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Is general computer usage improved in Macbook Pro 13" 2011?

T

TheMrDrewbear

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
2
0
Hi, I'm looking at buying my first Macbook, and have saved up enough money to buy a Macbook Pro 13".

This isn't a typical thread concerning the new Intel HD 3000 graphics and the Nvidia 320M for gaming.

I was wondering, is there a significant improvement/loss of speed in regards to general use of the computer? (Editing documents, browsing the web, watching youtube). I'm in Year 12 and I don't do much computer gaming (that's what my iPod Touch is for). I was told that a graphics card has an impact on the speed of the computer. Is this true?

Thanks :)
 
Last edited:
I can edit documents on a ti-89 and browse the web on my iPhone as fast as I can with any of the MBPs. At this point in time, the bottleneck is connection speed and latency and response from the content server. If that's all you're doing then you probably won't see a difference between the c2d 2010 machines and the ones that were just released.
 
TheMrDrewbear said:
Hi, I'm looking at buying my first Macbook, and have saved up enough money to buy a Macbook Pro 13".

This isn't a typical thread concerning the new Intel HD 3000 graphics and the Nvidia 320M for gaming.

I was wondering, is there a significant improvement/loss of speed in regards to general use of the computer? (Editing documents, browsing the web, watching youtube). I'm in Year 12 and I don't do much computer gaming (that's what my iPod Touch is for). I was told that a graphics card has an impact on the speed of the computer. Is this true?

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

If you don't do gaming, the new 13" MacBook Pro is significantly faster than the old one. It's nearly as fast as the old 17" Pro that had the previous Core i7. The graphics processor is sub-par, but that primarily affects gaming (which uses very sophisticated graphics routines). Things like iTunes, browsing, and general computing will be just fine.
 
KPOM said:
If you don't do gaming, the new 13" MacBook Pro is significantly faster than the old one.....Things like iTunes, browsing, and general computing will be just fine.
Click to expand...

But will those general basic uses be significantly improved over the 2010 model, is I think what the OP is asking. I'm curious myself (not to buy, but just because I'm the curious sort).
 
Miss Terri said:
But will those general basic uses be significantly improved over the 2010 model, is I think what the OP is asking. I'm curious myself (not to buy, but just because I'm the curious sort).
Click to expand...

Not for writing a paper, surfing the web, itunes, movies, and any other general task. The i5 is a significant improvement but C2D is more than enough processor for the above tasks.
 
Hmm, I'm a bit confused now. So what sort of tasks with the i5 in the 2011 would show improvement over the 2010 model? Any examples would be cool (=
 
4everZero said:
Hmm, I'm a bit confused now. So what sort of tasks with the i5 in the 2011 would show improvement over the 2010 model? Any examples would be cool (=
Click to expand...

browsing the web, iTunes... that kinda stuff. The only thing that will not improve a lot is gaming. otherwise, it is much faster than the 2010 model
edit: youtube videos will load much faster as well.
 
Let's put OPs question in perspective - a 2007 laptop with sufficient RAM and a fast HD (7200 or SSD) will be more than sufficient for basic use. The biggest difference he'd likely notice is if he materially changed the internet speed into his home, ie going from 1 to 5 MBps.
 
If you just want a nice casual computing experience, just get a lower end MacBook Air. The Core 2 Duo will handle everyday needs more than well enough, and the SSD will make everything but the most processor intensive tasks feel lightning fast.
 
Ahh, okay. I was just slightly thrown off by some of the wording in some of the posts I read. Or maybe I'm just not the brightest (= but it's all clear in my head now. Exactly what I thought.
 
NelsonB said:
browsing the web, iTunes... that kinda stuff. ...
edit: youtube videos will load much faster as well.
Click to expand...

These things will be much faster on a 2011 13" MBP than on a 2010 13" MBP? What about the 2011 will make Youtube videos load MUCH faster?

What I am understanding from other posts is that for the usual daily tasks of web surfing, e-mail, Word documents, etc. there will not really be any difference, and that if you want to make a difference adding an SSD or RAM to an older model might make more "everyday" difference.

Is this wrong?
 
Thanks for all of the great replies. :D I was just interested in seeing if there really was enough benefits to justify getting the latest Macbook Pro. Do you think the re-sell value will be significantly different between the 2010 and 2011 models?
 
NelsonB said:
edit: youtube videos will load much faster as well[on the 2011 model vs. the 2010 model].
Click to expand...

TMRaven said:
Nothing makes youtube videos load faster besides youtube itself.
Click to expand...

Thanks, TMRaven. The prior comment didn't really make sense to me, but then I'm a rank amateur :p Since I have a 2010, and often sit around waiting for youtube or Vimeo videos to load, I wanted to make sure :)
 
I can't stand youtube at times, its servers are so weird. A lot of the times you'll get a 720p variant of a video to load faster than a 320p version. Sometimes videos will never load and you'll get an error and you have to check back a couple minutes later.

I can't be too angry though, I give props to google for hosting servers that require literally millions of dollars in bandwidth a day-- even though they're making billions of dollars off ads on that site.
 
4everZero said:
Ahh, okay. I was just slightly thrown off by some of the wording in some of the posts I read. Or maybe I'm just not the brightest (= but it's all clear in my head now. Exactly what I thought.
Click to expand...

I think NelsonB was the only one offering conflicting advice.

The general consensus, that I suggested as well, is that for casual computing, a casual user is unlikely to notice much if any difference between the 2010 13" MBP and the 2011 13" MBP.

The kinds of tasks that one could notice significant gains would be rendering projects in iMovie, iDVD, Final Cut Pro and the like, DVD ripping with tools like Handbrake, rendering image effects in After Effects or Photoshop, and other similar processor intensive tasks. It's also possible that running virtual computers with Fusion or Parallels might see gains in speed of the virtual computer.

Hope that helps.
 
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