Upcoming Macbook updates?

I might buy a Macbook for myself for Christmas (yes, I like to give to myself too...). Any upcoming updates for it that would constitute me just waiting? I need it for school as I am starting a new course so I just wanted to know.

 

The MacBook was just updated earlier in November, so there won't be any updates in the next month or two, most likely. Just get it now .

 

Really? They bump up the mid-range one by 40MHz and call it a day? They could've at least increased the minimum HDD capacities or something, 80GB is a bit weak now.

But what else did they do? Do they have LED screens now like the MBPs?

 

More importantly, the MacBook was upgraded into the Santa Rosa platform, so it has a faster Front Side Bus, as well as Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics, which is much better than GMA 950.

And there's minor cosmetic changes, like new keyboard layout.

 

With the upgrade to the Santa Rosa platform, the MacBook now supports up to 4GB of RAM.
I believe the cooling system was also slightly modified.. and as Sam said, the keyboard layout is slightly different.

 

Ah, I thought that was done months ago when they bumped them to 2.16GHz.

 

Nopes, the May update had no hardware change, just price changes.

 

The X3100 is not "much" better than the GMA 950 at all. The GMA 950 and X3100 are poor excuses for GPUs considering the final overall cost of the MacBooks. The middle MacBook will cost California residents roughly $1400 after taxes. Mine was $1408 in LA county. $1408 and the GPU you get is an X3100? From ibuypower you can get a loaded system with a 512MB GeForce 8600M GT. Dell will give you a 256MB GeForce 8600M, gig of RAM, 2GHz Core 2 Duo, DVD writer for the same cost as the entry-level MacBook.

Yes I do greatly regret my MacBook purchase.

Both are still unable to play modern games, and both still struggle with older games. Going from 12 fps to 18 fps in some cases isn't exactly anything to brag about and is still unplayable.

Some benchmarks you can find with a quick google search put the X3100 at 18fps in Half-Life 2 with max settings at 800x600. Honestly, thats pathetic. 18fps is unplayable. It was able to push Doom 3 at 10fps high settings at 800x600. The nVidia GeForce 8400M GS that just about every other non-Apple manufacturer offers for anywhere between $50-$100 upgrade option literally stomps all over the X3100. I have it in my HP, with a 2GHz Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM. Half-Life 2 runs at a rock solid 60fps at 1280x800 highest settings. HL2: Ep2 only dipped as low as 40fps in the most demanding scenes with HDR set to the highest settings, at 1280x800. My GeForce 8400M GS runs the "Orange Box" better than the PS3 does! Doom 3 is a solid 60fps at 1024x768 at the "high detail" settings.

The X3100 fares well in synthetic benchmarks, but falls flat on its face in real world performance. Yeah it scores better than some other integrated GPUs in 3DMark, but who gives a crap about 3DMark? Any person worth the air they're breathing knows that 3DMark is a crock. I remember my first HP system, Turion64 ML-37 (2GHz), 1GB of RAM, ATI Xpress 200M (integrated but 128MB dedicated memory) scored LOWER in 3DMark2001 than my old Celeron 1.1GHz 256MB of RAM and GeForce MX440SE system! Yet it could run UT2k4 at the highest settings at 1280x800 and get a good 40-60fps (depending on map) while that old system got a solid 30fps with high settings at 800x600.

Intel's paper specifications on their integrated GPU's are a complete joke and they border on outright lies. Look at the specs for the GMA 950. 10.6GB/sec of memory bandwidth? 1.6GTexel/sec fill-rate? It has a 256-bit core that runs at 400MHz? With those kinds of specs, it should be able to push older games like the original Half-Life 2 and UT2k4, as well as Doom 3, at relatively good resolutions and detail settings while mainting a somewhat high frame-rate. Yet my 2.16GHz MacBook with a GMA 950 can't even choke out 30fps in most maps at 800x600 with everything set to medium. In fact, the paper specs are better than my old ATI Xpress 200M, but that ATI card literally ate it for lunch in real world performance.

Intel's paper specifications fail to paint the real picture. like the fact that the memory bandwidth (and the fill-rate, which is dependent on bandwidth) is shared with the main CPU (which gets priority), so the real world bandwidth is less than half of the rated specification.

The video playback features of the X3100 are also good for a laugh. No H.264 hardware acceleration, no VC-1 acceleration, it has WMV9 acceleration, but no divx/xvid acceleration. No video deblocking on any of the codecs it does support (not that Apple actually takes advantage of this feature on the GPUs they use that are capable of it, you'd have to run Windows and a modern DXVA player to take advantage of these features). MPEG-2 support is finally up to where dedicated GPUs were many many years ago. It FINALLY adds iDCT support for MPEG-2 decoding. Welcome to the beginning of this decade. Both the X3100 and GMA 950 had Hardware Motion Compensation. Welcome to the 90s.

In comparison to dedicated GPUs that generally cost only $50-$100 more as upgrade options, or even compared to the new offers from ATI and nVidia in the integrated market, the X3100 is a complete joke.Basing its overall value and performance on 3DMark scores like notebookcheck does is absolutely hilarious and shows lack of credibility. The X3100 can't play old or new games. It can't play video good. What's the point of it even existing outside of the sub-$600 Windows PC market? Apple should be boycotted for offering such a piece of crap at such a high price, and until their prices (across all lines, $1999 for a system with a 128MB GPU?) are reasonable.

 

Well, I'd say one of the better reasons for choosing the X3100 is power savings and heat. It allows us to be portable on a smaller battery.

And remember, whilst Dell can give you an 8600GT, they cannot give you a 13" screen. Everything must come into balance when designing a notebook, and I am pleased with my purchase. Also, the X3100 is largely driver dependant. Expect performance to be raised (however much) with subsequent driver releases.

Still, I will be happier once I get my 4GB ram tomorrow. I'll be posting up some benchmarks and my personal thoughts on Intel's latest IGP offering.

 

=D play wc3 or wow on it, its awesome !!!

 

the Macbook is going to get led back lighting in next up update supposedly
that may increase the price but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages (better battery life and better quality picture)

 

No one in their right mind is going to buy a macbook to play games on it's not what they're about.
The OP just wanted to know if there's any updates about to happen, they've obviously made their decision already. SauronMOS apparently didn't make the right decision.
I got a macbook a few months back before the latest refresh and have no bad things to say about it. It does the job I got it for very well and I like it very much. The boot up times are fantastic (10seconds max) so there's no need to leave it switched on permanently, the screen is good, it has very nice design features and attention to detail, the speed it runs at is good for everything I need it for, OSX tiger is nice enough and very much trouble free so far plus it interacts with my PCs no problem, basically it's the Ronson woodseal of the computer world for me.. it does exactly what it says on the tin (sorry it's a UK advertising reference). Jobs a good un as they say... (oh just to add.. battery lasts about 6hours in the 2ghz core2duo pre Santa Rosa bottom of the range version)

PS no I'm not a fan of Apple products I just knew what I wanted of a laptop, did a bit of research then bought the best tool for the job (in my opinion).

 

Why would Apple choose the X3100 because of heat concerns? Everyone knows the MacBooks (and Pros) get extremely hot. I've only had my MacBook on for half an hour now just browsing the web and iStat shows my external case temperature at a "cool" 90F, 32c. It's sitting on a desk right now in a very cool room (about 70F, 21c).

I highly doubt that Apple is that concerned about heat. Just look at the MacBook Pro. It's aluminum, thinner than the MacBook, and has the GeForce 8600M GT. That thing roasts even worse than the MacBook does, but with a thinner enclosure and the GeForce runs just fine and the battery life is pretty close to what the real world battery life is on the MacBook.

Let's not forget that the GeForce 8400M GS generally runs on passive cooling and that my HP with a Core 2 Duo (SR) 2GHz and the GeForce 8400M GS actually runs cooler than my MacBook, even after playing games for a couple of hours.

Battery life isn't an issue either. It's not like Apple or nVidia can't write drivers that could extremely underclock the GPU while on battery power. Again, look at the MacBook Pro. GeForce 8600M GT, bigger screen.. real world battery life is only slightly less than the real world battery life of the MacBook. Apple or nVidia could easily write drivers that underclock the GPU to the point where battery life would be the same, or very similar, on the current MacBook battery. nVidia already has great power saving features. In their Windows XP drivers you can enable their power saving features that do actually clock the GPU lower, or you can use an overclocking tool to actually underclock it even lower than "Powermizer" would, and the drivers have an option to run the LCD backlight in a reduced power state beyond that of the normal screen dimming.

Real world battery life, and heat, would essentially be unchanged. There is no legitimate reason for Apple to not at least offer the option of a "low end" dedicated GPU like the 8400M GS.

The funny thing is that the last generation iBook G4 offered a Radeon 9550. Even with 32MB of memory (they could use more from the main system memory, as every AGP card could) they're still better at 3D graphics than the current crop of MacBooks.

The Dell XPS M1330 with a DVD writer, 13.3" screen, 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo (Santa Rosa), GeForce 8400M GS 128MB, 9 cell battery, and 2GB of RAM (purchased seperately) will cost about the same as a black MacBook. Go to the 2GHz Core 2 Duo and its more than $40 less than my MacBook was after taxes. Thats with a 9 cell battery and 1GB of memory.

Honestly, the 13.3" screen doesn't make a difference. Both the XPS M1330 and the MacBook are only SLIGHTLY smaller than your average 15.4" notebook. Granted they LOOK a lot smaller, their real world dimensions are not that much smaller. If I was going to buy a notebook again right now, a 13.3" system would not even be an option because I'm only saving a CM or so in each direction, but I lose a lot of power and screen size. You can head over to Dell and for $1,249 you can get yourself a 15.4" system with a 2GHz C2D, 256MB GeForce 8600M GT, 1680x1050 screen, and a 9 cell battery, DVD writer, etc. $50 for 2GB of RAM purchased yourself and it'll still be cheaper than the middle MacBook after taxes. Sure it's a CM or two bigger in any direction, but its a MUCH better value overall. Theres also the $150 blu-ray option, it has an HDMI output, memory card reader, etc. Or you can head over to HP and get yourself a 15.4" system with a Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 2GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, DVD writer, GeForce 8400M GS, Fingerprint reader, etc. for under $950. You can add a 12-cell battery for $50 and an HD-DVD drive for $200 and it'll still be cheaper than the middle MacBook, before and after taxes.

I'm not happy with my MacBook purchase at all. I was at first, but as the months went by... I just grew less and less happy with it. I should have listened to my girlfriend, who had Macs before and then switched to Windows. She told me not to get a Mac and that I would eventually not like it. I didn't listen and look what happened.

Sure the system is quiet (unless you're browsing pages with Flash), and the battery life is good... but the system gets so ridiculously hot that you can't use it as a "laptop" for more than 20 -30 minutes at a time. And while the bundled software with OS X is decent, you still need Windows for good DVD playback and other software that has no alternative on OS X (like Nero).

Don't put your faith in Intel's drivers either. Intel has released several "driver updates" for the GMA 950 over the months I've had it and not a single one has boosted performance or fixed compatibility issues.

What's the point of 4GB of RAM in the MacBook? Honestly, by the time 4GB of RAM becomes necessary for every day computing, the MacBook will have been obsolete for some time. The screen is too small for any task that would require 4GB of RAM today, and it certainly doesn't have the GPU power for HD video editing or anything like that... And 4GB of RAM certainly isn't going to help the performance of the X3100 at all. You'll still be limited by the fact that the GPU itself is a joke and that the bandwidth/RAM is shared with the main CPU which always gets priority over the GPU.

Sorry, I prefer UT3, Half-Life 2 Orange Box, Gears of War, Doom 3, and others My HP plays them all fine, but my MacBook can barely choke out 30fps at mid settings at 800x600 in UT2k4. I also like my DVDs to look good, which they don't on the GMA 950 or DVD Player in OS X.

Dedicated GPUs aren't just for gaming. A dedicated GPU has other good features, like better drivers. Not to mention a dedicated GPU (as well as the current integrated GPUs from ATI and nVidia) have MUCH better video processing capabilities. The "low end" GeForce 8400M GS thats basically standard in the Windows world is good enough to play HD-DVD and blu-ray on an HDTV. Dedicated (and the current integrated from ATI and nVidia) have video deblocking features, hardware support for H.264 (Apple's favorite codec), VC-1, divx/xvid (usually listed as MPEG-4), etc. A GOOD integrated GPU (non-Intel) or dedicated GPU wouldn't get all choked up with animated menus in iDVD like the Intel cards do. I can go on and on as to why Apple should offer dedicated GPUs, for reasons other than gaming.

Theres also the whole "value for the money" factor too, which is significantly more important than anything else. A system with the bottom of the barrel integrated GPU simply is not worth $1299 when bundled with a DVD writer, 120GB HDD, and 1GB of RAM.

You're talking about the time it takes for the little animation under the Apple logo to appear? That's not the full "boot time". Generally, "boot time" refers to the time it takes from being powered on to reaching the desktop. My MacBook with Tiger was able to from power button press to being able to open Safari in 21 seconds. With Leopard it takes about 31 seconds. Yeah the boot time is nice. But when you consider how often you have to reboot into Windows or switch over to a Windows machine to use good software or get quality DVD playback........

All of my Windows XP machines have only take about a minute to fully boot. Thats not bad. With Vista, my HP took about 40 seconds.

Not any better than other PCs. My HP and MacBook are just as bright and "colorful" as each other. Even Apple clearly stated that LED backlit screens will "look no different" than a standard LCD screen. I find it funny that, even at this forum, people refer to a picture showing a clearly brighter MBP with a LED screen. Not taking into account just how bad, and different, standard LCD screens look in pictures. I know my MacBook screen is nowhere near as dark as it is in my own pictures or pictures other people have taken.

Like the discoloring wrist rests? The plastic that scratches from just about anything? The lack of user serviceable optical drives? The MBPs that can dent, scratch, and require the entire system be torn apart just to upgrade the HDD? The lack of memory card readers, standard expansion slots, HDMI outputs, requiring adapters for most other types of video outputs? The cooling system that puts heat out against the display and (in the MacBook) can, over time, cause the plastic to warp and crack or just cause the internal components to overheat?

The MacBook sure is quiet. But mines sitting here whisper quiet. But it sure is roasting, 90F external case temp.

Then you haven't used it very much. I've had a Mac since March (on my second MacBook now thanks to Apple botching the repair of my first MacBook). Combined, I've had both Macs crash as many times as I've had Windows crash in all the years I've been using it, since the Windows 3.0 days. Everything from a hard system lock for no apparent reason, to Finder freezing when trying to burn a data DVD using a "Burn Folder".

That's the theoretical max. Not real world performance. Apple gets that spec by turning bluetooth and wireless off and setting the screen to its lowest setting. In that situation, my MacBook gets an even 7 hours.

But in a real world situation, with the screen set to a useable brightness level (usually around half), WiFi on, and browsing the web, you'll get around 3.75 hours (at least, I do). I can bump it up to 4.75 if I turn the screen all the way down. But then its too dark and I get a headache from straining to read it.

But even with good battery life, the system gets so ridiculously hot that you can't use it for more than short periods with "cool down" periods that last another 20-30 minutes.

 

all the points I made were fact based on my experiences of my macbook. 5-6hours is how long on average my battery lasts, if I'm honest it's never on for that full duration in one go which may help. A side note to that is it's had 58 cycles and is on 98% health. (wifi on permanently, bluetooth off, screen at around 75% brightness)

My macbook is at home/office connected to my windows machines all the time I use it, my files are held on the pcs and opened worked on using the mac and resaved on the pcs drives with no problems.

My boot up time is 10 seconds from the moment I press the power button to the point I can open a program from the desktop.
On the point about me not using it much, you couldn't be any more wrong! I use it everyday and have done ever since I got it, which was in mid September.

Just on the comment about them being known to run extemely hot. Mine is running currently at toasty 35degrees C. When I work on my 13mb RAW format photos it heats up to an impossible 45 degrees C. The ambient temps where I use it are 18-23 degrees C. My fans very rarely switch on.

I have a few very minor scratches on the exterior of my macbook but nothing major and really it's my own fault for stuffing it my rucksack and taking it out on the moors! I've not seen any discolouration on the areas either side of the track pad but that's possibly due to the fact I never rest my wrists on it as it slows down my typing. Plus the edge of the laptop would cut my circulation off!

(btw I never compared the screen to anything I just said it was good!)

 

OSX was the main reason i bought the MB. can you get that with a dell? i think my point has been made.


while all your points are valid, you still "legally" have to run VISTA on your dell/HP config.

NO THANKS

 

10 seconds? right, not on anything ive seen.
45c while editing RAW? my new MB idles at 50c.

im having a somewhat hard time believing some of your info.

i have yet to see ONE MB idle any lower than mid 40s, let alone work-load under 50c

all that said, i dont miss my dell 1210.

 

I just booted the macbook up to do this post after reading your reply on my pc and it took 11 seconds, ok I'm one out. If you know of a way to do screenshots of widgets screen then please let me know I'll happily post the image of the temps from iStat and I'll leave my canon software running behind with the raw format images open in it, in editing screen not in preview (which isn't the true RAW image) so you can see them, albeit a bit blacked out due to the overlay. I am making a huge assumption here but I use my mac in the UK in a cool environment with low humidity on a studio table, I dare say this helps drastically with the running temps of any computer.
Short of making you a little mpeg of the boot up you'll just have to take my word for it on the fast boot up time.

 

My MacBook usually boots up around 20 seconds. Still superior though .

As for taking screenshots with Dashboard showing, simple. Just show Dashboard, and press Command (Apple key) + Shift + 3. That will take a screenshot .

 

There is just absolutely no way you're getting 5-6 hours of battery life with wifi on and the screen at 75%.

Judging from your other comments in this thread, nobody can really believe you when you say that.

If you're talking about 5-6 hours with the system going to sleep during those periods you're not using it, then yeah that can happen. My HP could do that too. That's not impressive and it is certainly not a 5-6 hour straight run. There is absolutely no way you can get 5-6 hours while USING the system with that screen setting and wifi on unless you are just not using it at all and the system goes into sleep mode for several minutes at a time.

If you're going by what the battery timer tells you... then thats highly inaccurate. I was using my MacBook tonight and it jumped from telling me I had 6.5 hours left at 90% remaining down to 3.5 then back up to 5:45, etc.

It is just literally impossible for the battery to last that long under those conditions if you are actually using it.

And, again, if you have the system "on" and its going to sleep for several minutes at a time, or longer, then that is a different case and the battery certainly isn't lasting as long as you claim it is, because lasting 6 hours in an extremely low power state is not impressive at all and very common for any modern notebook.

Again, that is impossible. As another posted pointed out, this is very difficult to believe. If it were true, you'd have the fastest booting Mac in existence and even Apple would be interested in having a look at it.

On every Intel Mac I've seen so far, it takes about 11.5 seconds before the loading animation appears.

Even if you enabled hibernate, you'd still have to wait for the system to reach that point and then load the OS.

Theres just no way at all for your system to be booting faster than 20 seconds.

That too is impossible. My system has been on for an hour now. The CPU is idling at 55c. You know what I've been doing this whole time? Talking to friends on iChat, YM, and MSN. Nothing else.

When I encode a video, I've seen the CPU get as high as 85c.

I just watched a 30 second clip on youtube and the temperature shot up to 62c!

The temperature inside this room right now is 21c, outside it is 10c with 0% humidity (I live in the desert).

Theres no way anybody can take your word for it. It's 11.5 seconds before the real OS load begins. You're telling us that your system magically skips everything the firmware has to do before the OS loads?

The only way you're going to get 11 seconds full boot time is if you're trying to use the time it takes your system to come out of sleep mode (plus the time it takes you to type in your password) and pass that off as "boot" time.

And your temperatures are impossible too. Everyone knows just how hot the Core 2 Duos run, especially in the Mac with Apple's horribly designed cooling system..

Actually, I run XP on my HP that shipped with Vista You can configure the Dell I spoke of with XP as well.

In all honesty, OS X doesn't matter one bit to me. I'd rather have Windows because it allows me to play games, run DVDs and other videos in much higher quality than OS X (especially DVDs), and I get an endless amount of software choices. I'm not stuck with Toast or Apple's own built-in burning software. I can choose from endless freeware or commercial burning utilities. I have multiple choices of DVD players that all mop the floor with DVD Player.

I've never had a virus in the entire time I've used Windows, nor spyware. And I've had OS X (on both of my Macs) crash as many times in the last 9 months as I've had Windows crash in 17 years.

Windows allows me to do anything and everything I want with a computer, without spending a lot of money, not just a handful of things really well.

I mention money because some things for OS X are ridiculously priced. Look at TV tuners for example. The cheapest decent one for OS X costs $200. Great TV tuners for Windows start at about $40. My HP came with a TV tuner, as well as the IR breakout box and blaster to control my DirecTV box. It would have been just a little over $100 if I had bought it on my own. On the Mac I'd have to spend twice that and I wouldn't be able to control my DirecTV box.

 

I can certainly believe the 5. Because I'm getting six with lower brightness.

Oddly enough, I've found that just having a boot camp partition installed doubles my boot up time, and before that I was pretty close to the 20 second mark. Of course, it still doesn't hold a candle to Linux.

Even if you enabled hibernate, you'd still have to wait for the system to reach that point and then load the OS.

Yeah, internally, my MacBook runs at average 55C, on the outside it feels okay though, so I havent taken it up with Apple yet.

Congrats. I wish my Windows experiences were as enjoyable as yours.

 

Wow, someone makes a bad choice and the blame just can't be on them.

Suck it up, Sauron. You made a bad choice. The MacBook isn't for everyone, and apparently wasn't for you, but the blame for you buying yours weighs completely on your shoulders, not Apple's. If Apple want to release a better MacBook, that's their decision, and if someone wants to buy it, that's the buyer's decision. Apple's not gonna break your arms if you don't.

 

Well, Apple's claim of 6 hours is with the brightness set to the lowest screen level, no wifi, no bluetooth, and very minimal activity.

In a real world situation, with the screen set to about 50% (anything below 25% is far too dark to use), wifi on, web browsing, chatting, etc. will get you around 4 hours. Thats how its been on both of my MacBooks and others I've seen.

Thats odd. Using Boot Camp didn't affect my boot time.

Do you have OS X selected as your default startup disk? Go into System Preferences and open Startup Disk and select your OS X partition as the default startup disk.

Every time I've tried Linux (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mandrake before it became Mandriva, and some others) they all took longer than OS X does to boot, Tiger or Leopard.

Vista on my HP only takes about 40 seconds to fully boot.

Unfortunately, Apple tells you in their documentation that its normal for the MacBook and MBPs to get warm and if they get uncomfortably warm, just put it on a desk. Good support and design there.

I love how its my fault for Apple making poorly designed notebooks

The only bad thing I did was believe Apple and the Apple fanboys prior to buying my Mac. When I go it, I loved it. But as time went on, I realized it wasn't a very good value. Its a good system, but it really should be priced about $300 less and have an option for a dedicated GPU.

 

Then I must have got a great MacBook then, because I use it all the time on the very lowest brightness setting (one above no screen lol) and I can read it perfectly fine. I usually only turn the brightness up when I watch some anime or something.

Yeah, OS X is my default. I don't usually boot into Windows at all, because I have VMware Fusion installed for Visual Studio.

That's why I don't use those bloated distros, as they are almost as bad as OS X/Vista. I use Arch Linux, because then I only run what I want to run.

 

Off topic a little?

 

Well, its the same story for all manufacturers. They base their battery life by optimal settings.

And funny you say anything lower than 25% is too hard to use...I actually would like more levels before 0 and +1 brightness level, as in the dark, even +1 seems to be fine for me.

 

If you truly think it's a poorly designed notebook, then why the hell did you buy it?

THAT would be your fault.

And, design is subjective in most cases and not objective. There are plenty of people here that will tell you the MacBook is designed well (including me). There's no fault in how it's designed, as that is the way Apple wanted it. Can it be designed better? Sure! EVERY computer can be designed better, otherwise there would be no motivation to do so.

 

if they put a dedicated gpu in the macbook would result in much shorter battery life and certainly wouldn't help reducing the heat. I think it is a decision that apple had to make, put a dedicated gpu (only marginally better than the x3100, say a 8400M) in the macbook or keep the heat down and battery life long.

 

That would also subtract from MBP sales, which Apple wouldn't want.

 

The levels below 25% are too dark. I find my eyes straining on both a MB and MBP at that level. And yes, before somebody claims its my fault again (funny how Apple can do no wrong), my eyes are in perfect health

My HP is actually about twice as bright on the lowest setting compared to my MacBook. On the lowest brightness setting with power settings set to "max battery" in XP and nVidia's PowerMizer on with the "Use less power for my LCD" option ticked, I can get over 3 hours of battery life with it (wifi, browsing, chatting).

*sigh* Its funny how Apple does no wrong

As I said, again, I thought the MacBook was well designed and I really liked it at first. That was until I realized that OS X wasn't all its cracked up to be, not nearly as good as Apple and the fanboys make it out to be (you can't really find that out until you've been using it for awhile) and that you can get hardware thats much more powerful for the same price or less. And with other manufacturers, you dont have to worry about heat or discoloration or plastic chipping, etc.

Hah! GeForce 8400M "marginally" better than the X3100? Theres some benchmarks you can find with a quick Google search that put Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 at 800x600 high settings at a combined average of about 15fps. Thats on a MacBook with the 2.2GHz 4MB L2 cache C2D and X3100. My HP with a 2GHz C2D (Santa Rosa) with 2MB of L2 cache and a GeForce 8400M GS can significantly out perform that. Half-Life 2, highest settings, v-sync on, will get a rock solid 60fps at 1280x800. HL2 Episode 2 will only drop down to 40fps in some situations, all settings at highest. Doom 3 at High with will lock at 60fps at 1024x768. Modern games, like UT3 and Gears of War, get 30+ at 800x600 with mid-high settings. Let's see that MacBook with the X3100 try out UT3, which has lower minimum requirements than GoW

To put things in perspective, the GMA 950 in the "previous generation" MacBook regularly only scores a couple of frames per second lower than the X3100. Generally, if the X3100 gets 14fps, the GMA 950 will get around 12. Both still unplayable. Anyway, my MacBook with the C2D 2.16GHz and GMA 950 could barely choke out 30fps at 800x600 medium settings in UT2k4 in Windows XP. My 8400M GS with the 2GHz C2D can lock on 60fps at 1280x800 with everything, everything, set to highest.

Aside from gaming, the GeForce 8400M GS that Apple could use has many other advantages. Video playback is one of them. The X3100 barely has MPEG-2 decoding capabilities on-par with dedicated GPUs from the beginning of this decade. While the 8400M has neat features like deblocking, H.264 and VC-1 hardware acceleration, full hardware support for HD-DVD and blu-ray as a result, etc.

The battery life would remain unchanged. Why? Theres no reason Apple and nVidia couldn't write drivers that would considerably underclock the GPU when on battery. nVidia already has good power saving features, like underclocking and using less power to drive the display. Why couldn't they write drivers that would underclock it as far as it could go and still run all of the fancy UI effects? Or even if the user wanted, disable the effects and underclock it even more to get better battery life.

Anyway, all of that is made irrelevant by looking at the MBP. Similar real world battery life compared to the MacBook (only less because of the bigger LCD). Heat isn't an issue because its not like Apple cares if their systems get too hot. Their documentation even tells you that the system getting uncomfortably hot is a normal thing.

Yeah. God forbid Apple actually sell a product thats worth the money and not overpriced.

 

Hey, everyone has the right to their opinion. If your eyes don't like it below 25% brightness, that's perfectly fine. Just note that it is important to say its your opinion, as others such as myself find that below 25% is still fine. Heck, I just turned down to +1 brightness for this .

As for other manufacturers, yeah, instead you can worry about other things, like grainy screens on Dells. Other manufacturers have other issues too, plus Apple's acknowledged these ones (while other manufacturers still don't admit to others).

 

I find it funny that you can't admit to fault either. Kinda hypocritical if you ask me. I'll admit, I don't like the HP I bought. But I'm not going to blame HP for it. I was the one that didn't do quite enough research; there's tons of other options out there in the laptop market.

I never said Apple can do no wrong. Look at the Pippin.

And EVERYTHING you said so far you could've found out on your own by really doing some research (outside of this forum). You don't like OS X, and most of the stuff about the MacBook is how it doesn't have the features of a PC notebook that you want, whcih ALL lead me to believe you wanted a PC notebook in the first place. OS X is a very powerful OS, but it does have its limitations, as does Windows. You should've found a Mac friend or an Apple store and used OS X for roughly a month.

YOu have to worry about heat with a lot of other manufacturers too. Apple fixed the discoloration and plastic chipping, so -1 point for you there.

Your "flaws" are either ones that almost every manufacturer makes (heat is something that all manufaacturers have to deal with, and while some have designs that are better than others at disipating heat, none can get rid of it completely) or are things that Apple has already fixed.

 

MacBooks have issues with grainy screens as well. The screen on my second MacBook looks a lot better than the screen on the original that I had. I was just reading a thread over at MacRumors earlier where a guy returned a MacBook because it had an awful screen and every other MacBook in the store had the same problem. Then he went to another Apple store and all of the screens on the MacBooks were completely different.

Let's not forget the yellowing issue the LED MBPs have too. You know, the now famous problem where half the screen is yellow, or it turns yellow, or it shows up yellow and with dead pixels.

Whether you want to admit it or not, Apple hardware generally has more problems than PC hardware.

*sigh* Do I have to explain this in more simple English so you can finally understand what I am saying?

I wanted a Mac. I did my research. In fact, I had bought an HP even though I wanted a Mac in 2006. That entire year until I got my first MacBook, I had wished I had gotten the Mac instead.

I bought my MacBook after the HP died. I bought it because I was "tired" of the "problems" I had with Windows that were caused by the faulty hardware in the HP.

At first, I was happy with my Mac. It was everything the fanboys and Apple said it would be.

However, as time went on, things started to change. I found myself still having to boot into Windows or use a Windows PC to actually get things done. Even simple things, such as watching DVDs, left much to be desired in OS X.

Then the little issues OS X has started to show. My first run in was when Finder crashed when I tried to burn a data DVD from a burn folder. Then other things, like the Safari 3 beta bringing down the entire OS.

Then I started looking at what I could have gotten if I had spent that $1408 on a PC.

Then I had the optical drive fail. I sent it in for repair. The repair center essentially destroyed it, twice, and it came back in worse condition than it went out in. I spent more time dealing with Apple to get it replaced than I did with HP to get my faulty system replaced.

After I received my HP with a dedicated GPU, and realized what I had been missing out on all of these months, as well as Apple's recent business practices, it was just about finished for me and Apple.

I did do my research. The problem is that Apple fans and Apple themselves aren't truly honest with what the whole "experience" is like. Both act as if OS X is perfect and there are no problems. Thats simply not true. They act as if you can do everything on a Mac that you can do with Windows. That also, is not true, unless you install Windows on your Mac. But if it comes down to that.... you can get yourself a much better Windows PC for much less. OS X has no alternatives or equals for many pieces of software, gaming is a joke, DVD playback is a joke.. the systems get ridiculously hot.

But you don't find out any of that until well after you have purchased the system and have been using it for awhile.

You just don't find out the truth about the Mac world until after you purchase it and use it. Once the "honeymoon" wears off, you'll find yourself wondering why you purchased and what all the fuss is about.

I said it before and I'll say it again, the only way one can truly be happy with a Mac is if they have either used Macs all their lives or they have a second PC that runs Windows as well as their Mac.

 

Do you have any statistics to back that up? Or just your personal experiences?

 

and as a side note, about the heat;

At first glance, Macbooks seem to run much hotter than a Dell, but on average, they put out about the same amount. (Macbook being about 96, Dell being about 94)

This was actually proven here.

He basically ran the same dvd on a Macbook & a Dell Latitude D620 and measured the temperatures after running.

 

Any way you can admit that you made a bad decision? I'm guessing no on that one.

Ok, that's fine and dandy. I'm glad you wanted one and decided to do your research, although your research wasn't as good as it needed to be if you found out long afterwards that you wanted a dedicated GPU. I'll discuss that in more detail later.

Correction: YOU started to change. The Mac had nothing to do with that, nor did Apple. The Mac you had did not change at all, only you did. My plain English isn't getting through to you either: this is not Apple's fault.

Crashes occasionally happen, no OS is crash-proof especially when you try to demand more than it will give. There's so many possibilities as to what could've happened that made burning a DVD crash the Finder that I won't even bother going into detail. If it NEVER burned a DVD ever, you would have a point to bring up, especially if you had evidence of this happening elsewhere. So far, though, you've only brought up your own rant as proof that Apple's the fault of your problems.

Oh, and key word: BETA. My goodness, if you're gonna complain about something in BETA, at least be productive about it and report the problem to Apple so they can fix it. I mean, that is what the BETA is for: to report problems.

PCs are obviously going to be cheaper just because most manufacturers throw in every price cut and bonus at you just to get you to buy one from them. Apple doesn't need to do that; their laptops sell fine without it.

This, is understandable. However, you're gonna find reports like this from every single PC manufacturer in existance. Yours is a rare case, as most of them are, but these cases are not the average nor the norm. Did you try to talk to a higher-up in customer service? Many people on this forum have told of Apple basically sending them brand-new laptops if they have trouble like this. Not only that, the lemon law in most states says after the third repair, a new one HAS to be given. You should've mentioned this to them.

Ummm....if it was a dedicated GPU that you wanted this whole time, why the hell did you get a MacBook?

Yet again, your actions have shown that you really DIDN'T do your research. You obviously know a lot about the limitations to an integrated GPU, so again, I must ask, why the hell you bought a laptop with one?

While I'll admit that you've had some pretty bad experience with Apple's customer support, it's not the norm. You could've pushed for better service. Apple's known to come through for its customers more than other manufacturers, and there's plenty of proof of that on this forum.

Point me to where Apple (or anyone, for that matter) have said that OS X is perfect. I dare you. Prove me wrong.

1) There's an alternative to the vast majority (I don't know about everything; your sweeping generalizations are a joke) that can be done on a PC. Windows support was given for those times that there just isn't one, plus it allowed for those that had programs they must use in Windows the ability to get a Mac if they wanted it, unlike before where it was either Mac OS or Linux, nothing else.

2) Let's see here....a "much better" Windows laptop for "much less" than a MacBook. Ok, how about we back up our claim:

MacBook: $1299 (mid-range white, superdrive)
Dell XPS (only Dell with a 13.3" screen): $1279 (and that's with a $100 savings)
HP dv2500t (smallest model, as they have none with a 13.3" screen): $1142.99 (Yet again, after a $100 rebate)

If you wanna compare "apples to apples" (no pun intended), you'll see that it's not that much of a price difference. I can guarantee you that the HP there will get just as hot, if not hotter, than your MacBook. Dells are known to get pretty hot too.

3) Sweeping generalizations FTW! NOT! It is a known fact that Mac OS is not a strong contender for gaming. If you came here believing it was, the joke's only on you. AAAAANNNNNNNNNNDDDDD....WTF is this about DVD playback? If you're having a problem with that, and you're also having a problem with burning DVDs, could it possibly be a problem with the DVD player in your MacBook? Nooooooooooooo....

So, somehow, when you get the system everything is hunky doory right out of the box, then gremlins come in and mess up your system one by one?

Or is this what is often known as an ID10T error?

That "you" in that sentence is certainly pointed in YOUR direction: there are plenty of others on this forum and others, throughout the world, and heck, most of them AREN'T on a forum, that can say otherwise. Your experience is not the end-all, be-all of experiences that everyone will face. Your over-broad, sweeping generalizations are friggin' hilarious, though, especially without any links, facts, or research to back them up.

And you'll be proven wrong again and again. Search this very board often? Must not. Or do you want ME to actually do some research where you seem to lack the ability to, and prove you wrong? Again?

 

Clearly this has absolutely nothing to do with the OP's question, and we don't tolerate OS wars here. This thread is closed.