For everyone who bought a MBP before the update.

I guess i'm just speaking my thoughts out loud here.

I bought my MBP on the 25th of January (just over a month ago). I bought the cheapest one 15.4" etc. with the educational discount which also gives you the applecare 3 years for just £50 instead of like £250 (nice suprise)

I was always worried about the thought of an update coming straight after I bought but i decided to jump in and BOY am i glad that i did.
Yes i would like that extra 80GB space in my hard drive. Yes i would probably use the extra 128mb VRAM so that i could maybe buy crysis and try and play it on all minimum settings (not even going to try on my mbp with 128mb).

My point here is that the only thing that i do on the Mac OSX side of things which would come close to using the full 2.2Ghz of the processor is Logic Pro or Final Cut Pro, but neither of which have ever really come close to using it all for very long. On the XP side (via bootcamp) the fans are constantly on when im playing any game: counter strike source, guitar hero III etc.
If i look back at the past month with my MBP, i have recorded an album with my band on Logic, Created a few DVD's with final cut, ordered 3 photo books from apple using iPhoto, created a website on iWeb etc.

So do I regret buying my MBP a month ago? Not one bit. The amount that it has helped me over the past month is unbelievable, i probably have it switched on for about 8 hours of the day. The update (in my opinion) was not enough to make me feel jealous.

Obviously other more power users will need the 3 upgrades. But IMO I would prefer to have the apple remote that a .2GHz update as i wouldn't use it

 

Agree... I purchased my MBP also in January and I'm not too worried about the upgraded specs. I mean, it's nice to have the multi-touch pad, but it's not a deal breaker or anything that I'll miss. Unless you do some hardcore photoshopping or any other CPU intensive tasks, the Santa Rosas are powerful enough for me or any other basic users.

 

the macbook pro is still santa rosa.

 

Weird... I didn't realize that. So the 2.4GHz in the high-end Macbook is a faster CPU than the 2.4GHz CPU in the low-end MBP, eh?

EDIT: No, wait, I think the MBP is also Penryn: http://www.appleinsider.com/article...ted_macbooks_and_new_penryn_macbook_pros.html

 

The macbook pro has penryn. Go customize at apple.


http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...=browse&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro


Only the lowest end model uses santa rosa.

 

It's a bit confusing, but masterchef341 is correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino#Santa_Rosa_platform_.282007.29

 

The low-end MBP is Penryn too.
On the MBP page in the Apple store, look at "Compare Specs", and look at the "Processors" row.

3mb and 6mb cache are both Penryn. The Merom-based processors had 2mb and 4mb cache.

The particular processor numbers would be:
# T8300 2.4GHz, 3MB L2 Cache
# T9300 2.5GHz, 6MB L2 Cache
# T9500 2.6GHz, 6MB L2 Cache

(Processor numbers found here: http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1088)

And yes, Xander, the new Penryn processors are still Santa-Rosa based. They just use the Penryn core instead of the old Merom core.

 

Someone should make a sticky of the tech specs of current and past apple laptops (one or two old models) listing the tech and specs of each. I would but I'm too lazy.

 

Yeah the motherboard platform chipset didn't change with the launch of Penryn processors in notebooks. They're still using the Santa Rosa platform. All difference is a newer CPU that's on a smaller die process. It's a little faster than the same clocked Merom cores and consumes less power.

 

Santa Rosa is a chipset platform, Peryn is a CPU

 

Yeah, get it right or pay the price.

 

I actaully placed an order for the high end 15 inch macbook Pro on Sunday and the store I ordered it from were kind enough to call me this morning and offer me the chance to get one of the newer ones. I ended up going for the new base model as it's the same as the older high end version but with a bigger hard drive plus I get a refund of $600! (Australian). Apparently the store's Apple rep told them to let everyone know that's ordered one in the last 2 days and give them the option. That's pretty good service!

 

You should really give Crysis a go on the 128mb 8600m-GT, runs just fine on mine so long as you keep the resolution at 1024x640 (annoying, but I find you can't go much higher with only 128mb) and the settings around med/high. Runs just fine.

 

what the hell dude I bought it 3 days ago from apple online store and I want the option!!! maybe if I b!tch enough theyll do it. Anyone know the email address of apple customer service?

Edit: Actually I dont think Its that much better than the older one... though the 512 MB of RAM woudl have been nice...

 

While this update is not phenomenal, what it brings though is much added value. And that's where it becomes a point of contention for recent buyers such as myself.

The way I look at it is for the same price I paid ten days ago, I would now get a machine more in line with the higher end 15" MBP with the added multi-touch pad and possibly less heat and longer battery life. The higher end 15" from before would have cost me an extra $600-$800 and now one can essentially get it for the same price.

This is why I have reluctantly decided to return mine, especially that I won't have to pay any restocking fees so it's just a straight swap.

I say reluctantly because I really like the unit I have and suits me well but I've always thought the 120GB HD is on the small size for my use and found the idea of replacing the HD myself discouraging no matter how easy some people here say it is and of course the other thing about voiding the warranty.

But I can totally understand where people are coming from when they say that they're keeping theirs and skipping the update.

 

How were you able to avoid the restocking fee?

 

Bought from a store rather than through apple. The store has a 14 day return period. BesbBuy has the same policy but I didn't buy it from there. I wouldn't return it if there was a restocking fee. It just isn't worth it. But in my case, it's pretty much a straight swap.

 

wah? i dun where?!

 

well I purchased the high end MBP off of ebay two weeks ago for $2025 and for me to get the new base MBP from apple it would $1964 with education discount and $2182 without the discount. so I think I did alright and I can definitely live without those 3 little updates

 

No doubt that anyone buying the MBP before the update should NOT feel bad. This update was a minor intermediate step toward bigger changes I would expect to see this summer/fall. I would not be surprised if Apple is able to shed a half-pound off of their current MBP lineups with their second-generation machines.