customer about 4 months ago. Gave my lenovo (which was only 2 months old) to my sister.

Luckily its one of the mid-2008 models and it does not get anywhere near as hot as the brand new ones. And of course the battery is easily removable. It runs windows 7 in vmware fusion at full speed and full screen very nicely.

The best thing that happened to me in the last month was getting another one with a dead logic/motherboard. I now have spares for nearly every part

Free and working? Nice! We get free broken machines all the time. Some worth fixing and selling, most just good for parting out. I've been able to refurb myself fairly decent laptops out of broken ones for the last few years. That's the plus of being a tech. Saves on buying new personal machines if I can refurb myself one every year or couple years. Otherwise for someone to give us a working machine it has to be pretty damn old, at least 4-5 years anyway?

 

[iisjman07]

Considering all laptops have their foibles, it did pretty well. I'm also considering buying one just for tinkering with and learning repairs.

 

[angry_geek]

Considering all laptops have their foibles, it did pretty well. I'm also considering buying one just for tinkering with and learning repairs.

I agree. The price point is still what's preventing me from getting one. The regular mac books aren't too bad, but, if you can find a used pro for a decent price, that's what I'd go with. I have a 13.3" intel macbook about 2 years old that still runs ok. It runs a lot better now since I upgraded the RAM in it. It's been a pretty good thing for business knowing how to work on them. I'm the only shop around that really works on them. The closest Mac store is in St. Louis, about 125 miles away.

 

[greggh]

Free and working? Nice! We get free broken machines all the time. Some worth fixing and selling, most just good for parting out. I've been able to refurb myself fairly decent laptops out of broken ones for the last few years. That's the plus of being a tech. Saves on buying new personal machines if I can refurb myself one every year or couple years. Otherwise for someone to give us a working machine it has to be pretty damn old, at least 4-5 years anyway?

It had been dropped and had a dent in the corner. The hard drive was dead. Nothing else was actually wrong. The screen and dvd drive were perfect. Just the dent and the dead hdd. I have tons of spare drives. Before they every brought it to me they had already bought a replacement. They just wanted data recovery on the non-reading drive. So I got what I could using Data Rescue II, which turned out to be nearly everything. Then they just left it to me. I took it apart and fixed the dent with a hammer and some pliers and it looked like no drop had ever occured. Then I replaced the hard drive and reinstalled.