It's not a matter of being happy or unhappy. It's a matter of pointing out that blu-ray has never been a factor in Mac notebook sales. So why bother even mentioning blu-ray?
Because BR movies are starting to sell very well...? Avatar moved very decent numbers since released on BR, to my knowledge.
You can blow your pipes much as you like, but I believe BR will become mainstream soon, if not already. Idea that people will move from DVD to downloads/streaming seems less and less realistic to me.
Because BR movies are starting to sell very well...? Avatar moved very decent numbers since released on BR, to my knowledge.
You can blow your pipes much as you like, but I believe BR will become mainstream soon, if not already. Idea that people will move from DVD to downloads/streaming seems less and less realistic to me.
1) DVD sales still trumps all video sales
2) The last report I read showed digital streaming and downloads made more than Blu-ray. Blu-ray is on the move, but the figure didn't count all the ad supported streams from Hulu and youTube, etc.
3) Blu-ray for your home entertainment system for a bug ass HDTV is not the same as Blu-ray for your PC, which using Apple's most common sales is 13" display. Pretty pointless, especially when that option costs you $500 for the ultra-slim slot-loading Blu-ray player needed for Mac notebooks just to play on a 1280x800 display while running down that 10 hour battery to 3 hours.
4) Many vendors offer things that Apple doesn't because they have no choice. They can't (or chose not to) compete on quality or usability so they have to compete with the fringe markets and spec sheet buyers. Apple has never offered an FM radio in an iPod until the Nano release late last year yet that has been deemed a reason Apple and the iPod will ultimately fail.
The current Core i7 MBP with its very nice looking alu case is hitting about 100c with moderate bench testing. Yet another example of Apple more worried about what name they give something or how it looks compared to how it performs.
Here is the link if you want to check out the testing.
Almost certainly due to the fans being set too low by default, as has been the case since the first generation of MBPs. Apple seems to value silence over not burning us. 3rd party fan control apps address this problem very well. I assume it's the same with the new models?
I do not think Mac is a good platform for gaming at all. Lack of other game vendors' support made it quite disappointing. The GPU Apple adopted is at middle level, not good for gaming. The performance of OpenGL is not quite good for gaming. So… is there something we missing here?
In addition, I just curious why my early-2008 MBP w/ 8600 GT didn't get the h.264 hardware acceleration. It has the capability in hardware itself. Besides, the media playback or decoding softwares on Mac, typically, are far from competitive. I bet some people couldn't play 1080p movies smoothly on their Macs in comparison with using Windows under Bootcamp partition.
Does the New MBP really worth the price? I am scared by Apple. DVD and 5400 rpm HDD shouldn't appear at such high price level of machines. Not to mention, the resolution of 1680 by 1050 should have to be the standard spec long time ago. They are not advanced technologies already.
I'm very serious. Quad core does next to nothing for gaming seeing that gaming has just started taking advantage of dual core.
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The Xbox 360 was released in 2005 with a triple-core CPU. Since most games these days are multi-platform, most PC games for the past five years have been written to take advantage of multiple cores.
Futuremark recommend a quad-core chip for all but the cheapest gaming systems.
If one is comparing laptops, these are the three most important things.
Anybody making an argument for a Dell or whatever other laptop, over an Mac portable, must account for these three elements. If not; you're just a laptop "poser".
Weight
Battery life
Build quality
I think you are generalising too much.
For example, a lot of people nowadays will get laptop as desktop replacement. As those machines will basically be sitting in one spot all the time, battery life is not too important (if at all). Such is weight. Build quality is always important but less for laptop that will not be carried around - most people will not care if bottom plastic or screen cover flex a bit. And if those people will play games or plug laptop to LCD TV for watching movies, having better graphics and/or BR drive might be more important than battery and weight.
For highly mobile people without need for power, something like 13" Asus ULV (a few variations are available) with 10+ hours of battery, decent C2D ULV CPU (I believe ULV versions of i3, i5 will come out at some point), low weight, decent build quality (not Mac good but acceptable for majority) and lower price can be more interesting than MacBooks.
I really wouldn't call people posers for not prioritising on 3 categories you have mentioned. Otherwise, you could be considered poser from someone else's point of view.
A Quad Core really only helps if you are running Windows. Based on every test I have done it really only helps durning boot up because bios is a pig and needs all the help it can gets. With EFI that isn't an issue. As far as applications its hard to find anything that really can take advantage of the Clarkfield.
The only negative I have heard so far about the new MBP is that the Core i7 in the 17" is getting fairly hot.
You are probably referring to what is described in this article:
New i7 MacBooks Hitting 100+ Degrees Celsius; Hot Enough to Boil Water
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The Xbox 360 was released in 2005 with a triple-core CPU. Since most games these days are multi-platform, most PC games for the past five years have been written to take advantage of multiple cores.
Futuremark recommend a quad-core chip for all but the cheapest gaming systems.
You can't use the Xbox 360 as an example because gaming is not setup the same way compared to the PC. Futuremark and 3dMark are both jokes because their testing is too heavy on the CPU end.
Todays gaming requires a good match between the CPU and the GPU. If you are running a powerful GPU and a Quad Core that doesnt match well witht he GPU the the CPU is going to create a bottleneck.
Unless you can show me some benchmarks that show a quad core system truely add major value to gaming I am going to have to go with all the benchmarks I have seen.
In fact here you go. Call of Duty 4 difference between a quad and a dual is about 1 fps even at 1920x1200
World of Conflict you see minor improvments but nothing you would see real world. Take a Q9450 up against a E8400 and you have about an extra 8fps which means nothing when the E8400 is already hitting over 60fps.
I guess I'll never replace my desktop for powerful laptop. Well, never say never - but not any time soon.
Well it could be as simple as the fans are too low and the fact the case is ALU which may be holding in heat. However 100+ is going to really shorten the life of the motherboard.
Are you serious? Quad-cores are great for gaming... not to mention encoding or graphics processing.
Once Steam hits OSX, Apple will have few excuses to not offer a decent number of cores (at least as an option) for their new gaming conscious customers.
I trust Apple more than say, Dell or HP to have a cool, quiet, usable machine (they usually quickly fix such issues), but Apple really needs to provide some heavy-compute options for the MBP series.
You can trust Apple, but you need to trust Intel as well. It just might be such slim case (they haven't expand it recently?) is too tight for i7 logic. I remember when i7 was released, it was pulling more power and releasing more heat than comparable GHz Core 2 Quad units... and Apple has skipped on C2Q, jumping from C2D to i7. Without really modifying case. Actually if battery is bigger in new models, then there is even less space for other parts. Maybe even smaller heatsinks and fans.
True. But I managed to find somewhere BR adoption is actually better than DVD adoption (for the same relative timelines). And DVD basically had no competition - that was first successful digital video format available. BR has a problem that it is competing with streaming and DVD, which is still OK for number of people (specially people without large TVs).
Quote:
2) The last report I read showed digital streaming and downloads made more than Blu-ray. Blu-ray is on the move, but the figure didn't count all the ad supported streams from Hulu and youTube, etc.
I wouldn't go that far to put YouTube into account. Additional question would be, are we talking only about BR purchases or also renting..?
Quote:
3) Blu-ray for your home entertainment system for a bug ass HDTV is not the same as Blu-ray for your PC, which using Apple's most common sales is 13" display. Pretty pointless, especially when that option costs you $500 for the ultra-slim slot-loading Blu-ray player needed for Mac notebooks just to play on a 1280x800 display while running down that 10 hour battery to 3 hours.
I agree with that, but one of my PCs is plugged to a TV via HDMI. It is desktop but might as well be a laptop. With all new TVs having DVI/HDMI inputs, there is no reason why my laptop would not use TV as secondary screen on occasion. I don't know how many people would plug laptop to a TV, but for those who would, BR drive would be benefit.
Well it could be as simple as the fans are too low and the fact the case is ALU which may be holding in heat. However 100+ is going to really shorten the life of the motherboard.
I would expect aluminium body should actually work as one huge heat sink, considering that number of heatsinks for CPUs and chipsets are actually made of aluminium..?
I would expect aluminium body should actually work as one huge heat sink, considering that number of heatsinks for CPUs and chipsets are actually made of aluminium..?
That theory when it comes to the case has never worked out all that well for Apple. I remember they tried that with the Apple II thinking the case would act as a heatsink and it was a major failure.
That theory when it comes to the case has never worked out all that well for Apple. I remember they tried that with the Apple II thinking the case would act as a heatsink and it was a major failure.
Exactly nice way to take it old skool! Yeah check out the writeups on the Apple III. Same problem. They thought the case could be the heatsink. Major problem. The motherboard warped so bad the chips actually popped out of place. The recommended Apple solution: Pick your Apple III up a few feet and then drop it, to reseat the chips!!
So...in this review, how about mentioning the JOKE of wireless reception? It's almost unusable. Constant dropouts, pathetic speeds. Was fine with my MacBook. I'm on the verge of returning it for a MacBook. I expect no fees. I am going to call up sometime in a day or two. I have heard many people have had this issue over at MacRumors and on Apple Support forums. I guess generally the MBPs have grap Airport reception. Unacceptable for the price. I basically took the dive when I read they repositioned the antenna. I kind of hoped they'd finally figured out a way to get good reception in the metal case. I suppose not. \
It's sad. Otherwise this metal case is so nice. The front wristwrest is a bit sharp, other than that it's good. Good screen.
If one is comparing laptops, these are the three most important things.
Anybody making an argument for a Dell or whatever other laptop, over an Mac portable, must account for these three elements. If not; you're just a laptop "poser".
Weight
Battery life
Build quality
Agreed! I would add OS....OSX over any MS offering.
That theory when it comes to the case has never worked out all that well for Apple. I remember they tried that with the Apple II thinking the case would act as a heatsink and it was a major failure.
Definitely a downside. I REALLY NEED this feature. I have a huge collection of BD movies and have netflix subscription.
Also, I do photography and need a good way to backup to that. BD is a necessity and i don't want to compromise. I need a new laptop, but i have to keep waiting till BD.
It's quite a shame. Apple's solution has a great benefit over Nvidia's Optimus as it doesn't have the limited and unintelligent requirement of making a decision based on what processes are running. It should be able to monitor the load independent of what apps are open. Hopefully they get that worked out.
I spent about an hour in and Apple Store on two occasions ? before and after the graphics update ? doing tests and looking for hidden switch to disable the dGPU completely in favour of the IGP for best power savings, at least when the battery in use. Nothing! With Apple as obsessed with power and duration per charge (as they should be) you'd think this would have the default feature.
They also need to add and app or update System Profiler so that the data is dynamic. You can see which graphics option is in use, at any one time but hitting Command-R to refresh gets annoying when done several hundred times. The silver lining: At least System Profiler doesn't cause the dGPU to run.
Hey mate. Try this. A guy wrote a small app that lets you monitor which graphics card is in play.
Comments
It's not a matter of being happy or unhappy. It's a matter of pointing out that blu-ray has never been a factor in Mac notebook sales. So why bother even mentioning blu-ray?
Because BR movies are starting to sell very well...? Avatar moved very decent numbers since released on BR, to my knowledge.
You can blow your pipes much as you like, but I believe BR will become mainstream soon, if not already. Idea that people will move from DVD to downloads/streaming seems less and less realistic to me.
As soon as I find my $3,000 Apple Store card, I'll get that 17" MBP-iPad combo.
With sales tax, applecare, and any extras you'll probably need more than $3,000...and you won't be getting an iPad.
Because BR movies are starting to sell very well...? Avatar moved very decent numbers since released on BR, to my knowledge.
You can blow your pipes much as you like, but I believe BR will become mainstream soon, if not already. Idea that people will move from DVD to downloads/streaming seems less and less realistic to me.
1) DVD sales still trumps all video sales
2) The last report I read showed digital streaming and downloads made more than Blu-ray. Blu-ray is on the move, but the figure didn't count all the ad supported streams from Hulu and youTube, etc.
3) Blu-ray for your home entertainment system for a bug ass HDTV is not the same as Blu-ray for your PC, which using Apple's most common sales is 13" display. Pretty pointless, especially when that option costs you $500 for the ultra-slim slot-loading Blu-ray player needed for Mac notebooks just to play on a 1280x800 display while running down that 10 hour battery to 3 hours.
4) Many vendors offer things that Apple doesn't because they have no choice. They can't (or chose not to) compete on quality or usability so they have to compete with the fringe markets and spec sheet buyers. Apple has never offered an FM radio in an iPod until the Nano release late last year yet that has been deemed a reason Apple and the iPod will ultimately fail.
I
The current Core i7 MBP with its very nice looking alu case is hitting about 100c with moderate bench testing. Yet another example of Apple more worried about what name they give something or how it looks compared to how it performs.
Here is the link if you want to check out the testing.
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/1...0-degrees.aspx
Almost certainly due to the fans being set too low by default, as has been the case since the first generation of MBPs. Apple seems to value silence over not burning us. 3rd party fan control apps address this problem very well. I assume it's the same with the new models?
In addition, I just curious why my early-2008 MBP w/ 8600 GT didn't get the h.264 hardware acceleration. It has the capability in hardware itself. Besides, the media playback or decoding softwares on Mac, typically, are far from competitive. I bet some people couldn't play 1080p movies smoothly on their Macs in comparison with using Windows under Bootcamp partition.
Does the New MBP really worth the price? I am scared by Apple. DVD and 5400 rpm HDD shouldn't appear at such high price level of machines. Not to mention, the resolution of 1680 by 1050 should have to be the standard spec long time ago. They are not advanced technologies already.
I'm very serious. Quad core does next to nothing for gaming seeing that gaming has just started taking advantage of dual core.
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The Xbox 360 was released in 2005 with a triple-core CPU. Since most games these days are multi-platform, most PC games for the past five years have been written to take advantage of multiple cores.
Futuremark recommend a quad-core chip for all but the cheapest gaming systems.
If one is comparing laptops, these are the three most important things.
Anybody making an argument for a Dell or whatever other laptop, over an Mac portable, must account for these three elements. If not; you're just a laptop "poser".
Weight
Battery life
Build quality
I think you are generalising too much.
For example, a lot of people nowadays will get laptop as desktop replacement. As those machines will basically be sitting in one spot all the time, battery life is not too important (if at all). Such is weight. Build quality is always important but less for laptop that will not be carried around - most people will not care if bottom plastic or screen cover flex a bit. And if those people will play games or plug laptop to LCD TV for watching movies, having better graphics and/or BR drive might be more important than battery and weight.
For highly mobile people without need for power, something like 13" Asus ULV (a few variations are available) with 10+ hours of battery, decent C2D ULV CPU (I believe ULV versions of i3, i5 will come out at some point), low weight, decent build quality (not Mac good but acceptable for majority) and lower price can be more interesting than MacBooks.
I really wouldn't call people posers for not prioritising on 3 categories you have mentioned. Otherwise, you could be considered poser from someone else's point of view.
A Quad Core really only helps if you are running Windows. Based on every test I have done it really only helps durning boot up because bios is a pig and needs all the help it can gets. With EFI that isn't an issue. As far as applications its hard to find anything that really can take advantage of the Clarkfield.
The only negative I have heard so far about the new MBP is that the Core i7 in the 17" is getting fairly hot.
You are probably referring to what is described in this article:
New i7 MacBooks Hitting 100+ Degrees Celsius; Hot Enough to Boil Water
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18258
That is a bit more than fairly hot, if true.
I guess I'll never replace my desktop for powerful laptop. Well, never say never - but not any time soon.
Sorry, but that's nonsense. The Xbox 360 was released in 2005 with a triple-core CPU. Since most games these days are multi-platform, most PC games for the past five years have been written to take advantage of multiple cores.
Futuremark recommend a quad-core chip for all but the cheapest gaming systems.
You can't use the Xbox 360 as an example because gaming is not setup the same way compared to the PC. Futuremark and 3dMark are both jokes because their testing is too heavy on the CPU end.
Todays gaming requires a good match between the CPU and the GPU. If you are running a powerful GPU and a Quad Core that doesnt match well witht he GPU the the CPU is going to create a bottleneck.
Unless you can show me some benchmarks that show a quad core system truely add major value to gaming I am going to have to go with all the benchmarks I have seen.
In fact here you go. Call of Duty 4 difference between a quad and a dual is about 1 fps even at 1920x1200
World of Conflict you see minor improvments but nothing you would see real world. Take a Q9450 up against a E8400 and you have about an extra 8fps which means nothing when the E8400 is already hitting over 60fps.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-sc...e-processors/3
You are probably referring to what is described in this article:
New i7 MacBooks Hitting 100+ Degrees Celsius; Hot Enough to Boil Water
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18258
That is a bit more than fairly hot, if true.
I guess I'll never replace my desktop for powerful laptop. Well, never say never - but not any time soon.
Well it could be as simple as the fans are too low and the fact the case is ALU which may be holding in heat. However 100+ is going to really shorten the life of the motherboard.
Are you serious? Quad-cores are great for gaming... not to mention encoding or graphics processing.
Once Steam hits OSX, Apple will have few excuses to not offer a decent number of cores (at least as an option) for their new gaming conscious customers.
I trust Apple more than say, Dell or HP to have a cool, quiet, usable machine (they usually quickly fix such issues), but Apple really needs to provide some heavy-compute options for the MBP series.
You can trust Apple, but you need to trust Intel as well. It just might be such slim case (they haven't expand it recently?) is too tight for i7 logic. I remember when i7 was released, it was pulling more power and releasing more heat than comparable GHz Core 2 Quad units... and Apple has skipped on C2Q, jumping from C2D to i7. Without really modifying case. Actually if battery is bigger in new models, then there is even less space for other parts. Maybe even smaller heatsinks and fans.
That might turn into serious problem.
1) DVD sales still trumps all video sales
True. But I managed to find somewhere BR adoption is actually better than DVD adoption (for the same relative timelines). And DVD basically had no competition - that was first successful digital video format available. BR has a problem that it is competing with streaming and DVD, which is still OK for number of people (specially people without large TVs).
2) The last report I read showed digital streaming and downloads made more than Blu-ray. Blu-ray is on the move, but the figure didn't count all the ad supported streams from Hulu and youTube, etc.
I wouldn't go that far to put YouTube into account. Additional question would be, are we talking only about BR purchases or also renting..?
3) Blu-ray for your home entertainment system for a bug ass HDTV is not the same as Blu-ray for your PC, which using Apple's most common sales is 13" display. Pretty pointless, especially when that option costs you $500 for the ultra-slim slot-loading Blu-ray player needed for Mac notebooks just to play on a 1280x800 display while running down that 10 hour battery to 3 hours.
I agree with that, but one of my PCs is plugged to a TV via HDMI. It is desktop but might as well be a laptop. With all new TVs having DVI/HDMI inputs, there is no reason why my laptop would not use TV as secondary screen on occasion. I don't know how many people would plug laptop to a TV, but for those who would, BR drive would be benefit.
Well it could be as simple as the fans are too low and the fact the case is ALU which may be holding in heat. However 100+ is going to really shorten the life of the motherboard.
I would expect aluminium body should actually work as one huge heat sink, considering that number of heatsinks for CPUs and chipsets are actually made of aluminium..?
I would expect aluminium body should actually work as one huge heat sink, considering that number of heatsinks for CPUs and chipsets are actually made of aluminium..?
That theory when it comes to the case has never worked out all that well for Apple. I remember they tried that with the Apple II thinking the case would act as a heatsink and it was a major failure.
That theory when it comes to the case has never worked out all that well for Apple. I remember they tried that with the Apple II thinking the case would act as a heatsink and it was a major failure.
So...in this review, how about mentioning the JOKE of wireless reception? It's almost unusable. Constant dropouts, pathetic speeds. Was fine with my MacBook. I'm on the verge of returning it for a MacBook. I expect no fees. I am going to call up sometime in a day or two. I have heard many people have had this issue over at MacRumors and on Apple Support forums. I guess generally the MBPs have grap Airport reception. Unacceptable for the price. I basically took the dive when I read they repositioned the antenna. I kind of hoped they'd finally figured out a way to get good reception in the metal case. I suppose not.
It's sad. Otherwise this metal case is so nice. The front wristwrest is a bit sharp, other than that it's good. Good screen.
If one is comparing laptops, these are the three most important things.
Anybody making an argument for a Dell or whatever other laptop, over an Mac portable, must account for these three elements. If not; you're just a laptop "poser".
Weight
Battery life
Build quality
Agreed! I would add OS....OSX over any MS offering.
That theory when it comes to the case has never worked out all that well for Apple. I remember they tried that with the Apple II thinking the case would act as a heatsink and it was a major failure.
Interesting. I had no idea...
Dell laptops have multi-touch pads.
Yup. And Windows 7 also have touchscreen capability. When I'll buy something I won't check for feature lists, I aim for something that works.
How is no blu-ray a *legitimate* downside?
"No built-in HDMI port or Blu-Ray playback"
Definitely a downside. I REALLY NEED this feature. I have a huge collection of BD movies and have netflix subscription.
Also, I do photography and need a good way to backup to that. BD is a necessity and i don't want to compromise. I need a new laptop, but i have to keep waiting till BD.
It's quite a shame. Apple's solution has a great benefit over Nvidia's Optimus as it doesn't have the limited and unintelligent requirement of making a decision based on what processes are running. It should be able to monitor the load independent of what apps are open. Hopefully they get that worked out.
I spent about an hour in and Apple Store on two occasions ? before and after the graphics update ? doing tests and looking for hidden switch to disable the dGPU completely in favour of the IGP for best power savings, at least when the battery in use. Nothing! With Apple as obsessed with power and duration per charge (as they should be) you'd think this would have the default feature.
They also need to add and app or update System Profiler so that the data is dynamic. You can see which graphics option is in use, at any one time but hitting Command-R to refresh gets annoying when done several hundred times. The silver lining: At least System Profiler doesn't cause the dGPU to run.
Hey mate. Try this. A guy wrote a small app that lets you monitor which graphics card is in play.
http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/