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PLEASE NOTE: Current MBP is lightyears behind!

K

kamil.amersi

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 24, 2010
66
0
As a previous poster mentioned, Asus, HP, Samsung and Toshiba all have sandy bridge notebooks out however it would seem that our premium priced favourites could not keep up with the competition. there has STILL not been a new mbp relearse in line with current technology nor has there been much media attention on mbp in relation to ipad and iphone. It would seem from the conference call and earnings filing released last week that these products are where the highest growth is and so the company seems to be focusing more of its inovvation efforts that. although this makes business sense, it does mean the mbp will be taking a clear backseat in terms of apples priorities.

essentially, it would seem that uptake of the mac hasnt been as great in relation to the whole pc market as apple would have like and hence is now focusing its attention on the i stuff to please investors

as a result, instead of buying last sasons left overs at overly inflated prices (and comparing the specs with any other noteok will book will reveal they are), the rational thing to do is to opt for modern (or current rather) technolodgy and go for an HP envy of the super stylish new vaio... and ofcourse close down this forum as we are unlikely to see anything great from the mbp line as they are clearly light years behind the competition
 
Um, can you say "obvious"?

If you just take into account the number of PC manufacturers vs. solely Apple making their own hardware (AND software) it's pretty easy to think that Apple computers will, generally speaking, lag behind their PC counterparts in innovation. 10+ companies updating their product lines 2-4 times each year are quite obviously more likely to be the first out with the latest and greatest.

Also, you don't buy an Apple computer because it's the best deal; you buy it because it's an Apple computer.
 
kwarren said:
Um, can you say "obvious"?

If you just take into account the number of PC manufacturers vs. solely Apple making their own hardware (AND software) it's pretty easy to think that Apple computers will, generally speaking, lag behind their PC counterparts in innovation. 10+ companies updating their product lines 2-4 times each year are quite obviously more likely to be the first out with the latest and greatest.

Also, you don't buy an Apple computer because it's the best deal; you buy it because it's an Apple computer.
Click to expand...

basically what you saying is "you pay extra because its apple".
 
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Apple releases a new line of MBP's once a year don't they? The current line came out in April 2010, and Sandy Bridge was just released. If Apple doesn't release Sandy Bridge in the next line of MBP's, which should come out in April this year, THEN I will say they are behind the competition. Apple doesn't operate the same as PC manufacturers. They will rather wait until they release the entire new model instead of putting Sandy Bridge in currently available MBP's. We might not like it, but that's the way it is...
 
I totally agree with the OP.

I've been noticing this for the last year though - Apple seems to be caring less and less and the greed seems to be growing and growing.

When I first jumped ship and started using Apple products, it was because they were ahead of the competition and clearly top of the line. But now, they're getting lazy (or greedy), because they think that people will follow them no matter what - even if they release laptops that are old tech, compared to the competition.
 
ofc pc companies are still selling decades old technology, laptop. But apple is starting a new technology medium and and taking the lead. PC can eat **** and die.
 
nonameowns said:
ofc pc companies are still selling decades old technology, laptop. But apple is starting a new technology medium and and taking the lead. PC can eat **** and die.
Click to expand...

What new technology medium would that be?

The only thing they have over the PC laptops is their design (I love the touch pad!).
 
torbjoern said:
Probably the iPad 2. Or at least some iOS product.
Click to expand...

I thought we were talking about laptops...

But anyways, iOS isn't the only thing out there - Android is quite a big competitor. I don't see anything ground breaking...

When the iPhone or iPad first came out, that was ground-breaking, but nothing as of recently.
 
Simple solution get a windows pc , me no thanks I will stick to Mac I will never go back to
unreliable windows :)
 
kwarren said:
...it's pretty easy to think that Apple computers will, generally speaking, lag behind their PC counterparts in innovation. ...
Click to expand...

Average consumers do not care about innovation or even the latest tech, they mostly buy using price or style as their marker.... This is why apple has neglected their mac lineup for the past few years, they have caught the attention of the consumer market and thus can sell older tech at their higher price.

However, those apple customers who have followed apple for a longer time than the newer customer used to come to expect a very high standard of hardware to accompany the extremely high standard of software that apple produced.

This does not really equate to innovation just quality, that i s my point, we want quality, up to date products not necessarily groundbreaking innovation.

Since the introduction of the iDevices Apple has diluted its mac products to the point where IMHO they are less attractive than their PC counterparts in terms of hardware.

But hey Steve does what Steve wants and if blind consumerism is where he sees profit then the rest of us will have to suffer in silence or switch to PC.

I just wish windows wasn't so incredibly ****** and full of problems then Apple would have a real challenge, because ultimately that is why most long term apple users stay... because of the superior OS.
 
It's not a question of toys vs computers. Apple has always acted this way. They refresh the line once or maximum twice a year with whatever is available at that point. If you happen to buy the product at the end of a cycle, there will be newer components in other computers. I just bought an MBP 2.66 i7 (I could not wait for the refresh) and I'm perfectly happy with it. It's a big improvement from my early 2008 MBP. I seriously doubt that there are so many laptops out there performing better than this one (taken I don't edit video and things like that).
 
kamil.amersi said:
As a previous poster mentioned, Asus, HP, Samsung and Toshiba all have sandy bridge notebooks out however it would seem that our premium priced favourites could not keep up with the competition.
Click to expand...

Well, thanks for the warning. So which of these notebooks has a "Sandy Bridge" processor, a decent graphics card, and ten hours battery life? And who does actually care about a "Sandy Bridge" processor?

Processors, graphics card, and battery life all fall in two categories: Fast enough / long enough or not fast enough / not long enough. Every MacBook sold today is in the first category in all three respects. Which non-Apple laptop is? There is a reason why Apple computer sales are growing at a rate much faster than the rest of the industry. The processor is way way down on the list of important things for most potential customers.
 
I am always confused why someone who starts a "let me enlighten you" thread doesn't just go buy the products they find to be superior

It is called choice, and we all have one
 
gnasher729 said:
Well, thanks for the warning. So which of these notebooks has a "Sandy Bridge" processor, a decent graphics card, and ten hours battery life? And who does actually care about a "Sandy Bridge" processor?

Processors, graphics card, and battery life all fall in two categories: Fast enough / long enough or not fast enough / not long enough. Every MacBook sold today is in the first category in all three respects. Which non-Apple laptop is? There is a reason why Apple computer sales are growing at a rate much faster than the rest of the industry. The processor is way way down on the list of important things for most potential customers.
Click to expand...

you not getting the point. i think its the marketing - if you look at the specs, the stuff thats actually in the laptop. and you do a pricing of this. add in a labour component and a sales and distribution fee. then comapre this to the market and you will see that what is being sold is old technology. sandy bridge is the latest thing and the current price. there just is no logical business case for buying old, outdated stock at todays price.

thats if you understand the business sense behind it obviously
 
kamil.amersi said:
you not getting the point. i think its the marketing - if you look at the specs, the stuff thats actually in the laptop. and you do a pricing of this. add in a labour component and a sales and distribution fee. then comapre this to the market and you will see that what is being sold is old technology. sandy bridge is the latest thing and the current price. there just is no logical business case for buying old, outdated stock at todays price.

thats if you understand the business sense behind it obviously
Click to expand...

Sometimes Apple leads on implementing new Intel tech and sometimes they follow. For Apple it's more about style, product positioning within their own product set and keeping with their own internal timeframes for releasing updated gear.

The constraints Apple design considerations place on component selection are really the reason we rarely get the top of the line components (Highend GPU=heat and slim design =no Blu-ray (notwithstanding the fictitious "bag o hurt")) and you simply pay more for the Apple OS and the Cachet of owning Apple gear.

Who cares if Apple takes a few extra months to implement this new Intel tech? We can wait. The bigger issue has always been Apple's slavish devotion to style over raw performance and their existing customer base's willingness to pay regardless.

This is the main reason I primarily own iMacs. If I have to personally pay for a Mac laptop I will always go for the lowest cost MBP from Microcenter with $200 off and buy Windows power laptops as a companion. I haven't spent more than $999 for an Apple laptop since SR (and we all know how that expensive 8600 mess turned out).

I personally would be fine with Apple designing and marketing a high-end powerful laptop with two hard drive bays and advanced cooling supporting high-end GPUs so I could carry a single slightly thicker machine that runs everything. It'll never happen but one can hope/dream.

Cheers,
 
kamil.amersi said:
there just is no logical business case for buying old, outdated stock at todays price.

thats if you understand the business sense behind it obviously
Click to expand...
My macbook pro is perfectly adequate for my business needs plus it is more stable/reliable than any Windows laptop I have used so it allows me to be more productive and earn much more money. I hope I have explained this simply enough for you to understand. :rolleyes:
 
kamil.amersi said:
you not getting the point. i think its the marketing - if you look at the specs, the stuff thats actually in the laptop. and you do a pricing of this. add in a labour component and a sales and distribution fee. then comapre this to the market and you will see that what is being sold is old technology. sandy bridge is the latest thing and the current price. there just is no logical business case for buying old, outdated stock at todays price.

thats if you understand the business sense behind it obviously
Click to expand...

Apple generally follows the industry. The reason for this is stability and usability. First, OSx is not Windows which requires the latest and greatest to run smoothly. After that, you have stability and this is where Apple shines. They would rather stick to a chip set that is stable and works well with their OS then quickly try to jump to the next level and have a system that is unstable to give to its users. They simply choose to provide rock solid machines over the latest tech. This is nothing new......

It is also the reason that I am typing this from my PC. My Mac gets used for a lot of things but sometimes I simply need a PC. I should also add that I am a Windows dev as well which is the other reason for the PC.
 
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I'm not going to defend Apple, however, Intel currently only ships i7 series sandy bridge processors, all i5 and i3 won't be available until the end of Feb. There is no point for Apple to announce new macbooks that won't be available for another month. Sure PC makers have announced new Sandy Bridge laptops, but most of them won't be shipped until March or Q2.
 
Oh heaven forbid that Apple hasn't released an updated MBP in the last few weeks since CES where sandy bridge was actually shown in laptops. Oh my goodness, and serious, since they are already not a few weeks behind (a few months by the time they are released), they are LIGHTYEARS!

Wow, seriously?
 
For the vast majority of computer users these days the CPU in their computer is no more relevant than the CPU in their TV/Set top box/Fridge etc.
In fact I would say that 80% or more would be able to use a core 2 duo and not notice any difference from the i5/i7 in terms of their everyday requirements.

Anyone buying ANY computer at ANY time has to accept that it is pretty much out of date as they are walking out of the shop.
One of the things I don`t miss about my windows days (15+ years) is the race to have the supposed latest/greatest processor/architecture when it often makes little practical difference to your daily use.

Outside of tech based forums such as this one most computer users will look blankly at you and say: "Sandy What???"

Apple do charge a premium for their products and most of the reason they can do this is because a large number of people are prepared to pay for the build quality and ease of use (OSX) that comes with it.
Apple have just had a record-breaking quarter in spite of their prices/older technology and being in a recession.

In short, many,many people do not give a tiny toss what CPU their computer runs as long as it does its job, is reliable and well built.
The views of people on tech-based forums such as this are rarely representative of the computer buying public as a whole.
I believe Apple shifted around 4 million Macs this last quarter...:)
 
eddieaus said:
I'm not going to defend Apple, however, Intel currently only ships i7 series sandy bridge processors, all i5 and i3 won't be available until the end of Feb. There is no point for Apple to announce new macbooks that won't be available for another month. Sure PC makers have announced new Sandy Bridge laptops, but most of them won't be shipped until March or Q2.
Click to expand...

This. If the OP really has a problem with Apple waiting for the Sandy Bridge chips to become widely available (2-3 months tops...) before updating the MBPs, then the OP should just get a PC and stop complaining. I, like many others, will be waiting for the Sandy Bridge MBPs patiently. It shouldn't be much longer.
 
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