Macbook Pro 2011 is so...BAD BAD BAD!

[DWBurke811]

4. The display profile is really bad with no calibration. Te people who claim they see all the black squares: You just have to look from exactly from front of your display, i.e. 90 degrees from it. Shifting towards any other angle will cause colors to shift due to TN panel used in macbooks (yeah, pro machine uses worse screen than phone or tablet )
My professional and expensive display cant distinct last 2 squares. My macbook with default profile wont distinct up until 11th square. That is why I was talking about blacks being too pronounced. You cannot possibly see all the squares. If yes, you just think you can.

Regardless of what angle I'm looking from, the only one I can't see is #1: on my mid-2010 unibody pro 13" A.K.A. 7,1


Maybe you just have bad eyes?

 

[Thares]

The MBPro I bought in February was also rubbish. It got very very hot, it was very loud and its performance was a bad joke. Same things occured on my friends MBPro. I returned it. It was very disappointing. I thought it would rock my world. But, in fact, it was crap.

Now I got a 27" iMac and waiting for the new MBPs. Maybe that's useful. Hopefully.

 

[mark28]

The MBPro I bought in February was also rubbish. It got very very hot, it was very loud and its performance was a bad joke. Same things occured on my friends MBPro. I returned it. It was very disappointing. I thought it would rock my world. But, in fact, it was crap.

Now I got a 27" iMac and waiting for the new MBPs. Maybe that's useful. Hopefully.

Well .. uhmm .... my 15" MBP ( 2010 ) is probably the most silent laptop on the market? I can even work on huge Logic and Pro Tools sessions and it's silent, no fan activity at all.

Only with World of Warcraft and Starcraft II the fans will kick in.

iFixit has found that some of the 2011 MBP have got poor thermal paste, probably that's what you experienced. Probably if you just returned your MBP and gotten a new one, you would have gotten a much better MBP.

edit: Some people on this board said they gotten much lower temperates by replacing the thermal paste with 3rd party thermal paste.

 

[gboswellsac]

I apologize for tagging on to this thread but seems better than starting a new one with similar questions. I have an 2010 13" MBP 2.26, 8GB, 750GB 7200 drive and have been thing about upgrading to the 2011 MBP 13" I5 model. This thread somewhat scares me as other than being slow to bring up multiple virtual sessions (Fusion and VirtualBox) it is perfect. Most of my time is using it to demo in a class and to load presentations and other materials at the same time. Having a Mac in a Windows environment has its down sides but I spend 10x more time on the MBP than the "Official Dell E6420 I5" department issue.

What real advantages will the I5/I7 give me in day to day work when I seldom hear the fans or see > 70 degrees on the cpu. I'm just afraid the move will disrupt a perfect love affair..... kinda like looking at a younger woman when you present model is a little lumpy but a perfect partner... Sorry Ladies bad analogy...

13" MBP 2.26 c2d ....

 

[ExiledMafia]

I feel like the OP is just having buyers remorse about his 2010, I;ve been following the 2011 MBP pretty religiously and most people love them. Sure some have problems, but so did the 2010. If your happy with your computer leave it at that, don't go bashing other peoples computers especially when they are more than contempt with it.

 

[danpass]

I bought a 2011 13i5 from the store that has none of the things the OP talks about.

but returned it and got a refurb 2011 13i7 from the Apple site which DOES have the slightly yellow screen and loud hard drive (compared to the store bought unit) that the OP mentions.

Can I just walk in and have them deal with it somehow? (it also has a baseplate screw that refuses to tighten down lol)

 

[gorskiegangsta]

I just cant stop wondering what some people try to write here regardless of their knowledge of the technology.

OK, we get it. You are an "expert", you have "higher standards" than everyone else here. I'll let others decide whether it is a troll statement or not.

Thats it. If you think I just made all this up, suit yourself. I hoped for help, not for calling me troll.

If you ask for help, you would get help. Forgive me, but your original post was more of a "all Apple laptops have these problems and don't tell me otherwise" rather than "help, my Macbook Pro is having these problems, anyone else notice these."

Apple always made some stupid decisions in their technology, if you dont think so, you are just unaware average consumer.

WHY would you automatically assume, if indeed you are having all these problems, that it isn't due to fact that you might have a defective unit but due to fact that Apple purposely manufactures heat generating, loud, laptops with bad speakers and displays.
I have both a 2011 i5 MBP (13") and a 2011 2.0 i7 (15") and I, as well as many others, have told you that they're experiencing little on none of these problems. Yet, you keep insisting that we ARE (or should be) experiencing these problems and that we don't notice them because we're either too ignorant or are not tech-savvy.

I am a person who doesn't jump to conclusions about others unless I have a lot of evidence to it. I have not called you troll, even though some of the lines in your OP begged for it. It isn't a crime to be angry at a company (Apple, in this case) when technology breaks down. However, when you start calling everyone here ignorant novices who don't know their technology, then it becomes insulting and makes you a troll.

 

[Young Spade]

I bought a 2011 13i5 from the store that has none of the things the OP talks about.

but returned it and got a refurb 2011 13i7 from the Apple site which DOES have the slightly yellow screen and loud hard drive (compared to the store bought unit) that the OP mentions.

Can I just walk in and have them deal with it somehow? (it also has a baseplate screw that refuses to tighten down lol)

Yes. You have a free 1 year warranty on anything that goes bad with the machine that isn't caused by you. I would call ahead and schedule an appointment though, as they don't really just fix walk-ins.

Depending on how long it takes for them to get to it and whether or not they have the parts, you could wait an afternoon or a week.

 

[Darius Aziz]

*popcorn*

I am about to get my own, four of my closest friends all have 2k11 MBP's with NONE of the issues you state, when we had our DOTA lan parties my poor White MB's fan was embarrassingly loud in comparison. Two are pro photographers, have the Matte screen and have NONE of the issues you talk about.

Obvious Troll is Obvious.

 

[Prodo123]

Stop posting so this one goes to the wastelands

 

[sehnsucht77]

Return it then and buy something else. Not rocket science is it.

true. wah. wah. wah.

 

[danpass]

Yes. You have a free 1 year warranty on anything that goes bad with the machine that isn't caused by you. I would call ahead and schedule an appointment though, as they don't really just fix walk-ins.

Depending on how long it takes for them to get to it and whether or not they have the parts, you could wait an afternoon or a week.

ah yes, the genius appointment. i'll do that, thanks

 

[Young Spade]

*popcorn*

I am about to get my own, four of my closest friends all have 2k11 MBP's with NONE of the issues you state, when we had our DOTA lan parties my poor White MB's fan was embarrassingly loud in comparison. Two are pro photographers, have the Matte screen and have NONE of the issues you talk about.

Obvious Troll is Obvious.

Same experience with friends playing Age of Empires 3 over WLAN. My 07 blackbook sounded like a jet while the 09 MB/10MB and 10MBP all ran quiet.

Needless to say, I have a 2011 MBP now and I'm loving it.

 

[DraMacula]

It's true

I know the thread in months old...
There is a lot of truth to this series of problems though.

I find it amazing how touchy and sensitive people get over this topic.
Yet the MBP 2011 has still has problems.

Everyone? well obviously not. But don't be naive.

When you drop $3,000+ on a machine you have some expectations in performance.
When you find TONS of other people having same problems plastered all over the net you have doubts.
And when you try to reach out to the only communities that may be able to help and they chastise you, well, you get that sinking feeling.

So yes, mine has some problems too.
Tried to find answers here and there...nothing.
Did full hardware check...all good.
Did reinstalls and updates....nothing.
Erased, reformatted, fresh install (from dvd)....nothing.
Scheduled genius bar....went to genius bar and the guy acted like he had somewhere better to be. He did nothing. Told me to try software update or OS reinstall. So nothing.

This computer is slow, among other problems.
I'd like to be hopeful these problems will be fixed in the near future.
Of course some acknowledgement would be a nice start.

Anybody who doesn't have apple stock want to chime in?

 

[BasilFawlty]

The principle of a vocal minority, out of a thousand MBP's, 2 or 3 have "problems" that aren't really problems, and the owners feel the need to hop on their soap boxes and yell it out to the world.

Yeah, they do tend to "occupy" forums with their "concerns" LOL.

Oh, and I have an early 2011 MBP and have had none of the issues listed (so far).

 

[GuitarG20]

Yeah, they do tend to "occupy" forums with their "concerns" LOL.

Oh, and I have an early 2011 MBP and have had none of the issues listed (so far).

exactly. unfortunately, more people join forums because their computers have problems or they want to spout about how their computer isn't perfect (thankfully, for most people it's the former, but the latter happens too). I joined to help people, and I wish more people did that.

my early 2011 MBP has been almost perfect so far, with the exception of some disk corruption that occurred a while back. fixed it with disk utility, and it's been perfect since then.

 

[Satnam1989]

My 2011 15" has none of the problems you mentioned, nor any others that i can notice

Same here, loving every bit of it! As for the threadstarter just go get it replaced, the odds of u having the same issue are not that high....apple wouldn't be the company it is today if all replacements came with issues!.....


As for HDD...I have the same toshiba 500GB u got....and yes its a tiny bit loud but you know what its not as bad.....its a HDD because macbook pro's are SOO quiet compared to all other laptops, you are going to hear some noise and sadly the only thing loud enough to produce noise while running at idling temps is the hard drive.....I have SSD in my main bay as my primary drive and my Toshiba 500GB in my optical bay, set to sleep when I am not accessing it(every 5mins after I'm done accessing it) which does wonders as i Don't have to hear that BUZZZZZZZing noise all day long and my macbook stays super SILENT! Also you can switch your GPU's with gfxcardstatus if u like to integrated one so that even while watching videos on YouTube your temps don't sky rocket.

My temps are between 40-50 for CPU and fans stay at ~2000RPM and GPU Temp stays between 35-50 majority of the time unless I play a game(s)

 

[JerZyT28]

Well some macbooks maybe ok, or just some owners don't mind the issues or haven't noticed it.
I searched really a lot of forums...many many people are experiencing those issues.

I upgraded my macbook in believe to have a better machine in all aspects. Now I just have more power and better battery, everything else is WORSE than 3 years old machine. Don't tell me it's ok. I wouldn't mind if those issues were just faulty hardware of my own specific machine, but they are not. They are clearly design flaws.

Have you compared the old unibody with the new one? If not, you don't know what I'm talking about. The disk is louder, speakers worse, display worse...I was so happy when I got my first macbook pro, but now I am just not. I know other pc laptops are noisy and hot, but macbooks used to be silent. Now they are not because somebody decides to put there noisy disk? Or worse speakers? But why?

And you really think, that for quad core sandy bridge with hyperthreading is flash video such a big performance drain? The usage when playing flash is like 5% of CPU...yet the funs are noisy.

And I forgot to write about the sharp edges. My girlfriends MPB 13" has nice and clean polished edges, buy my new 15" is really sharp and hard. Is this ok?

If anyone of you don't have any issues which I described, how old is your Macbook? My sasy 20 weeks.

Return it...pretty simple

 

[HippieMagic]

I am on a 15" MBP and have absolutely none of these problems. The laptop is dead silent and hasn't burned me at all. I use HTML5 on youtube though and it seems better on the battery.

 

[BasilFawlty]

exactly. unfortunately, more people join forums because their computers have problems or they want to spout about how their computer isn't perfect (thankfully, for most people it's the former, but the latter happens too). I joined to help people, and I wish more people did that.

my early 2011 MBP has been almost perfect so far, with the exception of some disk corruption that occurred a while back. fixed it with disk utility, and it's been perfect since then.

To be honest, I joined because I'm a life-long PC guy who only recently (well, back in May) decided to give Macs a try and this seems like a great place to learn. I've gained a ton of useful information about by iMac and MBP here.

 

[Takashi]

So I upgraded from Macbook Pro 15" late 2008 (original unibody), I thought the new 2011 model would be so great...BUT it is a total crap!

There are so many problems, everybody just complains all over the internet...
So I just thought I'll write a list of all the issues with the new Macbook Pro for potential buyers or owners who would like to share their own issues or solutions. So here we go:

1. OVERHEATING AND FAN NOISE
This is well known issue, yet Apple stays reluctant to it. My idle temps are never below 50C, but when I for example watch youtube, it goes way up and fans start to spin up to around 3000rpm. It is really noisy and annoying!
It may be a problem with thermal paste, bad heatsinks, fan control, whatever...
My old 2008 machine was dead silent.

2. HDD NOISE
The 500gb hdd in my machine is soooooo noisy all the time, it is even louder than the fans. I have Toshiba, but I read that also the Hitachi models are so loud. Moreover, when you push the enclosure above the disk placement, the noise is less pronounced. Like a cheap China crap...
Again, 2008 machine was silent...

3. DISPLAY PROBLEM
Many people complain about the display quality - some have yellow tint (Samsung manufacturer), some blue tint (LG). I have Samsung. My biggest problem though is not the color tint, but CONTRAST. The blacks are too strong, everything is soo dark, all my photographs, everything. This may be solved by calibration, but is this really ok with 1800EUR or 2000USD machine?
And I believe the maximum brightness is also not as strong as my 2008 model.

4. SPEAKERS
OK, so speakers now have subwoofer, which is positioned on the left side of the laptop...that means the sound is much louder on this side! WTF? Anyone heard about stereo imaging at the Apple?
Anyway, 2008 Macbook Pro played much much louder and the sound was BETTER! More bass and clearer! So speakers with subwoofer are worse that old speakers without it????

And what do you think about SD card adapter? It is Macbook PRO, and all the pros I know uses CF card, including me. So why SD??? Express card was so much better.

I think Apple is kidding us, or is this really the best laptop out there?
I want to send my machine to service, but I really doubt they will replace the disk, thermal paste, speakers and display. Simply, because there is no alternative...they are not faulty, it is just flaw in design.

I am really disappointed.

I think you should leave mac all together and get a PC instead. The Mac is not for you, period. Return it and leave the mac community.

 

[MovieCutter]

I know the thread in months old...
There is a lot of truth to this series of problems though.

Appropriate username...way to bring this thread back from the dead. This should have been wastelanded months ago.

 

[johnhurley]

Im just wasting my time here...

If you have reasonable points to make and express yourself clearly and without being petty ... you will get reasonable responses here.

If you start ranting and raving and talking about yourself a bunch ... you will get your share of people talking smack at you.

That's just the way it works here dude.

 

[jon08]

I have a late-2011 15" MBP and to be honest, I can't say I've been 100% satisfied with it either.

I mean my avg. CPU temperature is between 65-75C and GPU 60-65C, usually even when idle plus the fans tend to go up pretty quickly, as soon as there is some activity, but yeah I guess it's because of the faster CPU and all that jazz. Yes, my fans run between 2500-3000 rpm too while playing Youtube videos... (Still I find it quite unbelievable that some people are getting temps. between 40-50C on these 2011 MBPs, esp. considering that I even keep mine on the mStand, so it should keeping it cooler as usual).

I stay in a quiet room, so what really bothers me is the slight "whistling" sound of the fans. I would be fine with just the regular fans sound, but pretty often this barely audible, yet still audible "whistle" sound comes in, and that gets on my nerves.

As for the higher temps, I guess having it hooked to an external monitor (though I don't use my MBP in clamshell mode) could be one of the reasons for higher temps, since it seems to be utilizing the dedicated GPU only (can't seem to be able to set it to the integrated one with gfxcardstatus while hooked to the monitor).

Other than that, I like my MBP. And I can see all but the first couple of those black squares in the test the OP posted.

 

[thundersteele]

I'm not sure what Idle means for you. If I leave mine alone doing nothing the CPU is around 35C. Web browsing I'm around 40C, 43C right now.

Flash usually brings it up to 60C or so, I don't know exactly. My fans only spin up above 80C, which I reach e.g. when I play HD flash videos in fullscreen. Hardly a problem I would say.

Of course, when gaming or doing other demanding tasks, the machine gets hot and the fans spin up and become audible. The alternative would be to use low voltage processors like in tablets and smartphones. They seem to work with just passive cooling. Maybe there are some netbooks available that use these CPUs.


PS:
Everyone expects something different from a product. If those expectations are not met, it is very understandable that people are disappointed and I'm fine with that.
My previous laptop is an early 2008 MBP. While gaming, I would sometimes burn my fingers on some parts of the case (between keyboard and screen). In this respect, the 2011 model does a much better job in keeping the top case at acceptable temperatures, while being much faster at the same time.
I have a SSD so no HDD noise. Screen is fine, the colors are slightly different from my 2008 model, but I prefer the new screen. Speakers are ok, about what I expect from a notebook.
I'm very happy with my new MBP and have a hard time understanding the issues of the OP.