Let me first point out a few things before you realise how insanely long this review is and click on another quick trolling thread called 'my new Suckbook does not work with the Bioshock demo' or 'How do I turn the iMac on?'.
This is my first review of two apple laptops meaning I have finally scraped enough money together (ie. robbing a lot of old ladies and hanging around street corners wearing sexy leather clothes which makes Trinity from the Matrix look like a 45-year old teacher having nothing to but shaving her legs 24/7).
For those of you who are lazy enough to not want to read, thus spending your work day googling porn or watching youtube.com instead of increasing your literal prowess I have outlined some of the most important points of my review below.
Let's get started then:
Ok, finally I decided to go fullblown MBP after being forced giving up my work received MB Core 2 Duo which showed extremely lemony features after 6 months of use (look at signature for full error report). So my reasons for going MBP were manyfold:
1. I didn't want another error prone macbook (at this time let me point out I am comparing the new MBP to an error rigged filth of a macbook that in no way stands to reason but I feel like doing it anyway, so bugger off with the posts objecting and saying I can't do that. It's my thread and I can do with it what I feel like).
2. I get horrible big rebates (saving around 12% on my purchase)
3. I needed bigger screen estate, more ram and a dedicated GPU in order to go all laptoppy and ditching my old desktop windows station which served me a good 3 years. At least I imagined that a dedicated GPU was important in order to run Doom Legacy, Civilization II and Baldur's Gate at a reasonable framerate. Yes I am that anal about not using my MB for those tasks.
4. Comparing the mid-level MB (which has a dual-layer burner just like the MBP) and buying an additional 2 GB of RAM for it which is shittily expensive in Denmark because apparently we get all the scrappy leftovers from the US after you're done with it. This essentially means shelling out another 250$ for RAM upgrades alone.
Comparing the price of both means in the long run 1450$ for the midlevel MB and 1799 for the MBP which I deemed a no brainer since I finally had the money.
First let me outline some of the points I make in the review below for the lazy part of the macrumors community:
This was the fastest and easiest transfer ever, it took 1.5 hours to migrate with very little migration problems
- Only Cocoaspell needed a reinstall.
Some of my dissappointements converting from MB to MBP:
- Apparently perfect display (9C67 means LG).
- no piss yellowness.
- uniform like you wouldn't believe it was a laptop display (checked in the night running full white and black background.)
- thus no backlight bleed (not even a goddamn little!!)
- Dear lord it's a bright display, putting even my desktop lamp to shame. I mean, forget about nightlight, I will just mount this bad boy in the upper corner of my bedroom and use that as projector!
Misc disappointments:
- uniform keyboard (no popping of keys, or one side that bends upwards.)
- clicking trackpad which actually responds when you press it down.
- lightning quick, snappy and responsive.
- keyboard illumination is perfect (no bad LEDS).
- Insanely cool temps (not freezer like though):
- Speakers are very very loud. I literally will hold my sides from now on laughing when someone turns up the volume on their macbooks. I mean even on tick number 3 the MBP speakers are louder and more voluminous!
Unboxing pics:
![IMG_0069.jpg]()
![IMG_0070.jpg]()
![IMG_0071.jpg]()
Btw, the new Apple Keyboard is smoooooth!
![IMG_0072.jpg]()
![IMG_0073.jpg]()
![IMG_0074.jpg]()
![IMG_0075.jpg]()
Yes I was happy... And overwhelmed.
![IMG_0076.jpg]()
![IMG_0077.jpg]()
![IMG_0078.jpg]()
Oh no, it's not closing perfectly flush. I better return it.
Not...
Who notices this anyway?
![IMG_0079.jpg]()
As you can see, the initial color calibration turned out pretty bluish but it did override the bluish bottomtint. I have now found a color profile from The SR MBP color profile thread. with regards to AbsenceOfTruth upload.
![IMG_0080.jpg]()
The bad boy with it's Speck Seethru on. It gathers a bit of dust but so far I have not experienced any problems.
The tests:
Being the little hardware fanboy I thought: "Well, since hardware problems show sooner or later, why not make them appear right now? This way I can get it DOA'ed while still being before the 14 day return period.
So two terminals, two yes > /dev/null commands, fans ramped up on 6200 rpm (I was able to this using an old version of SMCfancontrol. Apparently, the max RPM is set to 6000 on the MBP). Nighty nighty my little sweetheart.
While ramping the cores up first time, temps rose to 75 C which was liveable, and quite excpectable.
This is my surprise:
When I got up 8 hours later in the morning expecting to make a nice omelet on the upper left side of the keyboard area I was unpleasantly greeted with temps of 55 C.
Hold that a little, rewind and read again. 55 C??? What? 8 hours of maxing out both cores and the temps actually dropped 20 C?? Thoroughly dissappointed I opened up the fridge and grabbed some youghurt, not being able to make any warm breakfast this morning...
Disappointments compared to my old macbook:
- no flickering display
- no whining (I am so hoping this will occur soon but chances are slim due to me already stressing the cores for half a day or so)
- no cracking wrist areas (this one I had particularly been looking forward to...
- no glare (god yes, I really miss my constant bobbing head movements)
- no wrist cutting. I no longer have the feeling that typing on my mac, while being a slow transition to death, it will eventually end up with me lying bent over the laptop, tongue out of my mouth with slit wrists and a TextEdit rtf on the display gently conveying: "Steve Jobs made me do this, not out of spite, not out of depression because my life sucked with my mac. I had no choice. Pity me."
And now to the real stuff:
About the display, I can't help but feel that the colors is somewhat messed up. Using the default color profile I could'nt notice anything wrong with the colors. Using Supercal however, I got a nasty surprise. For all those people who calibrate the screen and suddenly notices the piss-yellow problem I sort of felt a conclusion rushing to my head:
It would seem as if the LG displays also have this problem, only regarding blue colors. When I move my head I easily notice color changes at the bottom. Just like when looking from an angle down on the display everything turns blue on my display and people with Samsung displays seem to have the same issue just with a yellow cast.
This means that if I lean over the MBP slightly, the bottom 3rd will be tinted blue and this actually forces me to change the angle of the display constantly. However, looking straight on it makes the blue go away but it still needs to be dead on, no bobbing you head or changing your sitting position at all!
It's something to get used to. It's either that or the standard profile which after I calibrated I would never go back to for the life of me. I mean this is in a sense that was I forced to use it, please bring back the macbook so I at least could use the computer towards a slow wrist cutting death.
Actually, after playing along with it, calibrating on full brightness (made my eyes hurt) and changed the gamme curve slightly, the bad viewing angles are not that bad. Not saying they aren't bad, but not as bad as after my first calibration.
It's also clear to me now that the kind of user who uses the laptop with an elevator that tips the laptop slightly without lifting it (thus ruling out the much acclaimed Griffin elevator), ie. cooler pads and the such, will be slightly annoyed and most likely notice it a lot more often, thus giving wind to the cast problem with the displays. I don't find it a big problem since I will primarily be using the laptop with a Griffin and an external display no matter what. For the two, three or so days I use it during courses and meetings I can live with having to duck down a bit to look at the display.
This is to say that I would much rather prefer the LED backlighting seeing as it's the most light/dark uniform backlighting I have seen in a while (and I own a 20" Dell 2005FPW, ouch!). It's both a preference to performance and to my weird way of thinking.
Firstly my weird way of thinking. I don't have to think about not turning the damn display off all the time because the lighting will not diminish with the new LED opposed to the classic flourescent lighting. It's HUGE for me, because I am a computerpreserving psycopath in more ways that can be counted by raising the fingers of your hand to the power of 5.
Secondly the performance way. Turning the display off and on is instantaneous. I mean like the snap of you fingers. A little faster than that actually. It might just be a feature some users would live without but I like the feel that my (expensive) laptop simply feels more responsive than the macbook I had before which would need to warm up for a least a nanosecond before the display was bright enough.
Also, the brightness is amazing, especially the smell of my retinas burning in the evening.
Ok not so much in the evening but during daylight and normal lighting conditions, it's nice to have the option to actually see everything on the display (oh yeah did I mention that this combined with the backlighting never dying is awesome. I think I did, but you get the point).
About the keyboard:
Coming from the macbooks plasticky gapfilled keys and also owning a new wired Apple keyboard, I sort of miss typing on those things. The MBP keyboard is very flat and doesn't feel as responsive (some keys need to be pressed a little harder to respond (the same problem I had with the iBook G4 keyboard, especially the arrow keys).
Nevertheless, not being of a particularly picky nature, it's something I will get used to eventually. Also if not for the old keyboard layout it would have meant no backlit keyboard, which is a feature I have wet dreams about in the night... Really, I touch myself in the night because of this big whoop wanna fight about it?
About the temps:
Though I will not piss off any religious people and speak the Lord's name in vain, I must utter this: Christ it's cold. Idling right now while charging with 2500RPM (whisper quiet fans), my temps are on 48 C = less than my macbook's temps, which also were a lot cooler than my iBook's temps. Amazing, I can not wait to put this big bad boy on my lap and fry off some of my offspring (which apparently hot temps near the groin area will do).
Now for the groovy stuff seeing as I actually bought a lot of gear for this sugarrose (ok enough with the cutee McCutenames I promise). Cute cute cute. There. I will stop now.
I happened to order a Speck Seethru which I was a little hesitant to order because I heard a lot of horror stories (not fitting thus scratching the metal, gathering dust, not fitting inside a sleeve, display will get an even lesser tilt angle and so on and so on). I guess those critics apparently were paid by the friendly people from the Speck counterparts of Techshell.
Nevertheless they can suck it since I live in Denmark and buying the Speck through the Apple store was my choice if I didn't want to pay big fat premium custom for importing something of actual value into the country.
It fits. That's what I can say about it. The thickness means raising it a little from the table because of the thickness of the shell and as such rules out the problem with the opening angle. I guess those people criticizing the Techshell for this particular issue only used the top shell and not the bottom which is no surprise for me really, seeing as the average mac user has a mathematical and physical brain capacity of an averagely sized pea (if you are interested this pea sized capacity also makes the average mac user utter stuff like: "macs are better than peecees and Windoze because I have more money and also I am cooler because I can flash my new laptop on every Starbucks café from my college to the Dairy Queen where I eventually spend all my money scuffing down every lactose related product ever imaginable by man since the discovery of the udder).
I realize now that the past sentence was too important to put in paranthesis so here lathered, rinced repeated: I dislike mac fanboys with too much money and too little reflective skills of the actual company and their products.
There I said it.
I am a mac fanboy as well to the extent that every new hardware release makes it itch in my pa... wallet but I do feel the need to criticise when needed. Apple is not error free ok.
Overall conclusion:
It does show though that although Apple spending a little more bucks now on Samsung and LG displays than on the grainy (yes that was a problem I relate to having seen them in action) displays coming from a relatively unknown vendor, they have still cheaped a little too much out on these in order to get the LED backlight.
The colors after calibration are bluish at the bottom and reddish at the top and I still need to figure why this is. It could be due to a horrible vertical observation angle and the display being big but honestly don't know. I might try calibrating on full brightness to see if I can remove more of the bluish tint, since it's mostly apparent when fully lit.
Nevertheless it's a pleasure finally working on a Pro machine (laughable name seeing that it has similar components to the non-pro iMac and in case of the hard drive, an actually inferior and slower component.)
It feels like it's much more sturdy, better built and so on. With just 11 or so grams difference between the MBP and the Macbook, I don't notice any portable problems (and I use it a lot between home and campus).
It definetely has made me more productive because I don't have to exposé as much as before and I can have loads of stuff on the screen.
Overall, from a first-time-buying perspective, try out one of the new macbooks. They might just suit you fine.
From an ibook-macbook-new laptop perspective I wouldn't change for the life of me. This is most definitely it regarding a desktop/laptop replacement with a stable OS on it that doesn't force me to restart every time I sneeze.
This is my first review of two apple laptops meaning I have finally scraped enough money together (ie. robbing a lot of old ladies and hanging around street corners wearing sexy leather clothes which makes Trinity from the Matrix look like a 45-year old teacher having nothing to but shaving her legs 24/7).
For those of you who are lazy enough to not want to read, thus spending your work day googling porn or watching youtube.com instead of increasing your literal prowess I have outlined some of the most important points of my review below.
Let's get started then:
Ok, finally I decided to go fullblown MBP after being forced giving up my work received MB Core 2 Duo which showed extremely lemony features after 6 months of use (look at signature for full error report). So my reasons for going MBP were manyfold:
1. I didn't want another error prone macbook (at this time let me point out I am comparing the new MBP to an error rigged filth of a macbook that in no way stands to reason but I feel like doing it anyway, so bugger off with the posts objecting and saying I can't do that. It's my thread and I can do with it what I feel like).
2. I get horrible big rebates (saving around 12% on my purchase)
3. I needed bigger screen estate, more ram and a dedicated GPU in order to go all laptoppy and ditching my old desktop windows station which served me a good 3 years. At least I imagined that a dedicated GPU was important in order to run Doom Legacy, Civilization II and Baldur's Gate at a reasonable framerate. Yes I am that anal about not using my MB for those tasks.
4. Comparing the mid-level MB (which has a dual-layer burner just like the MBP) and buying an additional 2 GB of RAM for it which is shittily expensive in Denmark because apparently we get all the scrappy leftovers from the US after you're done with it. This essentially means shelling out another 250$ for RAM upgrades alone.
Comparing the price of both means in the long run 1450$ for the midlevel MB and 1799 for the MBP which I deemed a no brainer since I finally had the money.
First let me outline some of the points I make in the review below for the lazy part of the macrumors community:
This was the fastest and easiest transfer ever, it took 1.5 hours to migrate with very little migration problems
- Only Cocoaspell needed a reinstall.
Some of my dissappointements converting from MB to MBP:
- Apparently perfect display (9C67 means LG).
- no piss yellowness.
- uniform like you wouldn't believe it was a laptop display (checked in the night running full white and black background.)
- thus no backlight bleed (not even a goddamn little!!)
- Dear lord it's a bright display, putting even my desktop lamp to shame. I mean, forget about nightlight, I will just mount this bad boy in the upper corner of my bedroom and use that as projector!
Misc disappointments:
- uniform keyboard (no popping of keys, or one side that bends upwards.)
- clicking trackpad which actually responds when you press it down.
- lightning quick, snappy and responsive.
- keyboard illumination is perfect (no bad LEDS).
- Insanely cool temps (not freezer like though):
- Speakers are very very loud. I literally will hold my sides from now on laughing when someone turns up the volume on their macbooks. I mean even on tick number 3 the MBP speakers are louder and more voluminous!
Unboxing pics:
Btw, the new Apple Keyboard is smoooooth!
Yes I was happy... And overwhelmed.
Oh no, it's not closing perfectly flush. I better return it.
Not...
Who notices this anyway?
As you can see, the initial color calibration turned out pretty bluish but it did override the bluish bottomtint. I have now found a color profile from The SR MBP color profile thread. with regards to AbsenceOfTruth upload.
The bad boy with it's Speck Seethru on. It gathers a bit of dust but so far I have not experienced any problems.
The tests:
Being the little hardware fanboy I thought: "Well, since hardware problems show sooner or later, why not make them appear right now? This way I can get it DOA'ed while still being before the 14 day return period.
So two terminals, two yes > /dev/null commands, fans ramped up on 6200 rpm (I was able to this using an old version of SMCfancontrol. Apparently, the max RPM is set to 6000 on the MBP). Nighty nighty my little sweetheart.
While ramping the cores up first time, temps rose to 75 C which was liveable, and quite excpectable.
This is my surprise:
When I got up 8 hours later in the morning expecting to make a nice omelet on the upper left side of the keyboard area I was unpleasantly greeted with temps of 55 C.
Hold that a little, rewind and read again. 55 C??? What? 8 hours of maxing out both cores and the temps actually dropped 20 C?? Thoroughly dissappointed I opened up the fridge and grabbed some youghurt, not being able to make any warm breakfast this morning...
Disappointments compared to my old macbook:
- no flickering display
- no whining (I am so hoping this will occur soon but chances are slim due to me already stressing the cores for half a day or so
)- no cracking wrist areas (this one I had particularly been looking forward to...
- no glare (god yes, I really miss my constant bobbing head movements)
- no wrist cutting. I no longer have the feeling that typing on my mac, while being a slow transition to death, it will eventually end up with me lying bent over the laptop, tongue out of my mouth with slit wrists and a TextEdit rtf on the display gently conveying: "Steve Jobs made me do this, not out of spite, not out of depression because my life sucked with my mac. I had no choice. Pity me."
And now to the real stuff:
About the display, I can't help but feel that the colors is somewhat messed up. Using the default color profile I could'nt notice anything wrong with the colors. Using Supercal however, I got a nasty surprise. For all those people who calibrate the screen and suddenly notices the piss-yellow problem I sort of felt a conclusion rushing to my head:
It would seem as if the LG displays also have this problem, only regarding blue colors. When I move my head I easily notice color changes at the bottom. Just like when looking from an angle down on the display everything turns blue on my display and people with Samsung displays seem to have the same issue just with a yellow cast.
This means that if I lean over the MBP slightly, the bottom 3rd will be tinted blue and this actually forces me to change the angle of the display constantly. However, looking straight on it makes the blue go away but it still needs to be dead on, no bobbing you head or changing your sitting position at all!
It's something to get used to. It's either that or the standard profile which after I calibrated I would never go back to for the life of me. I mean this is in a sense that was I forced to use it, please bring back the macbook so I at least could use the computer towards a slow wrist cutting death.
Actually, after playing along with it, calibrating on full brightness (made my eyes hurt) and changed the gamme curve slightly, the bad viewing angles are not that bad. Not saying they aren't bad, but not as bad as after my first calibration.
It's also clear to me now that the kind of user who uses the laptop with an elevator that tips the laptop slightly without lifting it (thus ruling out the much acclaimed Griffin elevator), ie. cooler pads and the such, will be slightly annoyed and most likely notice it a lot more often, thus giving wind to the cast problem with the displays. I don't find it a big problem since I will primarily be using the laptop with a Griffin and an external display no matter what. For the two, three or so days I use it during courses and meetings I can live with having to duck down a bit to look at the display.
This is to say that I would much rather prefer the LED backlighting seeing as it's the most light/dark uniform backlighting I have seen in a while (and I own a 20" Dell 2005FPW, ouch!). It's both a preference to performance and to my weird way of thinking.
Firstly my weird way of thinking. I don't have to think about not turning the damn display off all the time because the lighting will not diminish with the new LED opposed to the classic flourescent lighting. It's HUGE for me, because I am a computerpreserving psycopath in more ways that can be counted by raising the fingers of your hand to the power of 5.
Secondly the performance way. Turning the display off and on is instantaneous. I mean like the snap of you fingers. A little faster than that actually. It might just be a feature some users would live without but I like the feel that my (expensive) laptop simply feels more responsive than the macbook I had before which would need to warm up for a least a nanosecond before the display was bright enough.
Also, the brightness is amazing, especially the smell of my retinas burning in the evening.
Ok not so much in the evening but during daylight and normal lighting conditions, it's nice to have the option to actually see everything on the display (oh yeah did I mention that this combined with the backlighting never dying is awesome. I think I did, but you get the point).
About the keyboard:
Coming from the macbooks plasticky gapfilled keys and also owning a new wired Apple keyboard, I sort of miss typing on those things. The MBP keyboard is very flat and doesn't feel as responsive (some keys need to be pressed a little harder to respond (the same problem I had with the iBook G4 keyboard, especially the arrow keys).
Nevertheless, not being of a particularly picky nature, it's something I will get used to eventually. Also if not for the old keyboard layout it would have meant no backlit keyboard, which is a feature I have wet dreams about in the night... Really, I touch myself in the night because of this big whoop wanna fight about it?
About the temps:
Though I will not piss off any religious people and speak the Lord's name in vain, I must utter this: Christ it's cold. Idling right now while charging with 2500RPM (whisper quiet fans), my temps are on 48 C = less than my macbook's temps, which also were a lot cooler than my iBook's temps. Amazing, I can not wait to put this big bad boy on my lap and fry off some of my offspring (which apparently hot temps near the groin area will do).
Now for the groovy stuff seeing as I actually bought a lot of gear for this sugarrose (ok enough with the cutee McCutenames I promise). Cute cute cute. There. I will stop now.
I happened to order a Speck Seethru which I was a little hesitant to order because I heard a lot of horror stories (not fitting thus scratching the metal, gathering dust, not fitting inside a sleeve, display will get an even lesser tilt angle and so on and so on). I guess those critics apparently were paid by the friendly people from the Speck counterparts of Techshell.
Nevertheless they can suck it since I live in Denmark and buying the Speck through the Apple store was my choice if I didn't want to pay big fat premium custom for importing something of actual value into the country.
It fits. That's what I can say about it. The thickness means raising it a little from the table because of the thickness of the shell and as such rules out the problem with the opening angle. I guess those people criticizing the Techshell for this particular issue only used the top shell and not the bottom which is no surprise for me really, seeing as the average mac user has a mathematical and physical brain capacity of an averagely sized pea (if you are interested this pea sized capacity also makes the average mac user utter stuff like: "macs are better than peecees and Windoze because I have more money and also I am cooler because I can flash my new laptop on every Starbucks café from my college to the Dairy Queen where I eventually spend all my money scuffing down every lactose related product ever imaginable by man since the discovery of the udder).
I realize now that the past sentence was too important to put in paranthesis so here lathered, rinced repeated: I dislike mac fanboys with too much money and too little reflective skills of the actual company and their products.
There I said it.
I am a mac fanboy as well to the extent that every new hardware release makes it itch in my pa... wallet but I do feel the need to criticise when needed. Apple is not error free ok.
Overall conclusion:
It does show though that although Apple spending a little more bucks now on Samsung and LG displays than on the grainy (yes that was a problem I relate to having seen them in action) displays coming from a relatively unknown vendor, they have still cheaped a little too much out on these in order to get the LED backlight.
The colors after calibration are bluish at the bottom and reddish at the top and I still need to figure why this is. It could be due to a horrible vertical observation angle and the display being big but honestly don't know. I might try calibrating on full brightness to see if I can remove more of the bluish tint, since it's mostly apparent when fully lit.
Nevertheless it's a pleasure finally working on a Pro machine (laughable name seeing that it has similar components to the non-pro iMac and in case of the hard drive, an actually inferior and slower component.)
It feels like it's much more sturdy, better built and so on. With just 11 or so grams difference between the MBP and the Macbook, I don't notice any portable problems (and I use it a lot between home and campus).
It definetely has made me more productive because I don't have to exposé as much as before and I can have loads of stuff on the screen.
Overall, from a first-time-buying perspective, try out one of the new macbooks. They might just suit you fine.
From an ibook-macbook-new laptop perspective I wouldn't change for the life of me. This is most definitely it regarding a desktop/laptop replacement with a stable OS on it that doesn't force me to restart every time I sneeze.
