MacBook Pro Reviews and Benchmarks

[MacRumors]

Arstechnica provides their review of the MacBook Pro, and covers basic areas, including battery life (avg 3hr 17min) and benchmarking (vs G4 PowerBook and Dell Inspiron).

Macworld also provided their thoughts on the MacBook Pro along with Benchmarks comparing it to various Mac PowerPC (PowerBook G4, iBook G4, PowerMac G5) and Intel Mac models (iMac Dual Core).

Direct comparisons are still difficult to make between PowerPC and Intel models due to the variable availability of Universal Binaries.

 

[supergod]

I personally am really dissapointed by the Macbook's battery life. I will not consider a Macbook until it is significantly improved. Here's hoping the Macbook Thin gets a bump in batter life.

 

[wordmunger]

Wow-- she did the battery test I was looking for -- life with the screen dimmed, and it was still just over 3 hours. Not great. I expect that with my use (more word processing, less photoshop), I'd get better life, but that's still not very good. Oh, well -- another excuse to hang on to the iBook.

 

[stockscalper]

But Stevie promised us the Mactels would use less power and have better battery life. NOT! Get off the crack Stevorino the damn Intel chips pull 40% more power. Did he even look at the dual core G4's that pull only 25 watts power versus 85 for the Intel dual core? What a dumbass Jobs is.

 

[VanMac]

Performance on this machine looks pretty good. Battery not so much, but may not be main concern for some. I may be looking for another machine in the future, and this may be an option to hold over till the Intel PowerMacs come out.

 

[iGary]

I honestly don't know what the big deal with battery life is.

When I had to depend on 6 hours or more, I bought another battery. Done.

 

[Chaszmyr]

Battery life is disappointing, but tolerable. Performance is incredible.

(These comments are from personal experience as well as this article)

 

[TBi]

But Stevie promised us the Mactels would use less power and have better battery life. NOT! Get off the crack Stevorino the damn Intel chips pull 40% more power. Did he even look at the dual core G4's that pull only 25 watts power versus 85 for the Intel dual core? What a dumbass Jobs is.

He only promised more performance per watt. If these new laptops are twice as fast as the old ones using the same power then you are getting more performance per watt.

 

[PharmD]

Good review. I'm suprised by the results of the dell and how well OSX runs on a non-apple machine. They did make the needed distinction however in the difference in power consumption.

 

[nylon]

Just you wait till those MEROM chips hit the market. Then you will be thanking Steve for the switch. Battery life will be 5 to 6 hours.

 

[sishaw]

Just you wait till those MEROM chips hit the market. Then you will be thanking Steve for the switch. Battery life will be 5 to 6 hours.

I hope you're right. Battery life is one of the main reasons I switched. 3 hours is dissapointing.

 

[revjay]

I honestly don't know what the big deal with battery life is.

When I had to depend on 6 hours or more, I bought another battery. Done.

I would have to be desperate to drop that extra $ and carry the extra lb's.

 

[WizeGuy]

About Battery Life

FYI, in this battery test they had BOTH bluetooth and WiFi on, only with the screen being dimmed. Thats a big hit to battery life. If I turn my screen down, and turn off bluetooth and WiFi then I get about 5 hours of excel use (for when I'm in those LONG meetings or plane flight), which is more than I ever got on my old 15inch Powerbook (aluminum). This is with the 2.0 Ghz model.

 

[iGary]

I'll be buying one of these.

















Next year when Photoshop is UB, and they have all the issues worked out - oooh, and 17-inch model. That's when my wallet will have money quickly sucked from it. Until then...

 

[mkaake]

I suppose we could complain about the battery (though every lappy I've used barely makes it to the 3 hour mark, but hey), but instead... let's focus on something postive:

While on the topic of screens, the display on the MacBook Pro is nothing less than stellar. It's extremely bright, crisp, and the colors look great while still staying true to the Mac color profile

 

[revjay]

I'll take a $159(CAD) battery and a side of $119(CAD) ipod sock, to go, please...

I honestly don't know what the big deal with battery life is.

When I had to depend on 6 hours or more, I bought another battery. Done.

Good thing the batteries are so affordable

 

[rjgjonker]

Better than expected

The MacBook Pro is a few percent faster than a PowerBook on average. Quite impressive, for a machine with twice as many CPU cores that are both clocked higher and a memory bus that runs on four times the clock rate.
The battery life is significantly shorter with a battery with 20% more capacity. Still, it is better than I expected, but I really don't get why the MBP is such a 'leap forwards' from the PB.

I'd like to see some vector benchmarks as well. Apple has cleverly hidden those from their website. I don't think SSE3 will be quite on par with AltiVec.

 

[BornAgainMac]

Integrated graphics will improve battery life. The ATI 1600 will eat up battery life quickly. Lots of tradoffs to consider with a laptop. Not everyone can be happy.

 

[mkaake]

But Stevie promised us the Mactels would use less power and have better battery life. NOT! Get off the crack Stevorino the damn Intel chips pull 40% more power. Did he even look at the dual core G4's that pull only 25 watts power versus 85 for the Intel dual core? What a dumbass Jobs is.

Yup. Steavo is the idiot for sure...

My resident EE tells me that the dual-core Core Duo processors in the MacBook Pro use about 25 to 47 watts of power consumption versus about 30 or so on the Aluminum, PowerPC 74xx PowerBook G4s

<edit> but I'm sure if you give him a phone call, and let him know (since he probably didn't have any research on this at all), that he'd be willing to switch the powerbooks back to G4's...

 

[patseguin]

Anyone know how the top-end MacBook compares performance-wise to a 1st gen Dual 2GHz G5 with an x800?

 

[sishaw]

but I really don't get why the MBP is such a 'leap forwards' from the PB.

It's the upgrade path. Intel is much better than IBM at upping their clock speeds. The G series was just stuck at these horrible slow speeds, and IBM wasn't willing to put the R & D in to get them to run faster. They were getting to the point where the multithreading and RISC processing wasn't going to make up for the slow speeds, and Intel and AMD were just going to relegate them to the backwaters.

Intel will get Apple to the promised 3 ghz chip. The G series was never going to get there.

 

[nagromme]

Add more sizes (I'm sure they're coming) and I'm sold!

One thing often overlooked in regards to speed on dual cores: it really comes into its own when running MORE than one app. Which many people commonly do. Test just one app and its a question of how well its optimized for multiple CPUs. But test real-world use and you may find even greater benefits.

ALso, yes, the screen is very slightly shorter in inches. AND WIDER. And larger (thus more readable) overall. It's a new wider shape which now matches the 16:10 widescreen shape of most other Apple displays, and is better than ever for movies. Previously, the 15" PowerBook had been a little more "square" than that. In addition, Apple was limited to whatever displays are actually available that are this bright and clear. I don't see why the 60-pixel difference bothers some people so much, especially since it's still higher than PowerBooks had not too many months ago--the same as the 17" used to be.

Specifically, the old PowerBook G4 15.2" has a screen 12.7x8.4".

And the new MacBook Pro 15.4" has a screen 13.1" x 8.2". SLIGHTLY shorter, but wider too. With 94% of the pixel workspace. Nothing to complain about for me.

 

[_bnkr612]

Sweet as. I'll be looking for the Rev. B. which teams up with a touch screen iPod.

 

[DTphonehome]

Good thing the batteries are so affordable

And lightweight and non-bulky!

 

[rjgjonker]

It's the upgrade path. Intel is much better than IBM at upping their clock speeds. The G series was just stuck at these horrible slow speeds, and IBM wasn't willing to put the R & D in to get them to run faster. They were getting to the point where the multithreading and RISC processing wasn't going to make up for the slow speeds, and Intel and AMD were just going to relegate them to the backwaters.

Intel will get Apple to the promised 3 ghz chip. The G series was never going to get there.

The problem was not that IBM wasn't willing to invest their R&D towards faster G5 chips. The problem was that Apple refused to invest in the development of chips that they needed and they didn't order chips until they needed them.

Intel is not anywhere near 3GHz on their new platform and 3GHz chips aren't expected anytime soon. However, the chips are 32-bit, far more expensive than IBM's dual core chips and I expect their vector performance to be significantly slower than that of the 970 and the 745x. IBM could have made as much low-power 970's as Apple would have needed, if they would have just ordered them. AMD is currently making chips that outperform Intel's while using less power with IBM's technology.

Apple not delivering G5-class PowerBooks wasn't IBM's fault. It was Apple's. Mac users are now paying the price for that with a transition, more expensive Macs and inferior technology.