Review - Apple's MacBook Pro 108
Provataki writes "OSNews posted a 2-editor review of Apple's MacBook Pro laptop. The whole review feels like a long conversation between the two editors with agreements and disagreements on several issues and topics. They both agree that the laptop is too hot, but there is disagreement on the screen quality for example."
This irked me (Score:1, Interesting)
Umm. No?
The iPod-centric portion of the Apple lineup is all Intel, but how about a real desktop? What Intel Mac do I want to buy if I'm not making a media center, or going to college, or bringing it with me? What if I just want a fast-as-balls Mac with a full sized keyboard, top of the line video, and expansion slots? Sadly lacking.
Its not like it matters, as I'll still wait for a while before going to intel. I guess I still carry a torch for PowerPC...
2 day review of the 1.83/intel dual core (Score:5, Interesting)
The machine is definitely nice and speedy though. The fact that the "emulation" mode works so well however I honestly a reflection of how bad the old motorola g4 chips were. I benchmarked code on the g4 and it was about as fast as my old p3 800 that it replaced. Native apps work remarkably well (as they should) and emulated apps aka word seem at least as fast as on the motorola chip. I have a feeling these machines will likely really shine once everything goes universal binary.
Where the machine really shines is some of their attention to detail. The camera built into the screen is seriously genius in this day and age of ichat/aim and everyone being permantly logged in. The new frontrow app is so awesome I actually ported that over to my desktop g5 machine at home. (where it is a bit more useful). The weird glowing keyboard thing is a bit pointless if you know how to type but is eye candy, and a fun way.
Battery life: If I unplug it it says I get 3 hours off of it which is about what my old g4 got when I first bought it. (I am surprised the # is that high considering how much heat this thing generates).
Other random things, the machine is dual core but the version of top that it comes w/ only shows one cpu (this is my first dual core machine). I have not benchmarked the machine but i have a feeling it'll be decent. I did try running two video/quicktime apps simultaneously and it seems like each app gets 50% of "the cpu" via top and it doesn't seem like they are both running as if alone (some of that may be drive issues of course, but i have 2 gigs of ram so it should be able to cache it). At least in theory having a dual core unix laptop is totally sex
I'll benchmark our mpich/g++ code soon just for fun. Hopefully there is an intel port of their compiler as that is going to make a huge difference. (I had heard somewhere apple had compiled the OS/apps using intels compilers, i hope thats true, i do know however they never used xlc/xlf aka ibm's compiler for the ppc machines).
Incidentally, I think the screen isn't as bright as I was expecting it would be (but same as the g4) and my keyboard "squeeks" in a weird way when i type!
-bloosqr
Re:Summary (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, that may or may not be the case. I haven't programmed on Macs since System 7 days, but it was fairly hellishly complicated making the GUI stuff work "properly" (like you had to call a routine to make the little "visual click" that was supposed to appear arount the pointer tip before you called the routine to reverse-image the close box before you called the routine to actually close the window). It could very well be that the programs you were using were doing something that Apple deprecated, and when Apple made it go away (or function properly), those programs began to misbehave. Then, enough people bitched that they made another fix to accomodate those programs that used the deprecated feature.
Not apologizing for Apple, it's just that the were one of few companies who weren't afraid to actually eliminate deprecated (or malfunctioning) routines in favor of introducing new ones. Better than M$, who would keep the old buggy routines around for external developers, and creating properly-functioning replacements which they left undocumented so only their developers could use them (timer routines, anyone?)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:5, Interesting)
Only the lames say this. And there's a lot of lames. There are several replacements for displacement. Most significantly, High RPMs and high compression. High compression comes in two versions: forced induction, and just having high compression in the first place.
As we all know, there are small speakers that kick the shit out of cheaper speakers several times their size. Now, with speakers, it's true that there's no replacement for displacement, but you should be aware that displacement comes from two places in the case of both engines and speakers, though the terminology is different. In engines, we call it bore and stroke; AFAIK it's still stroke in audio, but the "bore" would be the "diameter".
In addition, both engines and speakers have the concept of "response", and it works much the same way in both places. In engines, you make them respond quicker by lightening the rotating mass, this allows you to achieve higher RPMs. Speakers are made lighter; this allows them to move faster, improving high-frequency response. Low-frequency response (consistency without distortion) is also achieved in the same way in both engines and speakers; You have more mass, but you use more energy to move it. A car with a heavier rotating mass is harder to stall, and thus less susceptible to small perturbations. Ditto for a speaker.
Anyway, just trying to bust up some myths. I know a lot more about the cars than the audio, but I know enough about physics to make some generalizations :P
Re:Ported? (Score:3, Interesting)
Love the memory bus, hate the keyboard. (Score:4, Interesting)
They keyboard is just as bad as the Powerbooks, and the one-button trackpad is all but unusable even with Sidetrack to simulate 2 buttons. When I say "bad", by the way, I mean "a couple of days using it and my RSI was flaring up again". I got a tiny bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and even if my boss thinks I'm nuts for using it with a Logitech keyboard balanced on it my wrists aren't hurting any more.
They really need to get Lenovo to make a "businessman's macbook" with a Thinkpad shell and keyboard, and Apple's electronics. I don't miss Windows on my Thinkpad at all, but I sure miss that keyboard. And I prefer the Thinkpad's white LED above the screen that illuminated the whole keyboard area to the illuminated keys.
The speakers are (as they say) apalling, but it's not just the speakers. I get more distortion at the same volume level over my harman/kardon speaker system than with my Mac mini. They really need to do something about the whole audio system.
And they need to release a software or firmware upgrade to let us choose between running the fans more and running the computer hotter. I'd be happy to have the fans whooshing away most of the time if it let me actually use my laptop in my lap!
Rosetta works pretty well, but it's all-or-nothing. I've got a boatload of plugins and drivers I can't use until they get upgraded... and since some are abandonware I suspect I'm going to have to find replacements. The big one that may be a show stopper is Palm Hotsync, unless I can find some kind of bridge... I am not using iSync with my Palm, its syncing model if you have multiple computers is completely screwed up unless you use ".MAC", possibly deliberately so.
Wake from sleep is completely unreliable. I've taken to unplugging everything and waiting half a minute before closing the lid, but last night even that failed.
Parallel's Desktop is pretty well done. It's apalling that it's necessary, but I'm grateful that it's possible. Palm Desktop and Hotsync still runs under Windows, maybe I can keep synced that way.
Re:Speaker quality? (Score:3, Interesting)