Revision A - Has Problems!, Revision B - Where is it?

[sinstoic]

Most of them advice to avoid Revision A products. Now if you are planning to buy a Macbook Pro, what should you do? I don't know which revision the current Macbook Pro is but nevertheless it still has a good number of problems.

So waiting for the Santa Rosa/Centrino Pro with Merom Macbook Pro (hopefully June/October 2007) is the right thing. Correct? NO! Why? It will be a new product, therefore Revision A and should be avoided.

So waiting for the Penryn Macbook Pro (hopefully January/February 2008) will be the right thing. Correct? NO! Why? It will be a new product, therefore Revision A and should be avoided.

I am wondering when will the new generation Revision B Macbook Pro be released?

[PlaceofDis]

i think you're a bit confused.
the MBPs are at Rev B in my opinion. all that changed was the processor, which was an evolution of the CD chips that were in it previously. similarly any changes with Santa Rosa will be an evolution and make it Rev C.

[bartelby]

I think we've left the days of Revs behind as Intel pump out new processors a lot faster than IBM ever did.

[Diatribe]

Most of them advice to avoid Revision A products. Now if you are planning to buy a Macbook Pro, what should you do? I don't know which revision the current Macbook Pro is but nevertheless it still has a good number of problems.

So waiting for the Santa Rosa/Centrino Pro with Merom Macbook Pro (hopefully June/October 2007) is the right thing. Correct? NO! Why? It will be a new product, therefore Revision A and should be avoided.

So waiting for the Penryn Macbook Pro (hopefully January/February 2008) will be the right thing. Correct? NO! Why? It will be a new product, therefore Revision A and should be avoided.

I am wondering when will the new generation Revision B Macbook Pro be released?

And after that they will release the Montevina platform. With Intel I don't think you will ever get a "real" Rev. B again.

Edit: Beaten to it by Bartelby.

[sinstoic]

If Apple is really going to update products as frequently as Intel churns new technology out, I think it will be difficult to get a product without any issues. So, you just can't wait for a stable machine like in the old days when IBM supplied the processors!

Don't you think a fast upgrade path is making Macs lose their value faster and end up like Generic Windows based PCs?

[mduser63]

What fast upgrade path are you talking about? Upgrades don't seem to have come much if any faster than before. People were speculating that Apple would have to "keep up" with the other PC manufacturers and release speed bumps every other week, but they haven't been doing that.

[mkrishnan]

If Apple is really going to update products as frequently as Intel churns new technology out, I think it will be difficult to get a product without any issues. So, you just can't wait for a stable machine like in the old days when IBM supplied the processors!

Who manufacturers (either mass or lean) a product that's completely absent of issues? And if you find that product, is it anything anyone would really want? Pretty much every manufactured is susceptible to a non-zero defect rate, as well as design imperfections (for instance, it's not clear that things like the lines issue on the original MBP is really a defect, per se).

When you look at the current MBP, which I also consider to be Rev. B of the major design, it is clear that a large number of Rev. A issues were addressed.

So they just have to continuously improve. The design is modular. Putting Santa Rosa on the motherboard or putting C2D on the motherboard doesn't prevent Apple and their mfr'ers from dealing with screen issues, noise and heat issues, etc. Those things are largely unrelated to the changeover.

A good example of this is that, at least of the height of their process, Toyota could make line changes to new products with essentially no dip in quality. Their defect rate was never zero. But it didn't get worse necessarily or prevent them from improving overall, over time, purely because of a design change.

[aristobrat]

If Apple is really going to update products as frequently as Intel churns new technology out, I think it will be difficult to get a product without any issues. So, you just can't wait for a stable machine like in the old days when IBM supplied the processors!
If you go by the data provided by websites like appledefects.com, it's not like machines from "the old days" were any more likely to be defect free than these here new-fangled machines.

I know the original MacBook Pros had lots of complaints about the LCD buzz, CPU whine, and the case being hot to the touch, all of which Apple seemed to tweak out over the months following the launch. The only halfway-frequent complaint I've heard about the new MacBook Pro is some think the screen is substandard.