Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Announces New MacBook Pros, Updates MacBook Air

Not a fan of the new design

I'm so disappointed! I've been waiting over a year for the MBP release.

No anti-glare screen option? That's almost a deal breaker for me since I'm oftentimes on my machine outside or in coffee shops near big windows and hate to worry about glare.

And what's the deal with the keyboard? I love my current MBP's keyboard because it's so comfortable with the keys all touching each other. The new MBP's keyboard looks much like the macbook's (with the keys all separated by a few centimeters) which I find uncomfortable to type on for extended periods. I don't care if the thing is cut out of a single piece of aluminum - I wan comfort & practicability.

Also, I was hoping for a ram upgrade to a 5 or 6 gig expansion max.

All I can say is that I'm pretty disappointed.
 
Need some opinions

OK, I need some objective feedback here. I'm about to replace my 7.5+ year old Dell desktop with my first ever Mac. I was about to buy a 17" Macbook Pro a month ago or so but heard rumors of a new line being unveiled. That day has come now I have mixed thoughts. Apparently buying a 17" now seems like a complete waste since it has no major upgrades and you pay more even though it has the older NVidia graphics card. :confused: I just need it for personal use. Gaming would be nice but not a burning necessity as I have all 3 major consoles for that anyway but I'd like to try some of them on there to see what it can do. I'm also a bit peeved that there's no option to get the matte screen. Since I'd mostly use it at home, it is a laptop and can be moved around for optimal viewing. Now should I settle for a 15" MBP or wait a few weeks/months for the revamped 17" model to come out? Given the new hardware upgrades, the new 15" top of the line model sounds sweet.

Personally I love the look of the new MacBooks. It has a similar rounded look to my new iphone 3G. :apple:
 
i said:
".....the Firewire issue: I understand that many of you have legacy devices and are committed to Firewire. It is natural that you would be upset about the diminishing support for it. However, what you need to realise is that it is a dying standard. Its adoption outside of Macs is minimal, and, speaking as a long time fan, recent switcher (my first Mac was - and is - an Early 2008 MacBook Pro) I personally would have preferred two more USB ports where the FW400 & 800 ports are....."
Click to expand...

"Legacy devices"..."a dying standard"...?!! Well, thanks professor for that well thought out, though completely wrong opinion!

Firewire 400 is hardly a a dying standard...the photo and video industry is locked into Firewire 400 for the foreseeable future, as evidenced by the number of extremely high-end video systems and in my case, digital backs, all of which use Firewire 400 as their tethered interface. If a guy like me drops 30 grand on a digital back, I have every right to assume it's gonna be supported by Apple, a company that courts professional photographers HARD, longer than it take to come out with their next best laptop! I should expect to get a Goddamned lot of years use out of a piece of equipment that spendy and for Apple to turn it's back on Firewire 400 is ludicrous!

And one more thing...what about the file cabinets FULL of Firewire 400 drives that I have storing (at last count) roughly 60 TERABYTES of RAW files?!! Is my only recourse to be that I must transfer all of this data onto newer Firewire 800 drives just because Apple has decided Firewire 400 ain't part of the cool club any more?

I have hundreds of thousands of dollars tied up in digital equipment, so you'll have to cut me some slack when I get pissed off after I hear boneheaded comments from the likes of "i, Podius" that tell me to "get over it" and move on! I'm ever so happy you prefer USB to Firewire...that basically tells me all I need to know about exactly how much brain power you're pushing!

BT in NYC
 
SchneiderMan said:
so if i want the 2.4 with 9600mgt is that possible or is it only for the 2.5?
also those are not the centrino 2 processors right? why are they still using c2d? thanks!

EDIT: omg is it in SLI?? lol
Click to expand...

You get the 9600M with both MBP configurations. The only difference is that the $2499.00 config has more more video ram. 512 mb vs. 256 mb.

Centrino 2 is not a cpu. It is a defined configuration of CPU, chipset, and wifi. The core 2 duo is the latest 45nm penryn cpu from intel. It is intel's top current processor for mobile computing.
 
SchneiderMan said:
so if i want the 2.4 with 9600mgt is that possible or is it only for the 2.5?
also those are not the centrino 2 processors right? why are they still using c2d? thanks!

EDIT: omg is it in SLI?? lol
Click to expand...

the 9600M GT is across the board. But people are saying the L2 cache is different, which it actually isn't between the 1299 MB and the 1999 MBP, both have 3MB, its 6MB ont he 2.53 version though.

What I'm confused about is on the apple site it says "NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory" are on both models, the 2.4 and 2.53, but it says the video memory for the 2.4 is only 256MG, where as its 512 for the 2.53, does that mean the 9600M GT is actually not used to its full potential of 512 MB on the 2.4 model. I don't exactly know how graphics chips work, but what it looks like is that Apple is limiting it so that there actually is a difference between the 2 models, even though they both have the exact same chips.
 
mcorleone said:
OK, I need some objective feedback here. I'm about to replace my 7.5+ year old Dell desktop with my first ever Mac. I was about to buy a 17" Macbook Pro a month ago or so but heard rumors of a new line being unveiled. That day has come now I have mixed thoughts. Apparently buying a 17" now seems like a complete waste since it has no major upgrades and you pay more even though it has the older NVidia graphics card. :confused: I just need it for personal use. Gaming would be nice but not a burning necessity as I have all 3 major consoles for that anyway but I'd like to try some of them on there to see what it can do. I'm also a bit peeved that there's no option to get the matte screen. Since I'd mostly use it at home, it is a laptop and can be moved around for optimal viewing. Now should I settle for a 15" MBP or wait a few weeks/months for the revamped 17" model to come out? Given the new hardware upgrades, the new 15" top of the line model sounds sweet.

Personally I love the look of the new MacBooks. It has a similar rounded look to my new iphone 3G. :apple:
Click to expand...

I would buy the MBP in a heartbeat and not look back. It is a beautiful piece of engineering and I am sure you will be thrilled with it. Just getting the Apple box delivered to your house and unpacking the beauty for the first time is a great experience.

It's hard telling when if ever the 17" will be updated. I expect it will but with Apple you are never sure about anything.
 
Three bad things about the new MBP:

  • Lack of Blu-Ray
  • Lack of more than 2 USB Ports
  • Only Glossy display!

Besides that looks pretty nice, but I won't change mine with those cons :(
 
One more question. Apparently the top of the line model is available at the Apple online store in any configuration but at MacMall its only available in the 2.53ghz version. I'd be going for the full 2.8. ;) From experience will these be available in the next day or to at MacMall and how much $ would you really save? The nearest Apple store for me is all the way in Tampa! :(
 
Credibility

No, in some people's minds, you have no credibility because you aren't going along with the company line. Apple decided something and you haven't fallen in line like a lemming. That makes you a "whiner". Me too. Rather a whiner than a lemming.;)

john123 said:
I have owned every single revision of Apple 15" "pro" laptops since the 1.5Ghz PowerBook. Every last one. Every time Apple has introduced a new 15" laptop, I've bought the new lower-end configuration, and sold the old one.

This is the first time I believe I'll be breaking that pattern. Glossy truly is a deal-breaker. I like to take my work outside. I commonly work beside the pool. It's tough, but doable, with matte. With glossy, it's pretty much impossible.

There are certainly people on the boards who nitpick, but as someone who's dropped $12K on just his own laptops over the past 3 and a half years, I think I have a little credibility here.
Click to expand...
 
raquiros said:
Three bad things about the new MBP:

  • Lack of Blu-Ray
  • Lack of more than 2 USB Ports
  • Only Glossy display!

Besides that looks pretty nice, but I won't change mine with those cons :(
Click to expand...

I guess the blueray thing was hoped for but it was just wishfull thinking as for the HDMI ports...
But the glossy display ... Kind of ruined it too much...
And the MB change of a 2.4 to a 2.0FLAT... Kind of sucked...
Atleast the MBP have more HD.... The solid state drive thing sucks and is 500 more...
Bllllaahhhh!!!:eek::mad::(
 
digitalbiker said:
It's hard telling when if ever the 17" will be updated. I expect it will but with Apple you are never sure about anything.
Click to expand...

The 17" IS updated.
Go to the New macbookspros in the store and look at the 17" -
Beside 17" it says...low and behold..."new"

Now - it appears this "New" 17" machine has the OLD FAULTY Nvidia card still in it.
Also, it is slower than the 15". So this "New" 17inch is a joke.

Would love to see some mainstream articles address apples shortcomings on this. Its really messed up saying something is new when you have a Faulty card that everyone knew was messed up and Apple just admitted to.

Come on press, nail Apple on this.

Peace

dAlen
 
Brad Trent said:
And one more thing...what about the file cabinets FULL of Firewire 400 drives that I have storing (at last count) roughly 60 TERABYTES of RAW files?!! Is my only recourse to be that I must transfer all of this data onto newer Firewire 800 drives just because Apple has decided Firewire 400 ain't part of the cool club any more?
Click to expand...
huh?

the 800 (1394b) port is 400 (1394) "backward compatible" using a bilingual cable:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb08/articles/qa0208_4.htm
 
mcorleone said:
One more question. Apparently the top of the line model is available at the Apple online store in any configuration but at MacMall its only available in the 2.53ghz version. I'd be going for the full 2.8. ;) From experience will these be available in the next day or to at MacMall and how much $ would you really save? The nearest Apple store for me is all the way in Tampa! :(
Click to expand...

The 2.8 GHz is a custom configuration. The MacMall may never carry that particular configuration.

Why not order directly from the online Apple Store?
 
mcorleone said:
One more question. Apparently the top of the line model is available at the Apple online store in any configuration but at MacMall its only available in the 2.53ghz version. I'd be going for the full 2.8. ;) From experience will these be available in the next day or to at MacMall and how much $ would you really save? The nearest Apple store for me is all the way in Tampa! :(
Click to expand...

... In PR... We can't get stuff directly from apple and the 2.8 is something we like to call
CTO... Costum to order... Soooooo... Some stores don't get the whole exclusivity here.... :(

We never saw the 3.06
 
dAlen said:
The 17" IS updated.
Go to the New macbookspros in the store and look at the 17" -
Beside 17" it says...low and behold..."new"

Now - it appears this "New" 17" machine has the OLD FAULTY Nvidia card still in it.
Also, it is slower than the 15". So this "New" 17inch is a joke.

Would love to see some mainstream articles address apples shortcomings on this. Its really messed up saying something is new when you have a Faulty card that everyone knew was messed up and Apple just admitted to.

Come on press, nail Apple on this.

Peace

dAlen
Click to expand...

NVidia has since fixed the old card. Apparently it was due to lower grade solder that was used in the initial cards. I would expect that these 17" MBPs are free of that problem.

Also even though they are new MBP 17". They didn't receive the same update that the rest of the line did and that is what I was referring to in the reply post.
 
Overall, I pretty disappointed in Apple. There are way too many products now and their product line and site is losing its simplicity. Look at the front page for the Macbook Pro and there's huge blocks of text now. As for products, let's see:

- There's a white Macbook still on sale for which information can only be found when you hit the 'buy now' button for the aluminum Macbook
- There are two aluminum models Macbooks which don't have Firewire 400, and the $1299 version doesn't have a backlit keyboard
- The Macbook Pro has even less differentiation with the Macbook and there's no point to get one besides the larger screen, and Firewire 400
- The Macbook Pro's bezel is even larger than before there's no 17" version of the Macbook Pro yet; and there are glossy screens all around with no options for matte, not even for their Cinema Display.
- Education discounts, at least in Canada, have lowered from $200-->$100 and $100-->a paltry $50 for the Macbook Pro and non-Pro--ironic since they were touting their sales in the education market today.
- Specs for the machines not competitive enough especially to last 6 months until the next refresh

Do you think the 17 inch Macbook Pro is taking longer because they are designing a matter version of the unibody laptop. This will differentiate the products more and the pros will have more incentive to buy the larger, more expensive model.
 
digitalbiker said:
No. Besides screen size and resolution.
The MBP has a faster CPU, a much faster discrete GPU, FW 800, Express card, 6 MB cache CPU compared to 3 MB, and ability to use SSD instead of HDD if desired.
Click to expand...

That is incorrect. The MB and low-end 15" MBP share the same CPU (2.40 GHz, 3MB cache) but the high-end 15" MBP has a 2.53 GHz, 6MB cache CPU.
 
When they do eventually bring the 17inch Macbook Pro in line look wise what do you think the chances are of them having a matte display option for it? Also do you think they may keep a firewire 400 on the 17 inch MacbookPro when it's looks are updated?

Personally I'm glad I brought my Macbook Pro three months ago. Beyond having a firewire400 port and a matte screen, I like the look of it more (I know that's only superficial but still).
Also I brought it in America when the Australian dollar what at it's strongest, and I got it for a bit less than 3, 500 AUD, in australia it would have cost me closer to 6, 000 AUD. I can live with a possible faulty GPU as all my stuff is backed up, and I can go without my computer for a little while if and when it needs replacing.
 
Brad Trent said:
And one more thing...what about the file cabinets FULL of Firewire 400 drives that I have storing (at last count) roughly 60 TERABYTES of RAW files?!! Is my only recourse to be that I must transfer all of this data onto newer Firewire 800 drives just because Apple has decided Firewire 400 ain't part of the cool club any more?
Click to expand...

Um, all you need is a cable with a 400 connector on one end and an 800 connector on the other. They're cheap. I use one all the time.
 
digitalbiker said:
It can. It is not a big deal. For some reason, people are choosing to use this as a scapegoat issue to justify their wait for the next revision, only to find something else to nitpick about.
Click to expand...

No it can't, for these reasons:

1. This isn't a "normal" glossy screen. This is a piece of window glass glued in front of a normal LCD. The problem now is that there's a small space between the glass and the LCD. If you were to stick some sort of textured anti-glare film on the glass, the texture will cast a shadow on the LCD, making calibration impossible and looking like crap

2. the film will eventually come off, making your screen look like crap

3. the film's glue might damage the surface of the glass-screen-cover.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back