Apple Refreshes The MacBook Pro Line Discussion

Sony - See sig. after 8 months of ownership (3 of which were in repair), I had to demand a refund. Not ready to get back in with Sony again. But honestly...if they relaunched their 18.4" AW line with another Adobe-approved RGB LED display, I may have to go Sony again. that display was to die for.

Acer - 1 hour of battery life according to PC Mag. Definitely going the wrong way with the battery life.

Toshiba - Looks good. Would miss the expresscard slot (usb 3.0) and it's maxing out at around 2 hours of battery life according to C|Net.


I think for me, it's coming down to

• HP Envy 17 (which we know nothing about yet)
• HP Elitebook 8740W + Dreamcolor 2. Beautiful looking laptop with workstation performance. Unknown battery life. Most potential.
• Apple Macbook Pro 17" i7. All-arounder. The Ken/Ryu of the 3.

All 3 I'd expect to be similar in cost...with the Elitebook being up to $200-$400 more expensive. I can be okay with that if the battery life doesn't blow chunks.

It's a wide open race. I look forward to using the winner.

 

I'll bet the 8740w will get a solid 4 hours, but that's a bit of a guess. there should be a review not to far away to my knowledge these new HP are shipping.

 

I've just about crossed that HP off the list.

$3,600 configured with the Dreamcolor display and a basic dual-core i7.

looks like I'm down to the yet-to-be-announced Envy 17 and the MBP unless I misread something on HP's website.

 

Why do you HAVE to have Dreamcolor? It's like a $500+ option, isn't it?

 

yah and if your in the US you should be able to use coupons to bring the cost down quite a bit. just remember you get what you pay for. oh, and Elitebooks are not going to "make a mac look cheap" but they will make it look like an empty Coke can compared to a 2inch slap of concrete when it comes to build quality and warranty support.

 

^ I'm able to get the price down to about $2,700. price is right.

the only remaining question is the battery life.

because I do professional print work and color accuracy is one of my primary concerns.

I feel like a broken record, but there it is. the Dreamcolor display offers me unparalleled image quality.

 

but remember the MBP is not a fantastic screen for color accuracy either. It looks great, but I keep reading time and time again on the forums about how the MBP's screen really aren't ofr photo work.

the best screens are on (most) business computers and for such there is a premium cost.
Elitebooks, with Dream color
Lenovo with the W700 screen (which is apparently very good)
Dell? not familiar with there line but I assume then have a good screen.

by the way i don't expect the Envy 17 if they ever release one, will have an amazing screen. good, yes, but nothing compared to dream color.

 

it's fine.

I verified that with my own eyes and with other people in my field.

the new MBP matte screen + Xrite EyeOne Dislay LT = win.

not as much "win" as this Elitebook mind you, but more win than most @ 1920x1080/1200.

Lenovo and Dell have nothing for me. Battery life sucks on all relevant models. I already looked. This is a 2-horse race right now between Apple and HP. Nobody else is playing in my league.

doesn't have to be as good as the Dreamcolor. But it should be as good as the MBP's matte screen, which is similar in quality to my deceased Vaio AW. if not, then it's off the list. pretty simple.

 

ok, fair enough I'm pretty sure it will match or get close to the MBP. if you've checked the MBP then great, I can only comment on my former 13inch MBP.

I see "20% HP notebook" coupons from time to time so that would take 700$ of the Elitebook price. I'm sure you can do even better if you really look.

now we are just waiting for hte 8740w to ship... apparently they aren't yet.

 

the Elitebook's have separate coupon offers. that one is currently 18% off and I believe it will be in effect until June 31st, which is great because it gives me time to see the reviews (I haven't seen any yet).

Right now, the Elitebook would be my preferred machine. Of course, not if I'm relegated to 2 hours of battery life.

I'm hopeful, though not optimistic after looking at the battery life for the Dell and Lenovo workstations.

But the MBP won't be a back "fallback" option by any stretch, based on my needs. If I were a heavy AutoCAD guy or something, the MBP would be simply unacceptable.

any idea why the Quadro's cost so much more (+$400) than the FirePro?

 

Mine are all matte, and I'd disagree - Steve Jobs made a crack one time about everyone else getting Apple's castoffs. From what I've seen to date I'd say it was the other way around unless you're lucky.

 

It would be nice to HP take a page from Apples book on the large integrated battery on the Envy. There's alot of empty space in the Envy and eliminating the mounting they could easily squeeze a 77 W-Hr battery in there like the MBP. That and a fairly straightforward engineering tweak of enabling switchable graphics and it will be a real winner.

 

with all due respect, I've already seen the 17" LED backlit 2010 MBP. looks very good. I'm sure the older screens aren't as good.

 

So true, I'm sure Intel is very grateful to Apple for taking care of their left over C2D stock.

 

Ah. I hadn't done the math on the weight, so it wasn't immediately apparent that you were referring to the time being with two batteries. Still, how intensive would doing photo-editing be on each machine? Would it be enough to drop the battery time on the Macbook substantially?

 

nobody knows, because none of us know which programs "activate" the 330M GPU outside of quicktime.

the 330M is what drains battery life. many of the apps don't make the 330M turn on, so until a sort of comprehensive list of which programs do and don't use the 330M by default, that question will remain an open one.

 

If u want a good screen , have u considered dell studio XPS 16? I think it has quite good battery life with 12 cell and has a 16 RGBLED screen.

 

I really think that you should be able to expect about 3-4 hours web browsing on the 8740w. HP has a history of keeping it about there for a while. I had the nx9420 (3 generations back, one of the first to ship with Yonah), and it lasted 4 hours on battery. My current 8730w lasts about 3 hours with battery.

Do note, however, that HP's FastCharge really deteriorates the battery's longevity quickly. My old nx9420 had about 17 minutes of battery life in about a year. Now, about 7 months after my 8730w purchase, my web browsing battery life is more like 2:40.

 

Oh, you mean the older screens - which were better than everyone else's last year?

 

^ yes. from what I could tell, it looks better than what I saw last year. could have been the lighting in the Apple Store I was at...or maybe the display I saw had some issues, but I've been complaining for months about the lack of quality matte screens for some time based on that experience. but this time, the matte looked fantastic. unexpectedly so. I expected to walk in and simply *confirm* the glossy was the only way to go. I was very glad to have been wrong, because I would have crossed the MBP off the list if glossy was my only option. Hell, that screen isn't glossy...my Dell E1705 is "glossy"...the MBP standard screen is better stated, "mirror".

I did. very good screen. Easily the best in the price range. But I really want 17"+. It almost feels like a dying form factor in the sub-$2000 range. only a few legit options exist in general, and even fewer for my needs.

but I have no problem with Dell, so if I decide to go smaller, it certainly would become a contender in the expanded playing field.

but hopefully I won't have to do that because...it's too much energy to go through this process again.

 

The W700 is not a "business computer". It is targeted at professionals in design and is aimed to be a head-to-head competitor to Apples 17" macbook. Which is why it has a decent screen. Lenovo is actually very consistent in putting crap screens in the computers it sells for "business".

 

very true, I owned a T500, and the screen was just trash. 8530p's screen is great! W700 I still think by definition a 'business' computer, it really is there only one that doesn't have a crap screen (well the W500 might be good... I haven't heard).

 

I see no-one is immune to RDF. The Apple matte panels are for the most part OK, although the diplay subsystem as a whole has consistently had some issues, which are skated over by the Applezombies. However, you're not going to get any worse from the other majors - since they're invariably the same panels, which could even benefit from better QC - which has always been the case when I've owned almost exactly comparable MBP's and HP nx/w notebooks from the outset. e.g. The usefully functional gulf between the HP nx9420 and the Yonah MBP, which featured basically the same internals and screen, something that has frequently been the case since then - was quite immense, and I didn't have any of the backlighting issues on the HP's that I did with the Apples. Obviously different generation hardware have different issues but having owned many directly comparable machines to Apple's wares at the same time, I'd have to say Apple has more issues by far.

 

Vogelbung, what kind of battery life are you getting with your precision?

I was going to ask in that thread, but I thought I'd just ask since you're here.

I keep looking at that Precision (non-covet). also, why did you choose it over the upcoming HP? just a timing thing? if they were both on the market at the same time, would have have made the same decision?

 

From what I gather, the m6500 gets 2-3 hrs battery-life.

 

Battery life is 3 hours max. As I said before - it's not appropriate if you're looking for a truly portable runtime.

I chose it because I needed true DTR's, for availability (the HP's weren't out), although that was a bit of a mistake - my machines slipped their due dates by a considerable margin - the availability of the 920xm, and the 'native' dual-drive capability - and also because I had generally good functional results with the M6400 in terms of the ability to be pushed. Also, the price was right with each machine coming to around the USD $5K equivalent before tax, which with my spec was a very good deal. With HP, I deal with resellers and they don't cut their own throats as much as Dell do.

I'd also have to say that aesthetics were a factor. The orange is individual, and the restrained, clean styling of the M6500 in general is very agreeable. The later machines turned up with the FIPS fingerprint readers which breaks up the visuals a little, but it's only a slight blip.

It's also a far, far, far (is that clear enough?) more robust machine than the Apples in terms of being able to be run with the loads pegged to high, and also has a slight edge over the HP's as well if previous comparisons are anything to go by.

I can't recommend my spec for you as the Covet comes with the E2E display cover which makes it inferior to the matte MBP/HP/M6500 in terms of reflections, etc (although it's nowhere near as bad as the glossy MBP), and I'm having problems with the RGBLED screen which you've undoubtedly read about from other users there as well - I don't know if there are any issues with the WLED screen (I don't seem to be reading any in terms of relelevant issues).

Apart from that it's a nicer machine in use than the Macbook Pro, and I also prefer it to the HP w's that I've had in the past. So I'm hoping I can have the issues resolved with Dell - otherwise I'll have to side/downgrade to an HP w.

 

As a plug for the HP 87xx series....

If battery life is something you are interested in in a 17" laptop, HP makes a 12 cell slice battery for the 87xx series, which doubles the available battery life and more. You can also get third party re-makes of this slice that are more inexpensive and last a teeny bit longer. I am not sure if the most recent version of the 8740 can use the same slice as the 8710 (the model version I have) and the 8730 use, but if so it is extremely handy to have. And you can swap in new slices (if you have multiple batteries of this sort) while the machine is running.

I have win 7 pro 64bit on that laptop, if curious, and it functions very nicely. Although I also was surprised to discover that the latest nVidia mobile driver made the battery life function MUCH better than the official driver available at HP's website.

 

thanks for the insight, folks.

the 8740w will be on my radar until I buy something, no doubt.

and yea, Vogel...that orange trim made me want it. until I saw the price premium. lol. standard one is nice, but I did notice your issues in the other thread. I'm clear now.

for me, it's looking like 8740w (more power than I need, but better to have too much than too little and it will last me longer) or the MBP (reasonable enough power, allegedly strong battery life, will undoubtedly run cooler, quieter).

can't wait to see reviews of these 2 machines.

 

No probs. Ultimately if you're only scratching the surface of general-purpose computing and you want to travel light for a 17-incher, the MBP is a decent choice. However it's a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none. You can't use the full power it has on paper without thermal issues - especially over the long term, the components are actually no better than offered other manufacturers and in many cases subject to poorer QC, and the power option is fixed, as decent as it might be.

Basically, it's the pretty netbook of 17-inchers. It seems that you don't have to run OS X - and if that is what actually works for you, then it might be the best choice.

It's also worth mentioning that Apples aren't as stable in Windows as their 'native' brethren. So while you get the choice, the environment is not as good as that you'd get on a comparable machine. It's one of the reasons (the thermal stability issues being the other major factor) that I don't Boot Camp.

 

oh? I know in the past there have been issues with Nvidia GPUs, but what manufacturer hasn't had issues with Nvidia? I'm not aware of any other issues related to thermal events? I've not seen reports of say...CPUs or other components failing.

also, based on what I've read, it doesn't appear to run any hotter than any of the other computers I've been considering. idk. we'll see.

based on the benchmarks I've looked at, that's say a bit too much. It's Vantage, Cinebench, and 3D Mark scores are similar to those of the Envy line. maybe ~15% slower. and above your typical 17" sitting below $1,800. it's not a netbook and tbh, it hurts your credibility in this conversation in general.

 

Benchmarks run for half an hour. Real work (or play - look at gaming thermal issues, only that's not what you could call commercially important) runs for hours.

EDIT - Let me give you some benchmark examples

Cinebench 11 - highest core temps attained for any core (differences for cores amounted to <2C)
MBP: 91C CPU for 2 cores / 86C GPU
M6500: 68C CPU for 4 cores / 64C GPU

The effective work percentage being done by each core is the same, regardless of how fast or slow they relatively are - it's 100%. Ambient here is well below 20C. The max case temp of the T9900 is 105C. The max case temp of the i7-920xm is 100C. The TDP of the i7-620m is the same as the T9900. It's about 3 months to 'real' summer. You do the maths. Also, outright failure and lack of stability due to thermal issues are two different things. The latter is far more irritating.

EDIT 2:
I've moved to a room with ambients of 20C. The MBP is now hitting 98C core / 91C GPU in Cinebench with multiple tests. The M6500 upped by 4C/0C.

 

also, don't read the battery life figure on apples website and install windows and expect to get the same my little formula to get battery time in windows on a mac, (80% of Apple est)/2.

I've heard from some people who have the apple macbook pro 17 and they only get 3-3.5hours in windows. they get great life in OS X, but not in windows.

maybe it's improved since last time, but if windows is required you may not be further ahead in terms of bat time on a MBP than on a Dell or HP. just a though.

 

It's about 4 with ekeing, which is not heinous (but is clearly lacking something in terms of power saving given the battery size) since in Windows, the Core Duo machines are locked to the 9600M. I'm not sure if anyone's established whether the IGP switching works in Windows on the i machines - that should extend runtimes.

 

Lack of 3G WWAN is really disappointing

 

Do the new MBPs have the half split bottom panel with the widget or is the bottom panel one full piece of metal that you have to unscrew to access the under?

Also, is the sATA connector the cheap kind(i.e. a very very thin cable like the 2009 line) or the less cheap kind(a thicker and actually stuck on cable 2008 and prior)?

 

Yep I ran a download last night on low brightness really pounding the wireless card and I got 2.5 hours.

 

Your graphics card is very different though.

 

there's a guy in the Apple forum with an i7 17" who's been posting his battery life. ~6 hours with the integrated + 60% brightnes. about 3.5 with the GPU engaged and 100% brightness. iirc. all in OSX. I assume battery life in Windows would be similar to the later experiment, the Windows mode supports only the discrete GPU. (no switching...yet)

 

It's the single metal piece with screws.

 

Yeah I figured it was, they've used that design since 2009 and it's a bit more of a pain for me lol

I don't suppose you could answer me SATA connector question too?

Worst case I go steal the boss' new MBP and open it to find out It'll end up on my desk in a week anyways I bet.

 

Don't have a screwdriver on hand. Some other volunteer perhaps, though I'm willing to wager it's the thin version.

 

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/172791,macbook-pro-helps-core-i7-hit-100-degrees.aspx

 

Unfortunately for the authors, the screenshot of the Fujitsu showing a Core i5 processor completely demolishes whatever tenuous credibility this article might have had.

 

eh?
from article (and comments)

 

Oops, I missed that part, thanks.

 

I'll re-post my comment from the PC Authority comments section:

It is very easy to reach the conclusion that this article is simply trolling for pageviews.

1) I did not see anything in the article suggesting that Apple was contacted for a resolution. This should have been your first step. Receiving a defective product sucks, but the clear implication of this article is that this will be a wider problem. In fact, you have no way of knowing that.

2) There was attempt at a resolution of the situation as far as I can see nor was the problem explored further. Clearly this was a problem, but why?

3) This conclusion "The generally cool styling of the Macbook Pro just doesn't seem too capable when put up against the sheer output of Intel's Core i7 processor" is ridiculous for two reasons. The first is what I said above - you don't know if you have a defective unit or not. The second is that you seem to be implying that there is something special about the Mobile Core i7's heat generation. Any website claiming to be a PC authority knows that the Arrandale based Core i7 is not much different from a mobile Core i3 or i5 and that it is in fact a very efficient processor which creates remarkably little heat for what it does. Of course, you probably did not want to mention this because it would draw further attention to the possibility that this is a defective product, not a design flaw.

 

I was reading through some of this huge thread and have some general points (I know I'm late to the discussion!)

The macbook pro is definitely not WORTH the price by a long shot. Some justify it by its a) build quality (b) aesthetics (c) battery life (d) OSX.

a)if you want build quality/toughness/business use you CANNOT beat Lenovo Thinkpads, HP Elite line, Dell Precision/Latitude(lesser extent) --those are your choices. Try dropping a Thinkpad W510 and MBP off a desk onto hard floor and see what happens. Try spilling coffee on the keyboard...
(b) very subjective...some (usually tech-inclined) prefer the all black extremely rigid plastic design with internal roll-cages and rubberizd black paint on top for grip VS the MBP attention-seeking design.
(c)battery life is a huge trade-off...in order to get great life you have to be using IGP, lowered (50%?) screen brightness, no wifi, CPU throttling...etc.. AT THE DETRIMENT of number-crunching speed, graphics performance, visual brightness... You dont get both. I'd rather have a W510 which is a desktop replacement/workstation with bigger battery (i don't mind it sticks out) that will blow away the MBP when it's plugged in to do serious academic/other work. Remember you have the option of plugging them in sometimes . With switchable graphics you get decent battery life too. Also remember those damn Li ion batteries degrade very fast with serious use.
(d) OSX is an OS meant for the likes of George W. Bush. Although it's based on BSD (*nix) Apple has rigid control over it. True tech ppl would MUCh prefer the flexibility/power of LINUX over OSX, it goes without saying. If a program only runs on windoze you could have a virtual machine or dual boot if needed. But there is usually a software equiv to windoze in the linux ecosystem. Even newbies would be at home pretty fast running Ubuntu/Mint type distro's....you could even create a desktop that's similar to OSX under *nix because of the flexibility/power/design of *nix. Linux has come a LONG way for the average user. As for OSX advantage of iphone app creation....screw it and write for the superior ANDROID OS and make money off that.

So in summary, get one of the TRUE business brands mentioned at the start if you want cream of the crop laptop, install SUPERIOR Linux on it (can even make it look alot like OSX with tweaking without being a slave to apple), run a VM if you MUST run certain win apps, ...and SAVE MANY MANY HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS in the process...you'll have enough left to buy another decent laptop. Leave the MBP to the well-off image-conscious superficial guy/gal who knows very little to nothing about computers and couldn't care less whether they're getting a C2D or i3, i5...

edit: forge to mention the screen issues. Granted the MBP screen is good quality but it is still a TN screen and I'd rather do 90% of my work on a big external Ascreen. HP/Dell/Lenovo have >= screen options. Some like to bash Lenovo on screen quality but it does offer FHD, colour calibration, RGBLED, flexview etc options if you are into serious photo work. So Lenovo, for eg, does indeed give you options..however for the average user it may be overkill and unwise use of funds...so most users are perfectly happy with their standard matte (no glossy crap) for the work they're doing. In fact I read complaints of the expensive high-gamut screens b/c websites look too vibrant (ie radio-active) unless you're a professional and know what you're doing since website creators assume you're using a standard screen.

 

The moment you un-ironically suggest people install Linux is the moment you lose all credibility.

You can harp all you like about how MacBooks are overpriced, but there is a reason people continue to shell out for them, and no, it isn't because you're a pretty special pony and everyone else is a moron.

 

This is the first professional 13" review of the MBP that i've seen.
It looks good.
Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (2010) Review - A Review of the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (2010)
I do wonder about the integrated card. It is quite powerful and i wonder if whilst using flash or surfing some sites it will consume a bit more power than expected.

These battery life tests they run scripts, i don't blame them really.

If it offered more connectivity options like i said before i would be interested.

 

Still with the damn chicklet style keyboards!!! The words to describe how these keyboards make me feel cannot be said here without me getting banned.