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Macbook Released

phatz said:
I need a Macbook by early september for uni purposes, I would like one now obviously but I can hold out.

The question is do you think that there'll be a revision out before then? Any chance of Merom or even anything minor? I've never owned a Mac or kept up to date with hardware news so I have no idea how long it usually takes revisions to come out.
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I'm in the same boat phatz. I'm honestly waiting until virtually a week or two before I go back.

I'm almost certainly sure Merom won’t see the light of day in these things by then - After all, why would it? Also, you have WWDC before then too - So if they announce any drastic changes to 10.5 that could compromise performance on a MacBook (You know what I'm talking about...) then I have time to rethink.
 
netdog said:
I can't imagine that the MacBook won't support 7200RPM, but better someone more technically minded absolutely endorse that.

As for replacing your drive, it is easy to do, but any damage you may do in the process will void your warranty, so just be careful. That said, it couldn't be easier.

Now, the really important bit. After using a MacBook for a few days my conclusion is that the 5400rpm drive is the biggest bottleneck in the system at the moment. I would DEFINITELY hold out for a 7200 if you are going to swap out the drive. I plan to do the same.
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I put a 100Gb 7200rpm drive in my Macbook a couple days ago. No issues, runs fine does't get hot, very pleased.
 
MrCrowbar said:
When you launch an application (that was not running in the background, i.e did not have the black triangle in the dock), it has to be retrieved from the hard drive. Same thing is with files. More RAM can't accelerate the first start of an application, the hard drive is truly the bottleneck here.

There is one big disadvantage of fast hard drives: they need more power so they are reducing battery drive a lot (30-40 minutes less battery life than with a 5400 rom drive is realistic). And they usually get warmer and make more noise. I say 5400 rom is the sweet spot for a notebook. Most modern drives (the stock Macbook drives too) have the same power consumption as 4200 rom drives, so personally, I would use a 5400 rom drive for now. Plus, the faster the disks are, the more sensible to shock they are (when running). Of course, if you find a 7200 rpm drive with 120 GB than runs at the same power consumption as a normal 5400 rpm, let me know ;)
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Hi there! I fail to agree that a faster drive consumes more battery power. Even if it does it will only be to a negligible extent. In fact it might even give you additional battery life! (2 minutes according to this: http://www.mobilityguru.com/2003/10/...ous/page4.html) By saying that "There is one big disadvantage of fast hard drives: they need more power so they are reducing battery drive a lot (30-40 minutes less battery life than with a 5400 rom drive is realistic)," you fail to consider several facts, in fact 30-40 minutes is absolutely absurd IMHO, if it is realistic do show me a link/article:

1) A faster drive spins faster (naturally!) hence it accesses data quicker and has to spin faster less frequently than a slower drive that spins slower and longer to access data. Hence the net total power consumed is approximately identical.

2) Hitachi 7200rpm hard drives uses a femtoslider, which is smaller and lighter than a 5400rpm/4200rpm picoslider. Hence the drive heads consume less power to move and this results in power savings.

3) Also, Hitachi uses an effective power-saving mechanism called A.B.L.E to put their 7200rpm drives in sleep states to save power (similar to Intel's Speedstep technology)

Do refer to this detailed article/benchmarkings for further insight: http://www.mobilityguru.com/2003/10/...ous/page4.html
 
nick2u said:
Hi there! I fail to agree that a faster drive consumes more battery power. Even if it does it will only be to a negligible extent. In fact it might even give you additional battery life! (2 minutes according to this: http://www.mobilityguru.com/2003/10/...ous/page4.html) By saying that "There is one big disadvantage of fast hard drives: they need more power so they are reducing battery drive a lot (30-40 minutes less battery life than with a 5400 rom drive is realistic)," you fail to consider several facts, in fact 30-40 minutes is absolutely absurd IMHO, if it is realistic do show me a link/article:

1) A faster drive spins faster (naturally!) hence it accesses data quicker and has to spin faster less frequently than a slower drive that spins slower and longer to access data. Hence the net total power consumed is approximately identical.

2) Hitachi 7200rpm hard drives uses a femtoslider, which is smaller and lighter than a 5400rpm/4200rpm picoslider. Hence the drive heads consume less power to move and this results in power savings.

3) Also, Hitachi uses an effective power-saving mechanism called A.B.L.E to put their 7200rpm drives in sleep states to save power (similar to Intel's Speedstep technology)

Do refer to this detailed article/benchmarkings for further insight: http://www.mobilityguru.com/2003/10/...ous/page4.html
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Agreed, the current 7200RPM drives are fully optimised and take virtually nothing off your system. There use the same energy as 5400RPM drives and in some cases are more efficient at conserving power. The only difference between 5400 vs 7200 is simply one is faster. Thats all.
 
Kaiser Phoenix said:
I really dont get it. Why do people complain of the GMA950? I mean what do people expect? If you want to play F.E.A.R, OBLIVION, COD2, Laptops can hardly manage them. The only laptops capable of playing the current crop of games would be the Alienware SLI'd Laptops which costs a bomb. Come on, if you buy a macbook, you ARNT buying it to play games. Otherwise, the GMA950 is excellent for everything else.
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That is not true....
Toshiba A4, ATI X600, 6in1 reader, FIREWIRE, 3 USB ports, S-Video OUT, VGA OUT, built in mic, 15.3 screen, etc, etc, Intel Centrino 1.63, plays UNREAL 2004 perfect, 1200x1024, and cost me $899 Centrino P4, plus 1.5GB DDR.

The reason no dedicate GPU is they know the mac book is a good product but had to cripple it for motion, games, aperture.....


The MACBOOK for $1499 should have dedicated GPU as well as weigh less and 1 GB DDR, most students play games, if you think not, your high, and I'm talking about college students....and a 15.3 screen.

The MBP should have never come out until the desktops and should have come out with dual dual core 64 bit memrons.
 
daneoni said:
Agreed, the current 7200RPM drives are fully optimised and take virtually nothing off your system. There use the same energy as 5400RPM drives and in some cases are more efficient at conserving power. The only difference between 5400 vs 7200 is simply one is faster. Thats all.
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ah yes.... you're forgeting "more expensive" as well. :D
 
After seeing the MacBook, here's what I want

From Tom's Hardware:

"If Intel is able to keep the pace of its traditional time-to-market tracks, then we should be seeing first Conroe systems in early September and Merom notebooks no later than in October of this year."

Therefore, I want a 13" MacBook Pro, dedicated graphics and Merom dual core.

I figure I should be able to get one of those in October. Incedentally, I can run VPC on Windows on a Dual Core Duo, and performance is pretty good. I can hope the for the same thing on a merom, with a rebuild of VPC for the macintel. At that point, who needs BootCamp - you can use VPC instead!

That will be a nice laptop!
 
retroz311 said:
The MACBOOK for $1499 should have ... 1 GB DDR.
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That would mean two 512MB DIMMs to throw out if you upgrade to two 1GB DIMMs. I prefer minimalist stock RAM and minimalist pricing. Heck, half the people posting here would buy it with no RAM and no hard drive if doing so would save them $50 o the RAM and $100 on the drive.
 
liketom said:
i think i'm gonna wait a few more weeks before i get my Macbook;)

in the mean time i shall have to make do with this :D

P.S , it's not mine BTW it my brother's
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Is that a theme or is that a pirated Intel version of Tiger? I'm just confused by the XP-esque icons on the left hand side of the screen.:confused:
 
ingenious said:
Is that a theme or is that a pirated Intel version of Tiger? I'm just confused by the XP-esque icons on the left hand side of the screen.:confused:
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its a tiger screenshot being used as a wallpaper
 
louden said:
From Tom's Hardware:

"If Intel is able to keep the pace of its traditional time-to-market tracks, then we should be seeing first Conroe systems in early September and Merom notebooks no later than in October of this year."

Therefore, I want a 13" MacBook Pro, dedicated graphics and Merom dual core.

I figure I should be able to get one of those in October. Incedentally, I can run VPC on Windows on a Dual Core Duo, and performance is pretty good. I can hope the for the same thing on a merom, with a rebuild of VPC for the macintel. At that point, who needs BootCamp - you can use VPC instead!

That will be a nice laptop!
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I doubt there will ever be a 13" MacBook Pro, MacBook yes with low end discrete video card maybe at MWSF 07. MacBook Pro? highly unlikely
 
I saw the new MacBooks yesterday and they are amazing! They use magnets to keep the screen closed, no more latches. You can also set it up so that you can right click by using 2 fingers. The screens are really nice as well.
 
retroz311 said:
The MACBOOK for $1499 should have dedicated GPU as well as weigh less and 1 GB DDR, most students play games, if you think not, your high, and I'm talking about college students....and a 15.3 screen.
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Because the A4 weighs more than the MacBook, the MacBook should weigh less? The A4 is also well over an inch and a half thick, and does not have a Core Duo processor. The A4's battery life is abysmal, by the way...two hours less than the MacBook's real world performance. I'm glad you can play a two year old game on your $1000 notebook, but it's not in the same class as the MacBook.

Most students do NOT play games on laptop computers like you think they do. In fact, most students don't play games. Many do, but the overwhelming majority play them on consoles, and minority of the minority who play computer games primarily do so on gaming rigs (desktops). If you think otherwise, you've got a mistaken perspective. If you don't accept that, show us a source that says otherwise.
 
retroz311 said:
That is not true....
Toshiba A4, ATI X600, 6in1 reader, FIREWIRE, 3 USB ports, S-Video OUT, VGA OUT, built in mic, 15.3 screen, etc, etc, Intel Centrino 1.63, plays UNREAL 2004 perfect, 1200x1024, and cost me $899 Centrino P4, plus 1.5GB DDR.

The reason no dedicate GPU is they know the mac book is a good product but had to cripple it for motion, games, aperture.....


The MACBOOK for $1499 should have dedicated GPU as well as weigh less and 1 GB DDR, most students play games, if you think not, your high, and I'm talking about college students....and a 15.3 screen.

The MBP should have never come out until the desktops and should have come out with dual dual core 64 bit memrons.
Click to expand...

Toshiba is a budget brand, so obviously you're going to get lower prices. In recent news - a Chevy costs less than a BMW!

Amazing!

Sure, the MacBook could benefit from a dedicated card. Nobody's arguing that. But asking for a portable computer with two processors - not two cores, but two processors - means that you're going to drastically increase the following items:

1) Heat. Your CPU is the #1 producer of heat in your laptop.
2) Power usage. (This is known as battery life.)
3) Cost.
4) Noise. (Fans.)
5) Weight.

This is the same reason they left out the dedicated graphics on the MacBook, because no matter what, the addition of a GPU adds to all of the above in the name of specialized performance gains for gaming.

You bought a 1.63 ghz Toshiba with an outdated processor and a decent graphics card. Congratulations. I bet your computer loses to the MacBook on every single performance benchmark - and real-life experience, too - except 3D gaming. You also probably have a 4200 RPM hard drive, which is significantly slower than the MacBook's 5400 RPM. You probably also get worse battery life.

The MacBook is not intended for gamers, and it's not intended for people who want the impossible (two Meroms? Are you kidding? The new Power Mac or iMac could have them, but not any laptop.) It's intended for most of us - which are people who want a smaller, good performance laptop.

Buy a MacBook Pro if you want to play UT2004 at high resolution.
 
matticus008 said:
Because the A4 weighs more than the MacBook, the MacBook should weigh less? The A4 is also well over an inch and a half thick, and does not have a Core Duo processor. The A4's battery life is abysmal, by the way...two hours less than the MacBook's real world performance. I'm glad you can play a two year old game on your $1000 notebook, but it's not in the same class as the MacBook.

Most students do NOT play games on laptop computers like you think they do. In fact, most students don't play games. Many do, but the overwhelming majority play them on consoles, and minority of the minority who play computer games primarily do so on gaming rigs (desktops). If you think otherwise, you've got a mistaken perspective. If you don't accept that, show us a source that says otherwise.
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Matticus, thank you for being a consistent voice of reason on these forums. All of your posts are well thought out and informative.

Most students indeed use laptops for casual gaming at most.

That's one reason among many why you see most laptops being sold with integrated graphics.
 
I personally think the integrated/dedicated graphics arguement is getting old. Its not there people, get over it.
 
I just got a white 2.0 MacBook from an Apple store yesterday, and thought I'd report in.

I had been reading this thread, and got nervous when I read about some issues (whine, moo, keyboard?), etc, and I am pleased to announce that, as far as I'm concerned, these are non-issues.

Whine: I either don't have it, or I can't hear it. Period. :)

Moo: I noticed this at 2am last night--I could barely hear it, but it is there. Unless the room I'm in is silent, and I'm listening for the noise (with my head near the computer), it is unnoticeable. I do hope Apple is able to get rid of the issue with a firmware update, but by no means am I concerned or upset about it.

Keyboard: I love it. I upgraded from an iBook G4 1.0 12", and I very much prefer the feel of this keyboard. I find that because of the spaces between the keys, I type much more accurately, and issues I had with the tactile response of the spacebar, as well as other keys, are gone. No sticky keys.

Glossy display: Again, I love it. I was worried I would have a hard time seeing it if there was any sort of light in the room, but the display itself is so bright and vibrant (especially compared to my iBook), that I am able to use it (albeit inside) even at the lowest brightness setting. It's great.

All in all, I am very happy with this computer. It is well worth the money, and it is pretty speedy (admittedly with consumer-type applications), even at the base configuration.

I'm not looking back at all.

Please feel free to ask questions, if you so desire. ;)
 
Not to continue with the whole integrated graphics ranting, but do you guys think the 950 will be good enough to run all of the eyecandy leopard will have?

Could anybody running bootcamp on a macbook donwload the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Beta tool and report what it says regarding the intel 950???

I know it will not be accurate in anyway, but I guess it will give us an idea, as leopard will probably use effects somewhat similar to those on vista.

I tried it on my geforce 4200 with 64mb card and it said I needed to upgrade my video card to be able to use aero... And as far as I'm aware this card(being old and all) is somewhat faster and better than the intel 950...
 
ictiosapiens said:
Not to continue with the whole integrated graphics ranting, but do you guys think the 950 will be good enough to run all of the eyecandy leopard will have?

Could anybody running bootcamp on a macbook donwload the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Beta tool and report what it says regarding the intel 950???

I know it will not be accurate in anyway, but I guess it will give us an idea, as leopard will probably use effects somewhat similar to those on vista.

I tried it on my geforce 4200 with 64mb card and it said I needed to upgrade my video card to be able to use aero... And as far as I'm aware this card(being old and all) is somewhat faster and better than the intel 950...
Click to expand...

Whether it will run leopard i do not know but i think it will....at least most of it. The 950 is vista ready although not the high end vista i.e aero but its definately vista ready
 
ictiosapiens said:
Not to continue with the whole integrated graphics ranting, but do you guys think the 950 will be good enough to run all of the eyecandy leopard will have?
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Yes, because the GMA950 supports Pixel Shader 2.0 and is fully DirectX 9 hardware compliant--from a programming standpoint, it's on the same putting green as the other Apple video hardware. That's just one of the benefits of this integrated GPU--it's all current technology.

The GMA950 also supports Aero Glass, but is the only Intel integrated chipset to do so (until the upcoming 965, which is being specifically designed to improve Aero performance). It'll be a major RAM hog, and I suspect most people will turn it off, but it will work.

I tried it on my geforce 4200 with 64mb card and it said I needed to upgrade my video card to be able to use aero... And as far as I'm aware this card(being old and all) is somewhat faster and better than the intel 950...
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Yeah, the 4200 is ancient and the GPU needs access to 128MB RAM for Aero Glass. GMA950 can do that more easily than an AGP card which uses GART. The GMA950 is a better GPU than the 4200, hands down...but I'm not saying it's faster at 3D.
 
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