13" Macbook Pro Isn't A Pro

[Ryox]

People might disagree with me but I think they should make a 13, 15 and 17 inch MacBook line with consumer technology at a lower price point than the current MacBook.
Than have an all out top spec Pro line for the MacBook Pros. Keep the 13" Macbook Pro give it an independent graphics chip and make it a proper pro as well.
And bring back the express card slot, Its much more useful than a SD reader. SD card is a consumer technology anyway.

 

[iMacmatician]

Like I said before, my definition of a pro machine is one that goes beyond normal computing of word processing, listening to music, e-mail and presentations. My TI-89 could probably do presentations if I jury rigged something up to the I/O port.

Probably, since I know my old fx-9750G could send screenshots to a connected computer. Don't know about directly to a projector though…but at least there's this.

At least the desktop line is more clear-cut. The Mac Pro is "pro" since it offers the performance and expandability for high-end computing tasks, features that the iMac does not have. As for the notebooks… 17" and high-end 15" would probably be "pro" and 13" probably not.

It's also notable that the 12" PowerBooks were more similar to the iBooks in many respects than the 15"/17" PowerBooks. It's similar now except that it's a bit more blurred to me.

 

[jfyrfytr25]

But even better, I can take this "to work, and have meetings all day long, show presentations, write proposals and come with 20% battery life left" too :

So either this cute little 250 dollar dell mini is as pro/robust as your 13", 15" whatever, or maybe your computing needs aren't that complex ? I'm banking its the latter. Like I said before, my definition of a pro machine is one that goes beyond normal computing of word processing, listening to music, e-mail and presentations. My TI-89 could probably do presentations if I jury rigged something up to the I/O port.

But lets just agree to disagree. You think something is pro based solely on the user (thus making a water bottle pro if a pro athlete uses it, whilst that same bottle becomes a mere "standard" model if used by a commoner such as myself) while I believe that the pro moniker designates an emphasis on performance and output and offers options that are not available on standard models, and in this specific situation, is used incorrectly (from my interpretation).

you hit the nail on the head. "your definition" thats just it. it is your definition on what is useful to you. and honestly who cares about your definition? same number of people that cares about my definition, 1, you.

to use an analogy of a water bottle is grasping at straws but i'll play along.

under your philosophy of performance being the designation. take a mustang GT, a GT with a 5 speed trans has a better performance than a gt with an automatic. so is the manual speed less of a GT than the automatic GT? no, same car, same look, same features except for a few. but they are still considered a mustang GT.


well, I have to be honest. I am done with this debate. in the end it is a FREAKIN' NAME!!!! i dont sit at home all day mad because apple put a name on a machine i dont think it should have. it sure sounds like you do and it must really bothers you.

so i am leaving this thread and wont be back because i will be enjoying my inferior macbook pro.

 

[Pocket lint]

you hit the nail on the head. "your definition" thats just it. it is your definition on what is useful to you. and honestly who cares about your definition? same number of people that cares about my definition, 1, you.

to use an analogy of a water bottle is grasping at straws but i'll play along.

under your philosophy of performance being the designation. take a mustang GT, a GT with a 5 speed trans has a better performance than a gt with an automatic. so is the manual speed less of a GT than the automatic GT? no, same car, same look, same features except for a few. but they are still considered a mustang GT.


well, I have to be honest. I am done with this debate. in the end it is a FREAKIN' NAME!!!! i dont sit at home all day mad because apple put a name on a machine i dont think it should have. it sure sounds like you do and it must really bothers you.

so i am leaving this thread and wont be back because i will be enjoying my inferior macbook pro.

Ha ha! It seems you're the only one being "mad all day" around here.


Lighten up, it's just a computer

 

[shambo]

17" being the Macbook Pro
15" being the Macbook Semi/half-baked/crippled-Pro
13" being the Macbook.

Thanks for all the replies so far. It seems that there is a healthy percentage of people annoyed that the 13 incher is now supposed to be a Pro.

Personally if Apple feel the need to stick with tagging a 13" as a Pro then the whole range should be relabelled. Something like:

17" Macbook +Pro
15" Macbook Pro
13" Macbook -Pro

 

[JoeG4]

Can't believe you guys got in a fight over the word "Pro". Who cares. Apple could call it Wikikihamalui for all I care! Merit-wise, they go like this:

13":
SD card slot, something no 12" PowerBook ever had.
Rather low res, small 13" screen
Huge bezel. Like.. 1994 Toshiba Satellite huge.
Firewire 800 (you're complaining?).
The retarded mini displayport, but at least it has an external display port
Cheap 6bit screen under a tacky piece of glass

15"
SD card slot, slightly less useful than the old expresscard slot
Okay, but not stellar res 15" screen
Also crappy 6bit model, under a tacky piece of glass..
Optional crappy 6bit model with a frame instead.
Firewire 800
The mini displayport. Unacceptable on a 15" laptop.
Half the amount of RAM that comes with a $500 HP laptop
A much, much nicer case, albeit inspired by HP

17"
The thin behemoth
17" 1920x1200 .. 6 bit TN panel *shudder* under tacky glass
Expresscard slot (yay!)
Mini displayport. @#%* this is even worse than ADC.
One empty, empty wallet
The only model with an acceptable looking bezel

 

[jfyrfytr25]

Ha ha! It seems you're the only one being "mad all day" around here.


Lighten up, it's just a computer

not mad at all. just think that you people get away with bashing the 13" pro users way too much.


i dont need to lighten up. i am fine. maybe you should be here a little longer before you tell someone to lighten up. when did you join? an hour ago?

 

[Pocket lint]

not mad at all. just think that you people get away with bashing the 13" pro users way too much.


i dont need to lighten up. i am fine. maybe you should be here a little longer before you tell someone to lighten up. when did you join? an hour ago?

So what if I signed up yesterday? It's not like I was born when I signed up. I somehow managed to live a life and talk to people before signing up here. Astounding, huh?

In any case, I can't see much bashing of the users of said computer, but more of Apple's decision to go for the "pro"-monicker. They aren't interchangeable.

As I said: Lighten up. It's just a computer.

 

[JonHimself]

Thanks for all the replies so far. It seems that there is a healthy percentage of people annoyed that the 13 incher is now supposed to be a Pro.

haha healthy compared to what? the other options in the poll? because if that's the case then I think I disagree with your definition of 'pro' and 'healthy'.

 

[gan6660]

I guess the most liked apple computer of all time the 12" Powerbook wasnt really a pro machine either?

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

haha healthy compared to what? the other options in the poll? because if that's the case then I think I disagree with your definition of 'pro' and 'healthy'.

lol this thread is a joke.... even if 100% of people on macrumors thought that the 13" shouldn't be a pro, that wouldn't even cover 0.1% of mac users out there.

 

[shambo]

haha healthy compared to what? the other options in the poll? because if that's the case then I think I disagree with your definition of 'pro' and 'healthy'.

40% is nearly 1 in 2, i.e. parity.

You are entitled to your opinion.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

i dont need to lighten up. i am fine. maybe you should be here a little longer before you tell someone to lighten up. when did you join? an hour ago?

LoL i'm grasping at straws and you're calling out another users join date? Wow that doesn't sound very pro to me. Besides i've got like a year on you, I guess that makes what I say +1 internets better right?

 

[Pocket lint]

I guess the most liked apple computer of all time the 12" Powerbook wasnt really a pro machine either?

That's already answered in this thread.

 

[tsa1]

You know, there was a 12'' PowerBook. It nearly got up to the speed of the best 17'' of the time.

thank you.

powerbook = Macbook pro.

Pro's need mobility, and nothing serves this purpose better than the 13.3inch macbook pro. I do love the 15inch, but at this price point 500 dollars more for 2 inches of screen real estate a p8700 and 250gb hard drive is not worth it.

My next pro will be a 17, hopefully a 16.9ratio by that time.

 

[Bitmap Frog]

The "pro" moniker is just branding, marketing and status.

This is itching me to go on a tirade about what Macs have become but whatever. Still I can't believe some of you are swallowing the whole "pro" branding considering how low-specced (specially considering the cost) Apple's laptops are.

 

[arthursiew]

Just because the 13" Pro has a small screen makes it not a Pro? Think about this... the iBook G4 came in a 14" screen too, but there was also a 12" PowerBook which was considered a Pro in that time.

 

[Sneakz]

Just because the 13" Pro has a small screen makes it not a Pro? Think about this... the iBook G4 came in a 14" screen too, but there was also a 12" PowerBook which was considered a Pro in that time.

12" PB also had decent dedicated graphics for it's time.

 

[Hrududu]

12" PB also had decent dedicated graphics for it's time.

Thats true. The 1.33 and 1.5GHz models have the 64mb GeForce FX 5200 which supports not only Quartz Extreme, but Core Image as well.

 

[Cannedkoala]

What did you say to the salesperson when you went to buy your computer?

"I am a 'pro' so I need a 'pro' machine thanks...here is my credit card."

If you were like me you just looked at the offerings and chose what gave you what you needed. Isn't that what a 'pro' would do instead of look for the little letters on the casing?

All the uMBP are aluminium and look like they are from the same product line. Makes sense to me to call them the same thing.

Maybe I'm still too new to this Apple thing, but I think a lot of people here need to be honest with themselves about why this change in labeling bothers them. Not a trivial thing.

 

[combine]

What did you say to the salesperson when you went to buy your computer?

"I am a 'pro' so I need a 'pro' machine thanks...here is my credit card."

If you were like me you just looked at the offerings and chose what gave you what you needed. Isn't that what a 'pro' would do instead of look for the little letters on the casing?

All the uMBP are aluminium and look like they are from the same product line. Makes sense to me to call them the same thing.

Maybe I'm still too new to this Apple thing, but I think a lot of people here need to be honest with themselves about why this change in labeling bothers them. Not a trivial thing.

+1. In my case, before the 13" unibody mbp got announced, i'm all ready to get the 13" unibody macbook because the specs for it suits my requirement.

But than news of a refresh for a new line of macbooks were around the corner and thus i waited to see what new offerings do Apple have in store for me.

Out came the 13" mbp with specs very similar to the 08 13" unibody, but with added specs like increased of cpu ghz, backlit keyboard for the base model etc

Did i make this purchase because because Apple added a Pro to this new lineup? No, i got it because its has better specs and its cheaper!

The Pro term is just a gimmick, most savvy consumers will always look at the specs when they are shopping for a computer. Who actually cares what do you name the laptop as.

 

[iMacmatician]

This is itching me to go on a tirade about what Macs have become but whatever. Still I can't believe some of you are swallowing the whole "pro" branding considering how low-specced (specially considering the cost) Apple's laptops are.

Some of it is due to the thinness (high-end GPUs, 45 W CPUs…which leads to another "issue"), but others could have been done but aren't (like higher resolution).

Over the years, the CPUs have been slowly getting lower-end and lower-end respective to the Intel CPU lineup.

 

[Stuee]

Seriously, the only thing that makes the Pro a Pro is Apple's marketing. They are fully aware that people with money will, in most cases, want the best their money can buy - so whether they need the power and features of the Pro or not, that's what they will buy. Without that moniker they'll just buy whatever they like the look of.

For the rest of us, it does distinguish the two lines quite nicely, although there's a blurry bit where the Macbook Aluminium has the same unibody shell as the Pro's, just with different connectivity, etc.

For me, there is just spec. They are all Macintosh notebooks, and I will evaluate the individual specs and buy what suits my purpose regardless of Apple's naming conventions (I'm actually probably about to buy a 2007 Pro because I want the ExpressCard slot). I find this is the only way to avoid the Pro snobbery we're reading in this thread.

 

[madog]

But then, a lot of professional designers wouldn't be using a laptop screen for production work, would they? They'd have color calibrated 8-bit external monitors or dedicated video monitors, and they would only use the internal screen for when they were out working or for rough edits. (Or they'd just use their Mac Pros).

They would have their dedicated desktops, but the point of having a Pro-fessional laptop is so you can do that same work on the go, which is very important to many people and kind of the entire argument here.

Compared to Apple's previous offerings, the 13 inch is not a machine to do professional work on, and then the base 15 inch model is in a similar place with the lack of the dedicated video card. There are professional's out there who don't need a lot of computing power, but when the general populous assiociates Mac's with "graphics" (used broadly of course, I hear that about every day), then by all means the Pro line should be able to, I don't know, actually handle professional graphic design to the point a laptop can.

The 13 inch can't display millions of colors and is probably worse for most than the lack of the dedicated GPU.

 

[pinktank]

do you use the laptop for work, and it over satisfies the job at hand? good.

Anyone talking about the correlation of graphic design and the gpu is just talking. IF the 13 is not enough, than the 15 is not either in terms of color, regardless, color matching is done on external monitors which both handle equally well.

So I say poppycock to thee!