Apple

Quick bit of advice from everyone.

I'm thinking about getting myself a new MacBook Pro 13.

The thing I've noticed with the new machines is that they only have the Intel HD 3000 in them. The previous model had the nvidia 9400M or the Geforce 320M.

Is the Intel chipset a better card than the Nvidia's? Do you think it would be any less responsive at 3D stuff than the older model?

Seems a bit weird that they have completely dropped the high performance card from the 13" machine.

Opinions?

!m!

It's like previous GMA graphics, integrated. It uses part of the main memory for framebuffer and textures, but a quick google found this which seems to indicate that 3d performance is not bad.

just go for what you can afford (without diving into debt) maar

if you have specific apps in mind, book an appointment @AppleStore, take your app and test it on the spot across the available models.

i see that both the macbook & air have a dedicated gpu * . if either fits your needs, screw the "pro" baloney.

one thing i don't like in the late pro line is the lack of an ExpressCard ( back in the 17' , but this is a dinner tray and not a notebook), the other is that there's no such thing as a "glossy" screen in any honest, decent, professional environment (options for matte screens are back too for the 15'/17' models though)

(i'm still rockin a 15'-early '08 on the set/field or docked @office)

* for our hardware guys: what's the deal with having a dedicated gpu w/ xyz MBs of ram shared with main memory? can it be considered a dedicated gpu?

To be honest, I can only really afford a 13", but if the matt screen is back in the 15", I might be persuaded.
I'm gonna be paying for it on Apple finance anyway so it's not a massive deal.

I just really like the size of a 13" laptop. My current Dell Studio XPS 13 is perfect size for me. Only problem is Win7 crashes like a bitch whenever I actually get down to some serious work, and hackintoshing it has been a massive struggle. It's made me want to get a proper mac.
I'm currentlly on my LAST EVER hackintosh attempt. I've never got it 100%. Just having it sleep and wake up would be perfect.

Lots to consider.

!m!

I'm happy with my 13" mbp, 16 months old. I got the least expensive model then swapped the HD out for SSD and the RAM out for 4gb (back when they only gave 2). I cart it around and surf the web, read my email, hack on xcode, ssh back to home, zterm with a usb cable and use it for a quick look at my photos from my camera (SD card slot is handy). I have vmware fusion and use it to run WinXP, Linux and other OSes for testing and fiddling.

Nothing real pressing but it handles it all very nicely.

I don't recall dropping mine, but it has a hot spot in the lower right corner of the display like the diffuser is cracked.

Thanks for that link. Makes me feel a bit better about that chipset.

I have considered just a plain macbook, but I do tend to chuck my laptops around alot and I like the whole metal cased thing, that's why I buy Dell usually.
To me, the difference between the MacBook's and the MacBook pro is quite a lot really, but the price isn't. £150 difference between the standard mbp 13 and the standard mb. Once you up the memory in the MB to 4GB there's only around £10 difference.
What's the point in the Macbook?

I feel a visit to the local AppleStore coming on. I'll play with everything and see what works for me.

!m!

just to make sure, i wasn't demonizing any model. i mean that pro-or-not use is not dictated by model but by use.

a friend pays bills by shooting stills, he owns a plain mb and a mp @home. my brother conducts orchestras for a living, he needs just a single mbp. wife owns a 13 mbp (2009 iirc), sweet size for a laptop but comes w/ glossy screen. every time she has to work with colour, she has to hook up a decent external monitor or use someone else's computah. i run a 15 mbp ever since i got it, left desktops behind forever. now i'm hallucinating about getting an ipad to carry around and have the mbp docked @the office.

it's all about (different) needs and (different) workflows. if you don't do any kind of visual work, glossy won't bother you, most people like 'em. they're made for watching clips (just like the huge plastic speakers demoed for 10 seconds @ max volume in a crowded store). they suck donkey balls for anything else though :x

I do a fair bit of graphical work and I do a fair bit of web coding.
I want to start writing IOS apps and do find glossy screens somewhat horrible. My Dell lappy is now rocking it's moded screen. I took the front glossy panel off and cut a hole in it. Underneath is a nice matt finish screen.
If I could get my hackintosh up to spec, it would be perfect.

!m!

I loved my 13" 2007 MB but always regretted that damn Intel GMA. So when I got to upgrade I went to the 15" 2010 MBP for the graphics and cpu. The truth is, the nvidia 330M still sucks and now I just have a large portable oven and kind of wish I had gotten the 13" MBP. If you are strickly looking at the 13" models, the 320M in the white MB is probably not much different then the Intel in the new 13" Pro.

So for $150 as you put it (its 200 in the canadian store), you get a way better cpu, more ram, more disk, THUNDERBOLT, sd card slot, alu body... Yeah, no question, go for the 13" MBP. Don't push your self to the 15" for the AMD graphics, its a very expensive laptop when you have a set budget and I would hate to see someone go broke over a laptop.

Just for fun I priced up a MB and a MBP 13 on the apple site.

After putting 4GB, 500GB harddisk and adding apple care to both the difference was £10. I just can't figure that at all.

Anyway, I think I've made my choice.

If only you could get a matt screen on the 13" MBP. I guess I could always get an anti glare screen cover.

!m!

You may or may not care about what I have to say, as it is all personal information/experiences and opinions from trying them out in the store and the like... oh yeah, I make the salesmen pale when I test them out, and I would say the MBA is more rugged than the svelte chassis would imply. Not thinkpad or panasonic tough, but a good step up from most of the other netbooks out there.


My sister has the 13" macbook pro, it's all very well and good but IMO, it is a giant aluminum BRICK...

The next machine I buy new will probably be a macbook air. It can do everything my desktop does (namely, games and mathematica), it is about the same size and weight as my vintage thinkpad x40, the weaknesses are a lack of ethernet and SSD (a nas-box solves that problem for what I have to store). The 128gb 11 inch with upgraded cpu and ram comes out to $1200 with all my discounts and then the taxes. It's a reasonable price for the machine IMO. I'm not super tight on spendulis, but since I only work every other quarter and have tuition bills to pay, I don't exactly have it coming out the wazoo either. So, it's fairly low down on my want list unless I can get a better discount (aka free) or my thinkpad breaks. I actually almost bought one about a month ago but wisely decided against it, as it would have drained most all of my checking account and I would have had to dip into savings. Their advertising is slick and the product is very tempting...

I also really like my zune, and that would be hard to let go of and replace with an ipod/iphone. Ditto for my xbox360 wireless USB controller doohickey. (If I buy a dual-core laptop I can get rid of the other machines, in theory at least)

Also, most of the machines I see around are macbooks of some sort or another, and it is nice to be different.

Don't count on it. Even when I'm not doing anything graphical I HATE glossy screens. I don't like being distracted by dust, fingerprints, and what's going on behind me. The only time I can see a glossy screen coming in handy is if an assassin is creeping up.

^ i wouldn't (that won't above should have been a might not)

the salespam w/ glossy screens is "brighter (under sunlight)" and "live colours". ah si?
take a look @ the digital cameras for the "vivid/extra colour" mode, then a look at the average youtube clip, then @ create-music/image/video-by-pushing-buttons spam and you'll get a short cultural analysis of where all this is going.

what puzzled me is that they went for glossy in their "pro" line.

assassin…hmm i might write something about gauchos, pistolas & glossy screens

The glossy screen doesn't bother me much. It's only problematic when I forget to turn the brightness up. Outside it might catch a few things that stand out a little more than a washed out section on a matte screen, but if you're outside bring some shade or enjoy the outside instead of staring into a computer. I thought it'd bother me, but it's not really much worse than the 21" sgi crt sitting here on my Indy.

Went into the Apple store this weekend to get a 13" MBP.
Applied for the finance instore and got denied.
Really strange seeing as I got credit on a lappy at the end of 2009 that's all paid off and now I get rejected.

Back to saving up the old fashioned way I guess.
Selling off lots of stuff.

!m!

i received the latest 13'' mbp as a gift 3 days ago but i don't have time to test it right now.

anyone else got one yet? if so are you happy w/ it?

I picked up the 17 inch last week.
This is a nice machine. Very responsive. Not sure how it compares to the 13inch. To be honest outside of some crazy program that needs 4 cores the two should perform the same. My 17inch spend 90% of the time using the intel graphics card. I have a 15inch 2010 MBP, work supplied, its nice but I like the 2011 model better, (could be because I paid for it LOL). 15inch has the dual core i5 and runs mostly on the intel graphic card, rarely which over to discrete card and it performs good. I fired up 3d apps on the 17in manually switched over to intel graphics from 3d and saw little change in performance.


This current lineup of MBP's remind of the last run of powerbooks like the 12inch. Well put together laptops.

I no longer have my hacktosh since I got the MBP, went full blown Win7 on it and gave it to my son for our gaming needs. The performance between my MBP and that desktop is the same so far (both are i7 procs).

this one got me puzzled but sounds interesting. i've been giving them feedback on aperture/final cut and some time ago nothing would run without a discreet gpu (i remember when the first versions of aperture would crawl on a superpimped PM G5, first versions of fcp burping all the time, etc). now the integrated intel makes the sys. requirements list, pas mal.

mine still sits in its box and -ahem- i've almost forgotten that the 13'' comes with a glossy screen…might try those anti-glare films when i get a chance

I meant I'm wasn't pushing it to use the discrete gfx. It do flip-flop sometimes, I use gfxcard to keep track of it. Anything OpenGL fires up the discrete.
Now on my MBP 15inch with the Nvidia geforce 330m and Intel HD Graphics I noticed that the OpenGL Processing.org stuff run smoother on the Intel HD gfx vs the Nvidia (I force swapping between the two), but the MBP 17inch 2011 it's a different story.

Got a MBP 13" last week. I may get an SSD for it, but so far I'm loving it