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MacBook and MacBook Pro Unpacking, Disassembly and First Impressions

Well, I guess new MB looks nice enough, though I'm not sure about that black keyboard look. I'm ambivalent about the glossy screen issue, though i understand many are highly p****d off. However, no firewire?? I know I could still get the old white macbook or a refurb, but when I want a new machine, that's what I want. A NEW machine. And the price (especially in UK). NOT GOOD APPLE. :mad:

I didn't really want to go back to the PC world, but it's looking like that's my best option at this point.
 
Does it seem a lot faster? Have you been able to test it out enough to see the benefit from the Nvidia chipset?

And what's the latest on the rumors about Nvidia having problems?
 
Im still waiting for the article that explains to everyone why Apple has the 17" labled New in the store, (right by the text, cant miss it), and here is the kicker: It apparently still has the OLD DEFECTIVE Nvidia graphics card.

How is it that this is so overlooked.
It would seem that the media would pick this up immediately and run with it.

Some audacity on Apples part to do this.
The news of the faulty cards came out months ago, or so it seems, and Apple recently admitted to the issue. (And from macrumors, I believe it was, it even hinted at the fact the warranty is only for the U.S.)

Warranties aside, the very fact that they labeled the 17" with new and kept that card in there...is bad form.

Also, I havent even touched on the fact that it has a slower processor than the 15" even when upgraded it doesnt reach where the 15" can go.

The 17" could have housed the new Intel quads.
You know, this is really news worthy, as Apple used to blame IBM for slow computers and now they pull this bunny out of the hat. (Stuff it back apple, please) lol

Seriously though...Apple has gone consumer.

I believe it would benefit the world to have someone at least bring this out to the public.
Pro now means advanced enthusiast. Yes, pros will buy these machines...but this alone does not a pro machine make. ;)

The new macbookpros are nice - but they are not pro...and the 17" needs to be taken care of. (Sorry, got to remind myself, Apple is truly a consumer company now. And this is not sarcasm...watch the video and you will know it to be true.)

Apple made it clear that the macbook is the #1 selling mac.
And now they want to get that money that people (consumers, not pros) spend on the macbook and make some more money...so they want the consumers to upgrade to the macbookpro.

No firewire port.
Think of all the consumers with their camcorders and firewire ports...yep, now they need to pony up for the 'pro' machine. (or the artist hobbyist machine)

Now AVCHD is taking off, but thats more advanced pro...and Apple doest support that format natively...tapeless is slower than tape. Figure that out - Steve is a genius after all. lol

Yes, Im a mac user and have only owned macs over the past decade.

This is not sour grapes, but a reality check for those who cant hear and understand Apples language.

i.e.
consumer is in, Pro is out.
(need further proof, look at Shake - dead - and the not updated pro line that apparently still does not support blu ray...as pros dont use blu ray do they. lol)

So maybe an article outlining Apples new reality will make it mainstream.
Or people will figure it out themselves slowly.

Peace

dAlen
 
Rybold said:
Does it seem a lot faster? Have you been able to test it out enough to see the benefit from the Nvidia chipset?

And what's the latest on the rumors about Nvidia having problems?
Click to expand...

Wasnt rumors.
They had faulty chips that everyone knew about...and which Apple just admitted to. (yeah, Apple, sure you thought you were immune.)

Oh, and those lovely chips appear to be running in the so called new 17 inch laptops. (yes, apple had the audacity to call the 17" new in their store.)

Peace

dAlen
 
Rybold said:
Does it seem a lot faster? Have you been able to test it out enough to see the benefit from the Nvidia chipset?

And what's the latest on the rumors about Nvidia having problems?
Click to expand...

The nvidia chipsets were among the best available just a few years ago. Intel's competing products were slow and lacked cutting edge features, but they've really come on strong. I think that Apple users are just more comfortable with them, due to familiarity.

As for manufacturing defects, that is well publicized but strictly limited to graphics cards. The issue has supposedly been corrected, but it doesn't necessarily relate directly to system boards in the first place.
 
qoqo said:
Took home a 17" MBP two months ago and am joined at the hip with it now. Was aware of the new notebook rumors at the time, but just couldn't wait. While I'm disappointed 17" wasn't included today, I'm also perversely relieved :D

Any theories as to why 17" was left behind other than lack of part? Do folks think a 17" follow-on is in the cards, or is there a technical challange to delivering one?
Click to expand...

I would not be surprised if their new manufacturing process only does 13 and 15inch carvings for the cases.

Interesting at a notebook event they introduced a 24 inch monitor. (to try to pacify the guys that wanted a 17" and got a 15" instead...) :)

Peace

dAlen
 
andyr2120 said:
The nvidia chipsets were among the best available just a few years ago. Intel's competing products were slow and lacked cutting edge features, but they've really come on strong. I think that Apple users are just more comfortable with them, due to familiarity.

As for manufacturing defects, that is well publicized but strictly limited to graphics cards. The issue has supposedly been corrected, but it doesn't necessarily relate directly to system boards in the first place.
Click to expand...

Corrected in what way...not using those cards. ;)

Peace

dAlen
 
Bummer...

No firewire on Macbooks, all of the backup drives in our family are firewire. We've had 2 hard drives fail in our Macbooks and having a cloned firewire drive to boot from was very handy. I guess no more Macbooks for awhile here.:(

Arrgghh, the Macbook Pros have the same chicklet keys that the regular Macbooks have. I hate those keyboards! :mad:

Typical SJ he giveth and taketh away...
 
Sorry if this has been said before, it has been a long week(end) {alright, monday and tuesday} and I am tired of reading complaint posts, but lets get some benchmarks.
 
I was mulling this over for a while and I really don't think that there is much of a reason to keep the white Macbook around.

For the same money you can get a better equipped PC, by far, and if you want something netbook size-ish you can find far cheaper solutions.

If anything the low end aluminum MB at $1300 will eat away at the white MB's sales until it finally dies. They should have scrapped the white MB altogether, used the money they saved eliminating it to drop the low end aluminum to 1200, and been done with it.

And stop with this pathetic "sub-$1000" pricing garbage. It's a $1000 last gen notebook. If someone is going to spend a grand on a notebook and sees one that far outclasses it in performance, build quality, etc, for only $300 more, many of them will make that jump. And if they don't have the money, they'll save another few weeks and come back for it.

If they want to keep the white notebook, drop it below $900. $1000 for that thing is an absolute joke. I mean, the hell people, it's stripped. 1GB DDR2 RAM.....at $1000 DOLLARS?!

That being said, I absolutely love the new MB and MBP design.
 
dAlen said:
I would not be surprised if their new manufacturing process only does 13 and 15inch carvings for the cases.

Interesting at a notebook event they introduced a 24 inch monitor. (to try to pacify the guys that wanted a 17" and got a 15" instead...) :)

Peace

dAlen
Click to expand...

LOL. And to think 10" was big back in 1975....

Got me the strangest woman
believe me this trick's no cinch
but I really get her going
when I whip out my big 10 inch

Record of a band that plays the blues
well a band that plays its blues
she just love my big 10 inch
record of her favorite blues



Seriously, good point about the casing. Anyone watch the video of the event? I love the Aussie's pronunciation of Aluminum :cool: What was it? Oh yeah, Aluminium! :apple: :rolleyes:
 
No backlit on the cheaper one? Oh come on apple please! Nobody will spend more money just du get this... sigh. But it does got a superdrive, probably the combodrive became more expensive than the superdrive, because nobody produces them anymore...
what the heck is a cd burner?
 
No Firewire on MB

Its a major mistake they left it out.

Yes Firewire is probably a dying interface, but

- a lot of Mac users have a significant number of Firewire devices, namely hard-drives and DV cams, that cannot be used with the new MB and require a replacement probably costing more than the additional charge for a MBP.

- USB 2.0 is a terribly slow interface to use with external hard-drives. Recent 3,5" hard-drives crossed the 100MB/sec line for sustained transfer.
In general you get the following max. transfer rate for the interfaces:

SATA - 300 MB/sec, aka more than any available hard-drive yet
FW800 - 80 MB/sec
FW400 - 40 MB/sec
USB 2.0 - 20 MB/sec

So when it comes to speed of external hard-drives with the new MB you are thrown back almost 10 years, when ATA hard-drives themselves had max. transfer rates of 20 MB/sec.

Apple is know for the radically switch of their interfaces. Remember when they replaced SCSI with Firewire at a time, where you hardy could get any Firewire peripherals. But at least Firewire was an appropriate replacement for SCSI.

I'd expected, they would add a SATA port to the new notebooks. With that, I could have accepted the loss of Firewire on the MB. But with no option to use an external hard-drive with acceptable speed, the new MB unfortunately is not an option for me.

Sad, as I like the uniform body, the new trackpad, of cause the faster graphics and the glass shielded LCD.

Cecco
 
xDYLANx said:
ALL OF THAT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE THE OG ENTRY LEVEL MB HAS A FASTER PROCESSOR THAN THE ENTRY LEVEL NEW ONE!!!


how is this progress?:mad:?:mad:?:mad:?:mad:?
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm completely wrong - I didn't pay much attention to the keynotes (I was writing a paper for a class), but doesn't the fact that the graphics processor has its own GPU mean that even a lesser CPU would still be more powerful because it's not diverting any processes to graphics?
 
Cool… :rolleyes:

milani said:
Maybe I'm completely wrong - I didn't pay much attention to the keynotes (I was writing a paper for a class), but doesn't the fact that the graphics processor has its own GPU mean that even a lesser CPU would still be more powerful because it's not diverting any processes to graphics?
Click to expand...

The CPU was never doing any graphics processing in the first place!

FYI: Integrated graphics ≠ CPU is doing the work; All it means is the GPU is integrated into the the Northbridge.

philamac said:
I can't find the photos you're talking about.
Click to expand...

If you bothered looking:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/581082/
 
Well, I am sold, finally a decent replacement for my 12" PowerBook. But... looking at the price of the top spec 13" the 15" looks like better value.

Still, my 2.4 BlackBook will keep me going until next year, when can we expect the first speed increase? March? I'm dubious of buying first generation :eek:
 
qoqo said:
Any theories as to why 17" was left behind other than lack of part? Do folks think a 17" follow-on is in the cards, or is there a technical challange to delivering one?
Click to expand...
Maybe there's an 18.4" on the way like the Vaio, only twice the price obviously :)
 
For some reason I was expected more memory.

Would one notice the difference between 2Gb and 4Gb with normal computer use? (internet, download, video, chat (including video chat))?
 
Ive been asking this all day...Nobody really knows the answer to the last part but any help or opinion is good.
Someone tell me what to do!
I just got a white macbook 2.4 ghz last week
I can return it for $50 and get the 2.0 ghz base model.
Is it worth it?
Will it be slower?
How do the bus speeds compare and how is 2.0 faster than 2.4 given the faster bus. I don't get it.
 
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