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

Is the 2010 MBP 13" 2.4GHz Outdated?

Converting and playing 1080p h.264 files will bring a Core 2 duo to it's knees.... Which is the main reason I upgraded a year ago to the iMac in my sig.

I will now be upgrading again just to be able to work faster and work now with 2k, 4k and 5k video files.
 
Titanium81 said:
Is the 2010 MBP 13" 2.4GHz Outdated? Or is it still very viable with a SSD and 8GB Ram swap?
Click to expand...

It's outdated, but so is the 2011 MBP ( Apple seems to be the only one who doesn't use the 2nd gen Sandy Bridge CPU's )

It's still a viable computer unless you're running out of CPU power.
 
New 2011 MacBook pro to be updated soon and will for the same price (retail)

Unless your getting a really really big discount for the 2010
MacBook pro like less then £600 then go for it.

Otherwise £850 after discount (education) for a new MacBook pro is better (normal price of 13" MBP £999)
 
mark28 said:
It's outdated, but so is the 2011 MBP ( Apple seems to be the only one who doesn't use the 2nd gen Sandy Bridge CPU's )

It's still a viable computer unless you're running out of CPU power.
Click to expand...
All 2011 MBPs use a dual- or quad-core Sandy Bridge CPU.
Iphone3gs said:
New 2011 MacBook pro to be updated soon and will for the same price (retail)

Unless your getting a really really big discount for the 2010
MacBook pro like less then £600 then go for it.

Otherwise £850 after discount (education) for a new MacBook pro is better (normal price of 13" MBP £999)
Click to expand...

Supply constraints are not signs of a refresh/spec bump. Here's 2 extremely good reasons as to why.
1. Catcher's Unibody factory shut down due to environmental problems. They are the only company that makes the aluminum unibodies.
2. Hard drive factories in Thailand are flooded. Including Western Digital.
 
I was a little hesitant to purchase my 2010 mbp last year knowing that it didn't have the new generation core i processors but I am glad that I chose to instead of getting a windows machine that had a core i processor. It is plenty fast for what I do and really I have never had any complains about it being slow or w/e.
 
Titanium81 said:
The reason I ask is because I want to get a 13" MBP and thinking the 2010 model might be a better option for me since it has OpenCL support under OS X Lion.
Click to expand...

OpenCL sounds nice on paper but it has yet to show anything useful. I'm all for supporting future technologies but it seems like you'd be giving up a lot for something that isn't concrete at this point. It could be that you know more about OpenCL's future than I do 😉 but if you ask me, not worth putting up with the 3 year old C2D architecture for.

Titanium81 said:
Should have released the 2011 with Core 2 duo, HD Camera, Thunderbolt port..... So they could have stuck with Nvidia 😉

Would have been better off in my opinion.
Click to expand...

The GPU performance of the NVidia is equal to the HD 3000, the only difference is OpenCL support. Apple pissed off a lot of people by doing without Arrandale last year and there would be more irritated people if they left out Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge is a huge step up from Arrandale let alone C2D, I don't believe this is worth sacrificing just to get OpenCL.

I'd say go with this year's 13" or last years 15" if you must have OpenCL as well.
 
Don't get me wrong... I love the new 2011 i5 (the speed is AWESOME) I just think it would be better paired with the 320m (I know this couldn't happen)😡

I just need a MBP that will get me through a few years until they support OpenCL on a 13" MBP again 🙂

grahamnp said:
OpenCL sounds nice on paper but it has yet to show anything useful. I'm all for supporting future technologies but it seems like you'd be giving up a lot for something that isn't concrete at this point. It could be that you know more about OpenCL's future than I do 😉 but if you ask me, not worth putting up with the 3 year old C2D architecture for.



The GPU performance of the NVidia is equal to the HD 3000, the only difference is OpenCL support. Apple pissed off a lot of people by doing without Arrandale last year and there would be more irritated people if they left out Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge is a huge step up from Arrandale let alone C2D, I don't believe this is worth sacrificing just to get OpenCL.

I'd say go with this year's 13" or last years 15" if you must have OpenCL as well.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I had a 2010 13" MBP with 8GB RAM, 120GB Intel SSD. I sold it for a very decent price (w.o. the SSD!) and bought the 2011 13" MBP, and immediately upgraded it to 8GB + my 120GB SSD. Here are my qualitative observations
* I see almost no improvement in casual computing (office, browsing, movies etc). FYI, I dont do gaming and very heavy GPU stuff. I use it mainly for dev and running some math stuff.
* When I do some heavy math, the 2011 seems noticeably faster
* For photo editing, the 2011 seems slightly faster, especially for batch operations.
* The 2010 had a better battery life (or at least that was my perception)

Am I happier? I am ambivalent! Maybe I could have gone for the next Ivy Bridge update or if they bring out the Air with 8GB RAM (I refuse to buy a laptop w. 64bit OS with no room to expand the RAM, thats cheating).

Titanium81 said:
Don't get me wrong... I love the new 2011 i5 (the speed is AWESOME) I just think it would be better paired with the 320m (I know this couldn't happen)😡

I just need a MBP that would get me through a few years until they support OpenClL on a 13" MBP again 🙂
Click to expand...
 
RedReplicant said:
Another one here with a 2010 13" and plenty happy with it. I think the SSD + 8GB of ram keep it from feeling slow. Normal workload is a Windows7 VM, lightroom, photoshop, 720p videos, web browsing w/ heavy tab counts.
Click to expand...


I have the mid 2010 13" as well. Sure I had it a little choked up yesterday as I was browsing, downloading 6 movies, TM backup, transferring files to a flash drive and copying filed to my external HD. But even at a year old with no upgrades, the old girl flies just like she was new out of the box. I couldn't be happier with it. And I'm glad I didn't jump on and get one of the 2011s. From all that Ive heard about them, I think that I might not have had as good of a transition to Mac as I did. I don't see me ever switching back to a windows machine any time soon.
 
At one point in late February/early March, I had both the 2010 and 2011 13" on my desk alongside one another. To be honest, there was really no discernible difference. When it is hard to find a difference between two machines while using them simultaneously, maintaining that one is faster than another while using it alone is all an egregious error of perception.

I suppose with all the heavy mathematical stuff, the 2011 would be noticeably quicker but don't pay more for something you don't foresee yourself needing.

Reviewers and companies tout (typically) meaningless benchmarks too much.

tinkori said:
I had a 2010 13" MBP with 8GB RAM, 120GB Intel SSD. I sold it for a very decent price (w.o. the SSD!) and bought the 2011 13" MBP, and immediately upgraded it to 8GB + my 120GB SSD. Here are my qualitative observations
* I see almost no improvement in casual computing (office, browsing, movies etc). FYI, I dont do gaming and very heavy GPU stuff. I use it mainly for dev and running some math stuff.
* When I do some heavy math, the 2011 seems noticeably faster
* For photo editing, the 2011 seems slightly faster, especially for batch operations.
* The 2010 had a better battery life (or at least that was my perception)

Am I happier? I am ambivalent! Maybe I could have gone for the next Ivy Bridge update or if they bring out the Air with 8GB RAM (I refuse to buy a laptop w. 64bit OS with no room to expand the RAM, thats cheating).
Click to expand...
 
tinkori said:
I had a 2010 13" MBP with 8GB RAM, 120GB Intel SSD. I sold it for a very decent price (w.o. the SSD!) and bought the 2011 13" MBP, and immediately upgraded it to 8GB + my 120GB SSD. Here are my qualitative observations
* I see almost no improvement in casual computing (office, browsing, movies etc). FYI, I dont do gaming and very heavy GPU stuff. I use it mainly for dev and running some math stuff.
* When I do some heavy math, the 2011 seems noticeably faster
* For photo editing, the 2011 seems slightly faster, especially for batch operations.
* The 2010 had a better battery life (or at least that was my perception)

Am I happier? I am ambivalent! Maybe I could have gone for the next Ivy Bridge update or if they bring out the Air with 8GB RAM (I refuse to buy a laptop w. 64bit OS with no room to expand the RAM, thats cheating).
Click to expand...

+1 the only time I notice any difference is transcoding..yes it my '10 played 1080 movies just fine..
 
I love my 2010 13" 2.4GHz MBP. I can play 1080p videos without an issue. Also it can play games. I only played Bio Shock on it but it plays it at max settings without an issue. I have 8GBs of ram in mine and will be getting an SSD at some point.
 
scupking said:
I love my 2010 13" 2.4GHz MBP. I can play 1080p videos without an issue. Also it can play games. I only played Bio Shock on it but it plays it at max settings without an issue. I have 8GBs of ram in mine and will be getting an SSD at some point.
Click to expand...


If you were to buy today, would you prefer 2010 $869.00 or 2011 $929.00?
 
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