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Review: Apple's early 2010 MacBook Pros - Page 2

post #41 of 121
4/28/10 at 10:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wonder View Post

Who proof reads these reviews?

Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveMinne View Post

First, I think the article referred to SSDs (Solid State Drives) as SDDs.

Definitely not one of Prince's, er, I mean Daniel's best efforts...

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post #42 of 121
4/28/10 at 10:28am
I would like to see more tests about the New MBP's screen quality, acceleration AES capability which should be provided by i5/i7, the power consumption/ability of playing 720p/1080p, the speed/stability with SSD… ,etc. That would be more realistic than just providing benchmarks. Thanks. \
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post #43 of 121
4/28/10 at 10:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyFightingSnake View Post

I have to agree with this. I had to purchase a new laptop this month, and a similarly equipped Dell Studio 16 with i7 and a better screen was $1000 less than the macbook....I was really disappointed. I couldn't justify that price difference.

You mean that you couldn't justify buying the Dell, even though it's $1000 less than the MacBook. Right?
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post #44 of 121
4/28/10 at 10:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by da585 View Post

I would like to see more tests about the New MBP's screen quality, acceleration AES capability which should be provided by i5/i7, the power consumption/ability of playing 720p/1080p, the speed/stability with SSD ,etc. That would be more realistic than just providing benchmarks. Thanks. \

Check out AnandTech and Barefeat's recent tests.
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post #45 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

Do you really think "30p" is going to make a difference on a 15" display? I much prefer a quality display than one that markets itself as simply having more pixels.

The suggestion that MBPs could get Clarkfield CPUs means that you aren't aware of CPU microprocessor or architectures, just that 4 is more than 2 therefore it must be better.

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.
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post #46 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:23am
It's a shame (or awesome) that the iPad screen is much nicer than the MBP screens.
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post #47 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:24am
Comments on your apps:
(Some of these make sense, others are a big WTF)

Quote:
Originally Posted by bearboykahlo View Post

Some apps that force discreet graphics:
Cloud
ShoveBox
Tweetie
HyperSpaces
Skype -- ????
iWeb
iMovie
GarageBand
Parallels 5 Desktop
Microsoft Office 2004 - I wonder how 2008 fares.
Microsoft Office AutoUpdate daemon
RapidWeaver
PathFinder
Mathematica
Warp
Droplr
1Password -- really? sucks. Does this mean 1pwd plugins to browsers? or just the app?
Clips
NetNewsWire -- NN is a CPU hog, imho. I think they use some core libraries that are not needed.
Koolclip
atMonitor
Delicious Library
Fresh
Little Snapper
OmmWriter
Picturesque -- amazing utility, but I never leave it open a second longer than needed. It's got some CPU spinning bug that easily heats up my Al-macbook.
Pixelmator
RipIt
Rucksack
Screen Sharing
Scribbles
Skim (after searching)
The Hit List
Times
VMWare Fusion 3 (gfx acceleration disabled)

Based on this list, I'm guessing if the app even loads some graphics library like say, Core Animation or Core Graphics, the GPU automatically switches on.

Thanks for the list and I hope they fix GPU switching. Looking to buy a 15" MBP soon.
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post #48 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeDyndale View Post

I compared the Dell XPS 16 with the i7 15" MBP to see what might justify the $900 price difference (I used the Norwegian Dell and Apple stores online for price comparisons and converted it to USD).

The Dell has a slightly better screen, or rather, a higher resolution screen. It also has faster RAM. It also has twice as much graphics RAM (1GB).

However... The MBP's CPU is almost 1GHz faster. The MBP also has much longer battery life and the stronger unibody build. The MBP also has small things like the multi-touch trackpad going for it.

So as far as value for money goes, it's almost a tie - the MBP being only very slightly more expensive. And this is absulutely worth it in my book, because of the much better design and OS X.

The Dell's CPU is a quad core, whereas none of the MacBook Pros offer this. When TurboBoost is active on the Dell, it is runningnat the same speed as the MacBook Pro's i7, but with two cores. When TurboBoost kicks inaon the MacBook Pro, it drops to one core. With TurboBoost off, you have four cores running vs. two. Total performance on the Dell is always going to be better, and in most situations by a fairly wide margin. Add to that the full resolution HD screen (extra screen real-estate is a good thing), a price $1000 (43%) lower, a much higher end GPU, and the Dell offering ismpretty attractive. Plus you can bump up the Dell CPU to an even higher end model for even more speed and it's still considerably cheaper than the Mac. Five hours of battery life might not be 8nhours, but it's not bad considering all of the power you're getting.

Sorry for the typos. I'm trying to type this on the crappy iPad onscreen keyboard.
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post #49 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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.

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.
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post #50 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:35am
Someone should mention that you should never buy any of Apple's SSD options... They use the slowest ones out there (that get terribly slow with time) and you can drop an afteremarket Intel or Indilinx drive right into the Macs without any problems. But OS X doesn't support TRIM, so after one write cycle all SSDs are going to get slower than HDDs on Macs, so I really wouldn't even recommend them at all with OS X. Just not worth it.
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post #51 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyFightingSnake View Post

I have to agree with this. I had to purchase a new laptop this month, and a similarly equipped Dell Studio 16 with i7 and a better screen was $1000 less than the macbook....I was really disappointed. I couldn't justify that price difference.

I haven't bought a Mac, ever actually (I used to have one at work), because of the price difference. I finally bit the bullet and bought one of the new Macbook pros and all I can say is that it's worth the extra cash - if you can afford it.

I have been using thinkpads for years and they are fine, but Mac OS is just so elegant and intuitive. It just seems so much more refined than windows and/or linux. And you get so much out of the box. I used to hate touch pads and bought thinkpads partly because of the trackpoint. Now, when I use my wife's thinkpad, I can't believe how lame it seems in comparison to the Apple touchpad.

I have had mine for under a week and I am having a blast with it. I can't see ever going back. I agree that it would be nice if you didn't have to pay as much, but in my opinion - it is worth it.
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post #52 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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.

Try telling that to anyone rendering video ore editing large photographs. The extra cores make all the difference in the world.

And the Bios doesn't come into play once the operating system is loaded; all Bios related functions get handed over to the os at that point.

A machine that overheats and slows down to compensnate is a pretty significant limitation. We don't really yet know if it's a design thing, but if it is thats pretty serious.

Again, sorry for the typos. iPad keyboard.
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post #53 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie View Post

Apple never offers standard features. The ones they leave out are what makes their machines the best.

Interesting comment, Apple leaves the matte display in the 13" MBP, does this make it better than Lenovo for example, or any other vendor of computers for professionals who equip their pro lines with anti-glare screens?

I'd rather say Apple's marketing got a bit mentally deranged, perhaps they haven't been able to digest the companies recent success.
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post #54 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by r00fus View Post

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't simply say more cores are better and leave it there. There are NO quad-core chips running at 35W or less. The only quad-core 1" notebook I know of is the HP Envy and that is a machine I suggest being the poster child for slim-mobile computers with quad-cores.

Apple will add quad-cores when Intel finally offers them with decent TDPs. I forget the roadmap for those mobile chips; is it Sandy Bridge?

Gaming isn't the popular on Windows compared to consoles so to expect it be a focus for Mac doesn't make sense. It's more likely iPhone OS gaming will get pushed as it's already a great option for those that want a pocketable system.

Have you seen the reviews of the Quad-core systems. They don't give you much more performance and give you a lot of heat and very little battery life. The average person want a notebook to last all day, not be slightly faster than another notebook but die in a fraction of the time. It's like running a marathon by starting with a sprint. You take the lead, but you piddle out pretty quickly.
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post #55 of 121
4/28/10 at 11:53am
I checked out the new MacBook Proś at the Apple Store and can honestly say the 15" high resolution matte is one SWEET machine, better than earlier matte models even.

While all the other Mac´s had reflections and glare of the overhead lights, the high res matte MPB was clear, crisp and sharp, with no glare or reflections at all when rotated around on the table, and certainly not the dull matte like previous versions at all.

Very professional looking machine, serious, not cheapy flashy looking at all like the others.


Very nice job there Apple, congrats!!! My next machine for sure.
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post #56 of 121
4/28/10 at 1:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie View Post

And Dell includes things that the MBP can't offer at any price, like a quad-core processor for the heavy jobs and 1080p screen for movies.

oh and don't forget Windows too, oh wait a minute that's not a plus
Been using Apples since 1978 and Macs since 1984
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post #57 of 121
4/28/10 at 1:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by debusoh View Post

I haven't bought a Mac, ever actually (I used to have one at work), because of the price difference. I finally bit the bullet and bought one of the new Macbook pros and all I can say is that it's worth the extra cash - if you can afford it.

I have been using thinkpads for years and they are fine, but Mac OS is just so elegant and intuitive. It just seems so much more refined than windows and/or linux. And you get so much out of the box. I used to hate touch pads and bought thinkpads partly because of the trackpoint. Now, when I use my wife's thinkpad, I can't believe how lame it seems in comparison to the Apple touchpad.

I have had mine for under a week and I am having a blast with it. I can't see ever going back. I agree that it would be nice if you didn't have to pay as much, but in my opinion - it is worth it.

Welcome to the light
Been using Apples since 1978 and Macs since 1984
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Been using Apples since 1978 and Macs since 1984
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post #58 of 121
4/28/10 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by r00fus View Post

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.

I'm very serious. Quad core does next to nothing for gaming seeing that gaming has just started taking advantage of dual core. For encoding yes a quad core is going to make encoding faster.

However on average most software is not taking advantage of quad core technology its the OS that benefits from Quad Core in some cases.

Apples main issue isn't going to be how many cores they have in their system its going to be the fact that they offer weak GPU's and always have issues with heat once Steam is available.

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
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post #59 of 121
4/28/10 at 2:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by matrix07 View Post

Windows 7 is ok. I think the major "con" for PC notebook is a lack of multi-touch pad. That's alone worth a lot more than 4 cores vs 2 cores or Blu-Ray drive or...

Dell laptops have multi-touch pads.
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post #60 of 121
4/28/10 at 2:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveMinne View Post

That alone should call the "Pro" moniker into question.

The moniker is ad-speak. They could have called it anything.
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post #61 of 121
4/28/10 at 2:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djdj View Post

The Dell's CPU is a quad core, whereas none of the MacBook Pros offer this. When TurboBoost is active on the Dell, it is runningnat the same speed as the MacBook Pro's i7, but with two cores. When TurboBoost kicks inaon the MacBook Pro, it drops to one core. With TurboBoost off, you have four cores running vs. two. Total performance on the Dell is always going to be better, and in most situations by a fairly wide margin. Add to that the full resolution HD screen (extra screen real-estate is a good thing), a price $1000 (43%) lower, a much higher end GPU, and the Dell offering ismpretty attractive. Plus you can bump up the Dell CPU to an even higher end model for even more speed and it's still considerably cheaper than the Mac. Five hours of battery life might not be 8nhours, but it's not bad considering all of the power you're getting.

Sorry for the typos. I'm trying to type this on the crappy iPad onscreen keyboard.

The MPB is somewhat lighter than the Dell.
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post #62 of 121
4/28/10 at 2:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post

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.
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post #63 of 121
4/28/10 at 3:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by acslater017 View Post

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.
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post #64 of 121
4/28/10 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikon133 View Post

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.
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post #65 of 121
4/28/10 at 3:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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?
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post #66 of 121
4/28/10 at 3:57pm
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.
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post #67 of 121
4/28/10 at 4:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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.
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post #68 of 121
4/28/10 at 4:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso View Post

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.
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post #69 of 121
4/28/10 at 5:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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.
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post #70 of 121
4/28/10 at 5:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichL View Post

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
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post #71 of 121
4/28/10 at 5:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikon133 View Post

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.
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post #72 of 121
4/28/10 at 5:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by r00fus View Post

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.
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post #73 of 121
4/28/10 at 5:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism View Post

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).

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.
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post #74 of 121
4/28/10 at 5:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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..?
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post #75 of 121
4/28/10 at 6:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikon133 View Post

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.
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post #76 of 121
4/28/10 at 7:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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.
"Overpopulation and climate change are serious shit." Gilsch
"I was really curious how they had managed such fine granularity of alienation." addabox
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"Overpopulation and climate change are serious shit." Gilsch
"I was really curious how they had managed such fine granularity of alienation." addabox
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post #77 of 121
4/28/10 at 8:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso View Post

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.
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post #78 of 121
4/28/10 at 9:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater View Post

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... \
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post #79 of 121
4/28/10 at 9:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie View Post

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.

The Android way: Our problems become your problems.

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The Android way: Our problems become your problems.

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post #80 of 121
4/28/10 at 10:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post

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.
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