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Macbook Pro 13 Owners Tell your Experience!

I had a 2010 13" MBP and loved the portability, but the screen resolution was just too low for me. My previous laptops were all hi-res screens (I even had a 15" Dell with a 1920x1200 screen) and I feel I need to be able to multitask on screen.
 
awer25 said:
I had a 2010 13" MBP and loved the portability, but the screen resolution was just too low for me. My previous laptops were all hi-res screens (I even had a 15" Dell with a 1920x1200 screen) and I feel I need to be able to multitask on screen.
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I feel the 13" is near the perfect ultraportable. Plenty of horsepower in a small package and when you're home or at the office, a 27" Apple Cinema Display makes the perfect companion.

Need Internet access nearly anywhere? It's one of the reasons I carry a BlackBerry. I don't even have to touch my phone to get it running in Wireless Bluetooth Modem mode (this will work with any Mac with BT)

I love mine... :eek:

Sure the 1280x800 screen is still a bummer when used on it's own, but it works wonderfully.
 
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Man I love mine. Yes not as powerful as a 15 GPU wise, but a fantastic, sturdy yet light rig. I'm in a cafe working right now, still got 6 hours of battery left. That's what I love about my Mac!
 
I agree the 13" is perfect balance of power and size. Add in a SSD and you got a smoking hot system. However I can see in a few years, the MBA might out do the MBP. But as of today, the 13" MBP is king. Even with the lower res screen.
 
Hi
I want to know according to mac book 13's 2.7 GHz cpu, can it handle my university simulations with programs like matlab or other expert programs??
also due to its intel graphic card can it handle mediocore games like fifa?
 
darknite38 said:
My 2009 13" 2.53 ghz 9400m macbook pro can run half life 2 very smoothly at low graphics settings. Your standards are too high or your computer is faulty.
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I dont think his standards are particularly high considering Half Life 2 is a good 7 years old now. And just as an FYI, the ThinkPad T43 I had at the time with a 1.8ghz Centrino, 1gb of ram, and a Intel GMA 900 ran it on lowest settings fluidly as well. (Though that was Windows XP, not Mac OS with it's terrible drivers, and port of the game)

Anyway, I don't have a 2011 as I figured the 320m would be more important than a i series processor and I absolutely love mine. I ordered refurb and have had this one since late April. It really has become my favorite computer of all time, surpassing the 12" PowerBook and the ThinkPad T61 4:3 I had.

I haven't had any issues with the machine so far. It holds up well even with moderate to intensive work (gaming, watching 1080p video). Battery life is about what I'd expect from it, I get 5 hours normally, 7 if I really try. It's quiet, and even so when gaming (at least compared to any sort of gaming PC).

That said I do have some slight issues with it.

First, the hard drives Apple use are absolutely terrible. Replaced mine very promptly with a much quieter, faster, and more reliable one.

Second, and this may be a non-issue for you, but, with a laptop especially I prefer matte screens. It's not so much I can't/haven't gotten used to it, but, in some conditions it really is unusable.

Other than that I've been satisfied by my 13". It really is a great machine.
 
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For the majority of home/education/small business users out there, suggest;

- PlayStation 3 for serious gaming :rolleyes:

- iPad/Phone for email/surfing/music and casual leisure.

- For everything else in one small tidy portable package;
The excellent entry level (not so basic) 2011 MBP can handle it with loads of horsepower to spare :p

Conclusion: Buy any Mac for computing and you will be amazed and happy whilst enjoying your purchase ;)
_____________________
MBP13 i5 2.3 (10.6.7) :)
 
I love my MacBook Pro! It is my first mac (well, I bought an old PowerBook G4 off of ebay if you wanna count that) and will definitely not be my last.
When I was going to buy it, I was originally planning on buying the MacBook however there was a sale of 200dollars off, and I would be crazy not to take it lol and I am so glad I did....the specs on the MacBook I could of gotten by on, but with the MacBook Pro I am much more comfortable.
 
Hello all,

I have a 13" MBP corei5, 4gb RAM, 128gb SSD

thoughts:

- I love this computer, I am upgrading from a Core 2 Duo Thinkpad. The build quality of ThinkPads is legendary but the MBP puts it to shame. And the smal lthings are a plus (illuminated keyboards for starters!)

- I REALLY wish I had a dedicated GPU not that I need it but it really would be nice to know that my macbook PRO has a REAL gfx card

- It can handle mostly everything I can throw at it but it does seem to be a memory hog I have 3 safari windows open, iCal, Day One and 3/4 of my 4gb is eated up?!? I will be making the upgrade to 8gb VERY soon.

- The screen is rather nice, I would prefer a bit more pixils

- I chose this over an ENVY 14 and I am pretty sure I made the right choice..like 90% sure. I made a thread about how I was toying with the idea of returning it for a much more powerful ENVY 14 at the same price but I never went through with the idea because I recalled the reason I wanted a laptop and what I would be using it for. There are a TON of amazing xbox 360 games coming out this year (Witcher 2, LA Noir, Battlefield 3, MW3, Forza 4, Undead, Assassins Creed III, Gears of War III) and so I have converted from a PC gamer to an xbox 360 gamer and left my laptop to my research work and other work. And of course in this regard my MBP excels very well.
 
I love my MBP 13"; its beautiful.

Tbh, I really can't tell that it's not 'high resolution' unlike all the previous posters lmao.
 
Just got mine "today" well technically yesterday because its 1AM but still seems like the same day. Its an upgrade from my late 2006 Macbook with 10.4. It has a similar feel to it as my macbook in my opinion.

The thing that i'm most enjoying so far is the track pad, such a great improvement absolutely love using the gestures to perform tasks.

At the moment I'm still setting things up and installing programs but overall I would say i'm quite pleased with the upgrade.
 
I am extremely happy with mine. I really wanted the 13 for portability. I've always been a high resolution snob on my desktops, but the resolution of this thing is just perfect. It plays 720p YouTube videos beautifully, SC2 plays at a decent settings @ the screen's resolution. The battery lasts forever..I just close the lid and it lasts a day or two using it here and there. Even at all stock hardware, the machine is extremely responsive. And the biggest thing to me...after owning so many Windows machines, the build quality of this thing is mind blowing. It feels beautiful, looks amazing, its a joy to type on, and the entire experience of the people at the Apple Store being willing to teach me how to use my first Mac was worth the premium. After owning this, I'm looking to get a Mac Mini in August if they refresh.
 
Mine is the first ever model of 13" and it's refurbished, but you wouldn't know it. It runs very well, the only time it's ever gotten even remotely warm is when my sister opened every single application at once (however, I don't play games on it, that might be a factor.) Purchase immediately!
 
HussamRaed said:
Anyone else ?
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Well to update I'm loving mine still. :p

However in the next week or so I'll be investing in a 750gb hard drive and 8gb of ram. I don't really NEED the ram but I am out of hard drive space and figured as long as I'm in there I may as well upgrade that too.

While I've heard some stories that the 2011 has some difficulties with some UI elements in Lion GM, my 2010 feels just as snappy as it did in Snow Leopard so no complaints there either.
 
This is my first mac ever and I'm really glad I made the swtch. Now I cant wait for my 8gb's of ram to be delivered.
 
I have one.. It's okay. It was fine for awhile but it later stole my girlfriend and killed my family.

It has good battery life though. So I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars. Hope that helps!
 
The ONLY bad thing about my MacBook Pro 13" 2011 is the dang native screen resolution. It's waaay too low.
Playing on games sucks, photoshoping sucks, and even trying to have more than one windows opened sucks.
That's the only thing I'm really disappointed about purchasing my first mac is the cheap resolution. The display is amazing and color, but resolution...

I'm semi-regretting not getting the 15" MacBook Pro 2011, but since I'm a college student, I can't afford an extra $600 for 15" and the size isn't portable for me enough in college. Plus, it'll attract some unwanted thieves more.
 
Love my 2010 13" MBP. Runs everything I want without an issue. Some day I will put in an SSD and 8GB of ram.
 
My 2009 ROCKS! I run the full Final cut suite on it, and Lightroom 3. Sure it could transcode, render and export faster, BUT it gets the job done. Plus, it is just as fast and responsive as the day I got it 2 years ago.

Oh yeah, I did upgrade the HD and RAM
 
I own the Macbook Pro 13" Early 2011. It has the Intel Core i5-2415M, and the graphics is the Intel HD Graphics 3000.

I primarily use it for music and internet, but I also use After Effects and FCP X. While using both (While using 64-bit kernel), I experience almost no lag. The lag starts when rendering.

I keep airport on 24/7, and my screen brightness is usually high. My mac can last about 3-4 hours, but that's because I use high settings. I bet it would last longer if I used lower settings, but I have not done that yet.

I used to have a netbook before my Mac, and the screen blows my mind. It's so crisp compared to my netbook, and even better than my brother's HP laptop.

If you used to be a PC user like me, getting used to the OS wasn't too hard. It is faster compared to my desktop (it's a bit old), and I do like Snow Leopard better than my Bootcamp partition.

Overall, I do enjoy my new Mac, and hopefully others will as well. :)
 
I'm an owner of the 13" 2008/09 MacBook unibody (before they were all tagged as 'Pro's'

Specs: C2D 2.06Ghz; 4GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Nvidia 9400M, 1280x800 screen (soft gloss)

Owned since March 2009, was my first Apple PC.

Uses: Internet, iWork, Multimedia (80GB music; plus films/tv & photos), light gaming.

Performance is still very good, only noticable slowdown in 2 years has been in the boot time. The C2D is still very capable of any task.

Love OSX as an operating system, so stable in comparison to Windows, I think I can recall 2 crashes in 2 years of pretty heavy usage.

Notably, a couple of days ago I installed an Intel 320 SSD, which to me is the single biggest performance upgrade I've experienced in a PC, at least in terms of general usage.

For what it's worth, I also have an Alienware M11x running W7 (C2D SU7300, 4GB RAM, Nvidia 335M GT) which covers my gaming needs.
 
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