My first mac was the original Core Duo 17" MBP purchased over a year ago. I loved it, but the love affair went sour, and I sold it about 6 months ago.
Today, I own a Mac Mini (bootcamped as a Windows file server), my new SR MBP 15.4 and my wife's MacBook is currently waiting on our doorstep.
I also have a Fujitsu P1610 ultra-compact convertible tablet/notebook (fantastic for reading in bed), and a work-supplied T60 Widescreen PC Laptop. My main brain at work and home are very powerful Windows machines.
I also have a ton of little machines/appliances running all manner of Linux OS's, including a Nokia 800 Internet Tablet.
I will be comparing the 2.4 15" MBP to the 17" which has been sold.
1. It is a lot lighter, or at least, it FEELS a lot more portable. There's a lot to be said for a massive, beautiful 17" screen-- but in my opinion the sheer gargantuan size of the beast prevented me from using it more often.
2. Speedwise, I know the new Core 2 Duo and SR chipset are faster but the reality is the 17" was plenty fast, as are Mac Books-- things that are slow on the 17" are still slow on the 15", just not quite AS slow. As far as day to day responsiveness, they are both very adequate machines.
3. Video Performance. It's huge. If you care about 3D games (Bootcamp a must), there is no contest here. I'll let others point you to the benchmarks, but just from day-to-day usage, the lower native resolution and higher performance of the chip make an astounding difference.
4. And now, one of the major reasons the love affair ended with the 17": the screen. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have any specific issues with the 17" screen-- backlight was fine, and in general, it's a very nice screen. But the 15" is in a whole different league. Forget the LED backlighting first of all (though it is brighter and more even), and forgiving that the LED backlight, when looking at the screen under battery power, and a plain background DOES exhibit flickering when set below 100% brightness. What really blew me away, what still impresses me is how excellent the clarity of the display appears. This is what people called graininess in the 17". It was very apparent especially under Windows-- like a mottled shadow that was superimposed on the screen. It bugged the hell out of me-- greys and whites were kind of mottled, and nothing appeared crisp. In comparison, the new 15" has maybe one of the best screens I have ever seen, comparing favorably with the extremely impressive Nokia N800 screen. It is lightyears beyond my P1610 (which suffers other issues for being a touchscreen). It looks better than my 30" Dell and better than the 30" Cinema Display here at work in our Graphics Department-- at least as far as clarity.
This laptop is fantastic. It is light enough, fast, and now with VMWare Fusion Unity and Coherance, etc, I can truly use it as my primary machine, regardless of OS preference. That means applications like Visio and Office run fine under the OSX desktop, and I still have access to applications like Scrivener, for which I purchased the 15" MBP again in the first place.
A stellar machine-- the 4gb memory upgrade is on the way.
Slightly off topic, one of the further reasons I both hate and love the Apple is the community. Between all the helpful, genuine, real people who make up the community, there are the sandwhich of fanboys and critics who assert that Apple can do no wrong, or can do no right, depending on the phase of the moon. I guess with any minority, among them, a smaller, more vocal, less intelligent minority must exist-- but while most PC users are your average Joe's, here we have average Joe's who now believe they are the enlightened children of some long lost deity because they have chosen this OS or platform. Just saying... most of you guys are great
Today, I own a Mac Mini (bootcamped as a Windows file server), my new SR MBP 15.4 and my wife's MacBook is currently waiting on our doorstep.
I also have a Fujitsu P1610 ultra-compact convertible tablet/notebook (fantastic for reading in bed), and a work-supplied T60 Widescreen PC Laptop. My main brain at work and home are very powerful Windows machines.
I also have a ton of little machines/appliances running all manner of Linux OS's, including a Nokia 800 Internet Tablet.
I will be comparing the 2.4 15" MBP to the 17" which has been sold.
1. It is a lot lighter, or at least, it FEELS a lot more portable. There's a lot to be said for a massive, beautiful 17" screen-- but in my opinion the sheer gargantuan size of the beast prevented me from using it more often.
2. Speedwise, I know the new Core 2 Duo and SR chipset are faster but the reality is the 17" was plenty fast, as are Mac Books-- things that are slow on the 17" are still slow on the 15", just not quite AS slow. As far as day to day responsiveness, they are both very adequate machines.
3. Video Performance. It's huge. If you care about 3D games (Bootcamp a must), there is no contest here. I'll let others point you to the benchmarks, but just from day-to-day usage, the lower native resolution and higher performance of the chip make an astounding difference.
4. And now, one of the major reasons the love affair ended with the 17": the screen. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have any specific issues with the 17" screen-- backlight was fine, and in general, it's a very nice screen. But the 15" is in a whole different league. Forget the LED backlighting first of all (though it is brighter and more even), and forgiving that the LED backlight, when looking at the screen under battery power, and a plain background DOES exhibit flickering when set below 100% brightness. What really blew me away, what still impresses me is how excellent the clarity of the display appears. This is what people called graininess in the 17". It was very apparent especially under Windows-- like a mottled shadow that was superimposed on the screen. It bugged the hell out of me-- greys and whites were kind of mottled, and nothing appeared crisp. In comparison, the new 15" has maybe one of the best screens I have ever seen, comparing favorably with the extremely impressive Nokia N800 screen. It is lightyears beyond my P1610 (which suffers other issues for being a touchscreen). It looks better than my 30" Dell and better than the 30" Cinema Display here at work in our Graphics Department-- at least as far as clarity.
This laptop is fantastic. It is light enough, fast, and now with VMWare Fusion Unity and Coherance, etc, I can truly use it as my primary machine, regardless of OS preference. That means applications like Visio and Office run fine under the OSX desktop, and I still have access to applications like Scrivener, for which I purchased the 15" MBP again in the first place.
A stellar machine-- the 4gb memory upgrade is on the way.
Slightly off topic, one of the further reasons I both hate and love the Apple is the community. Between all the helpful, genuine, real people who make up the community, there are the sandwhich of fanboys and critics who assert that Apple can do no wrong, or can do no right, depending on the phase of the moon. I guess with any minority, among them, a smaller, more vocal, less intelligent minority must exist-- but while most PC users are your average Joe's, here we have average Joe's who now believe they are the enlightened children of some long lost deity because they have chosen this OS or platform. Just saying... most of you guys are great
