Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro Review Discussion

by Kevin O'Brien

The new 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro brings a lot of new features to the table from the previous generation. Users now get a large battery that gives pretty amazing life, a better display, faster processor, FireWire, SD-card slot, and best of all a lower starting price. Getting more for less seems to be the trend during this slow economy, so is there any reason not to buy the new 13" MacBook Pro? Read our full review to find out.

Read the full content of this Article: Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro Review

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Great review, thanks!

Later today I'll have both the new 13 and 15 MBPs on my desk side by side and will be comparing the screens. I'll try to post here if anyone's interested but for sure I'll post in the Mac sub-forum. All this talk about the 13 getting a much improved screen has a lot of people wondering if it'll match the one on the 15s.

 

Kevin, the wifi test was in actual use all that time as in surfing etc?

 

I was surfing pretty actively, trying to stay away from flash/streaming video websites. Basically the same routine as the rest of our notebook battery benchmarks trying to simulate what you might be doing if you were trying to strech the life of the battery over an entire day in classes or stuck in an airport. Also Bluetooth was disabled throughout the test.

 

I like the photo with the bottom cover off showing how the hardware is packed inside.

It would be useful to include results for a notebook with the Intel 4500MHD in the PCMark05 and 3DMark06 tables. This is the current competitor to the nVidia integrated graphics.

John

 

Your wish is our command ... we just added the ThinkPad X301 to the list.

 

Yea hard to find 13" notebooks with integrated graphics these days, almost all have dedicated options. The ThinkPad X301 has much slower processor it still beat out the MacBook Pro in PcMark05.

 

Just a heads up to the reviewer, you didn't mention anything about "Noise" in the "heat and noise" section.

 

The 13" Macbook Pro is a really nice laptop. I was oogling it last night at the Apple Store in Tyson's Corner, VA. I just... couldn't work with the ultra glossy, reflective screen. No matter how I positioned myself I could always see myself in the reflection, and found it horribly distracting.

 

"Fan noise under these conditions is non-existent."

 

but how would you get sound?

 

Well technically I think DisplayPort can pass digital audio, but the headphone jack outputs digital optical out.

 

DisplayPort can pass audio, but the one on Apple notebooks can't.

 

It appears the low HDD speeds are due to a downgrade in the SATA controller.

http://gizmodo.com/5291042/did-apple-downgrade-the-hard-drive-controller-in-the-new-macbook-pros

 

Excellent review! BTW,any chance you can get you hands on other unit with different screen(So you can tell if others are better)?

 

I was hoping you can touch on the screen a little more. I know that both the 15" and the 13" are getting a 60% gamut upgrade. However, the 15" was already far superior to the 13" in screen quality before. Is there still a difference now between 15 and 13 or are they the same now. Hopefully you can compare the current 13" to the 15" unibody before and see if they're comparable.

 

No express card slot though is a bit, well, silly and E sata would have been nice too. Don't really agree with you on the keyboard being perfected by Apple, bias maybe? Display port seems all good and well, but I want proper display connections so I don't have to carry around adapters as well.

 

I would probably be the last person to be called biased towards Apple

That said the Apple style seems to feel better built than the Sony style. Keys feel more solid, backlighting is excellent, and the key action feels better.

 

So just a more quality keyboard build?

 

Funny to see that an SD-slot is considered a plus in this day and age...

 

Yup

Haha think of it as a bit of sarcasm

 

I think you right.



you'd think Apple would take a page out of Lenovo's mistake book and learn from it... there are a fair number of T61p users that are irritated that they can not use a high-end SSD and benifit from it.

in 2 years those 13 MBP will have a very limited upgrade path.

 

The benchmarks didn't show any comparison between the Macbook 2.4 ghz unibody to the 13" Macbook Pro.

Based on the components, everything is identical to the 13" Macbook Pro with the exception of the zippier CPU in my 2.4Ghz Macbook.

Is it safe to say that it will outperform the 13" MBP?

 

Only in CPU intensive applications the 2.4 will have a slight benefit.

The P8600 that's used in the Macbook 2.4 is also used in the Dell Studio XPS that's in the table.

 

interior is very tidy. screen seems gd quality except for some limited viewing angle

 

So I guess removable batteries aren't a plus anymore...

 

Depends on who you are and what you do. I if it was a high failure rate and I worked away from a power outlet, then I'd definitely not want a non-removable battery.

Great job kevin!

 

I found this equally amusing.

Oh the subjective nature of notebook reviews leaves much to desire.....

 

Can someone go through and work via the late inclusion of SD cards etc when we can finally expect to have a blu-ray option on a Apple computer product.

 

Can we say run on?

 

Come on, don't you know that Apple expects you to download all your movies and TV from iTunes? Why would anyone care about a Blu-ray option on a Mac?

 

That hurts

Yes, I would like to see them downloading a true HD video (~10GB) via wireless connection...

 

who knows, 2012? it seems they went backwards this last refresh, and as for downloading off i-tunes .... I will shoot myself before then

 

Between the Newest Macbook 13" and The Macbook Pro 13"

Which is better in proformance?

Which is more worth its price?

 

The MBP has more performance and is cheaper. The battery is better too, though non removable. If you don't need a removable battery or ExpressCard 34 slot, go for the 13" MBP for sure.

 

The 2.4GHz Unibody Macbook will be slightly faster than the 2.26GHz Macbook Pro during CPU intensive tasks, like video encoding.

In my opinion the Macbook Pro. Mainly because of the better screen and better battery life.

 

Interesting choice how they got rid of the regular MB branding for the newer models. I guess my friend whose got a 15.4" MBP fully loaded at over $3,000 now has his worst nightmere of having those "regular" macbook people now included within the pro line....haha

 

Hi
I got the laptop last week. how exactly do u get 7 hours on the battery. i get nowhere near it.
also is there some hdd safety feature in it?
cause when you move the laptop there is a noise coming from hdd.

 

Aside from these differences, it looks like Apple has essentially released a revamped MacBook and called it a MacBook Pro. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see the strategy of putting their reputable "Pro" label onto a lower-end model.

 

In OS X, set brightness to 70%, disable BT, dont let the HD go to sleep, and browse the web lightly.

 

I'd say it's because the gulf between this and the 15" MBP was getting smaller and smaller and someone at Apple just said "what the hell......"

 

Yes it has a free fall sensor. It locks the head when sudden movement is detected.

 

Hmm.. let me guess - the X301 had an SSD, right? . I have a X300, and with the SSD launching applications, etc. is literally many times faster than my super fast desktop with GTX 285, 4GHz, etc., etc., but when it comes to processing power, it obviously is good for not much more than web browsing and light videos. And of course the benchmarks, especially 3DMark06 show this to be true.

Yet another reason for me to never use a laptop without an SSD again

When the first MacBook aluminum came out, I was annoyed it wasn't called MacBook Pro. Now there's ever more reason to call it "Pro" and I'm glad they did. The battery life, the design, the power (in a 13" notebook), backlit keyboard, better screen, build quality, etc. all add up to something I would definitely call "Pro". Why wouldn't you call it "Pro"? It's about as close a 13" laptop can get to being "Pro". Now the plastic MacBook - that's definitely not "Pro".

 

I agree the 13" MBP deserves to be called Pro now, after the screen got improved.

Some people believe it needs to have dedicated graphics to be called Pro. I can see their point.

 

Even those that do a lot of graphic design work (so the pro's that use Macs) seem not to favour the edge to edge glass display.

The connectivity is lacking. It has no express card slot or 3G options. It also has no matte display option. The biggest issue is the display. Apple need to address this. It also looks like a consumer laptop to me with this direction Apple has taken. Apple have appeared to want to push to capture the consumer market over the pro market for quite some time.

There are other laptops like the Dell Studio XPS 1340 that have got the same edge to edge glossy display and backlight keyboard. The Dell also has a more powerful graphics card but it is not a professional notebook. HP also offers notebooks like this but they fall firmly in the consumer market.

I'm not crazy for the design at all. The weight and the things i mentioned above are the biggest bars to me considering this laptop.

It is still a decent notebook though if it meets your needs.

I have been reading a lot about the battery life. The 15" version has the best battery life. Users seems to be getting on average 5 hrs with 50 percent brightness with the 13" MBP. I don't know what they're doing differently to Kevin, but something must be different in the settings. This is what i got from reading the batttery life threads on Mac forums.

 

Oh yeah, and they should have put a 22" display in the 13" MacBook as well. And a numeric keypad. And a little optical mouse that pops out of a tray and transforms into a 5" mouse

Sometimes you can't fit everything. I think an expresscard slot doesn't belong in a 13" laptop when it takes away valuable space for other things. Guess what the expresscard slot in my SZ was used for 100% of the time? An SD card reader.

As to the battery life, I'm wondering where specifically you're getting those values, because I'd like to verify this. When you say "on average" 5 hours, this implies you see people who only get 2-4 hours, which seems unlikely from what I've read. If this is really more of a minimum value, then that would make sense.

All review I've read got at least 6-7 hours in Mac OSX under normal use, and a few of 8-9 hours (under Vista it is definitely lower due to poor drivers). Either there's some major battery variation going on here or something is inconsistent in the measurements.

The weight is definitely a compromise, but I've learned that build quality is far more important, so long as it's light enough to carry comfortably. My Thinkpad X300 makes my old SZ feel like a toy in comparison, which says a lot considering the SZ makes most other laptops feel like a toy. And the unibody MacBooks are as good if not better than my Thinkpad. I can't figure why you wouldn't like the MacBook design though, but that's your preference.

As I've said in another thread, my main reasons for considering the 13" MBP is the exceptional battery life, power, build quality, and design. Currently my X300 works very well for me but when I need more battery life and processing power, the MBP 13" is simply the best option I see.

 

You're probably just joking but anyway: 3G connectivity or a matte display are not unrealistic options for a 13" Pro notebook. So the comparison does not make much sense to me.

The reason that Apple did not put 3G inside is not because of lack of space I believe.

Laptopmag got 6:13 with very light use, PCMag got 4 hours 44 minutes with MobileMark 2007.

8-9 hours was probably for the 15" Macbook Pro.

 

Well if a laptop had no 3G i would need the express card slot at least to have mobile broadband. It would be a compromise and i dislike using usb dongles in 2009 for mobile broadband.

Like Phil said it is not unrealistic at all to expect a premium laptop to have those things i mentioned.

Also, like i said the battery life figures came from owners and not reviews.
I have seen people say that they got in the region of three hours. These people probably don't know how to obtain better battery life. I said 5 hrs was the average they seem to be getting with 50% brightness.
I wasn't going to link to those posts but here are some.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2037134&start=0&tstart=0
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=728140
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=730206
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=722213
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=718921
http://forums.macnn.com/69/mac-notebooks/394072/new-macbook-pro-13-getting-terrible/

Edited to add:

As for the design, i don't think that it looks dreadful. I'm just not that keen on the black/silver two tone effect. I owned a pre unibody MBP and i actually really liked that design. Needless to say the 15" that i ordered i configured with a matte display. My current main laptop has got a kind of semi glossy display and i've owned laptops with glossy displays but i prefer matte displays but that does not mean that i hate laptops with glossy displays. My purchasing choices does not reflect that. However, i'm not a fan of the edge to edge glass screen coatings on laptops.

 

Also a lot of the other posts seem to be people who don't know much at all about laptops, complaining that their battery estimates are low, some even before calibrating the battery. Some seem to be running Vista as well which is known to reduce the battery life.

This one is interesting too:

This is after he ran the battery through a few times. I've noticed on both of my latest laptops that you don't get optimal battery life the first few charges.

In any case people are definitely getting 6-7 hours of battery life with normal use in Mac OS. However the variation is concerning, so if I buy one I'll be sure there's a good return policy just in case.

Regarding the glossiness, I actually prefer glossy displays and like how it has a glass cover. This way you don't have to worry about touching the screen, you can easily clean it, and you get no reduction in contrast as with matte screens.

 

A number of the posts i linked to the people were not novices as some seemed to have experience with Macs. Those people seemed to be hitting the 5hrs region with normal use.
The variation is huge.