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MacBook vs. MacBook Pro

F

FX4568

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 6, 2010
315
0
same old question.
but I decided to put a little spice in it!

Mac Book Pro: ($1497.00)

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm

Mac Book: ($1447.00)

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm

The only difference:
Mac book is $50 less, no backlit keyboard and 320GB SATA drive.
Mac book pro is $50 more, backlit keyboard, 250GB SATA drive, and aluminum body.

Oh, Im buying an iPad also, so with the $50 i could buy $50 of apps.

--------OR--------

should i go macbook air?
 
When i tested both of them out in the late 2009 models, the macbook was cooler on the bottom, i think because the rubbery bottom blocks out heat unlike the metal bottom on the pro.

The pro has a flush screen with the screen casing, which is nice, although it's too reflective for my taste. The pro also has firewire and sd ports, but firewire 800 isn't very common like usb, and the sd port wasn't useful to me since my camera imports photos better when connected by usb. Personally I think the white macbook looks better, but it's all opinion between those two computers.
 
Don't forget to do a student discount lol.

But I have no constructive thoughts for it.
 
Hm... I see.
but I mean, is there something in the macbook pro that im missing from what I listed above?
Is it the aluminum body and the backlit keyboard what make a $100 difference?
plus, i know by a fact that plastic is much more durable than aluminum and doesnt bend as easy as aluminum...
and about backlit keybaord, it doesnt help any better since i heard the LCD screen is bright enough to show the keys + I can type without looking.
So. again, am I missing something?
 
You say plastic is more durable, but you don't account for the fact that while aluminum does bend and dent easier, in that sense it is also able to withstand greater abuse. Plastic may not bend and dent, but it does break easier than aluminum. What's my point? My Macbook Pro got ran over after falling off the back of my car (where I inadvertently left it), and upon rescue, it was still fully functional. In fact my brother is still using it to this day.

Had that same laptop been made of plastic, i would've been picking up little pieces to file my insurance claim.
 
To answer the OP:

The 13" Macbook Pro offers the following as compared to the Macbook:
  • Glass Panel Screen
  • Aluminum Body
  • 2 GB More RAM
  • Firewire Port
  • SD Card Slot
  • Battery Light Indicator
  • Backlit Keyboard

Those features cost an additional $200. If you feel you would use the extra features and like the aesthetics more of the Macbook Pro definitely get it. If you don't see yourself needing the extra features I would just purchase the Macbook.

Exegesis48 said:
You say plastic is more durable, but you don't account for the fact that while aluminum does bend and dent easier, in that sense it is also able to withstand greater abuse. Plastic may not bend and dent, but it does break easier than aluminum. What's my point? My Macbook Pro got ran over after falling off the back of my car (where I inadvertently left it), and upon rescue, it was still fully functional. In fact my brother is still using it to this day.

Had that same laptop been made of plastic, i would've been picking up little pieces to file my insurance claim.
Click to expand...
Plastic is a very general term. For example, acrylic is a plastic. Everyone knows that acrylic is much weaker than polycarbonate, which is what the unibody Macbook is constructed of. Unfortunately though, polycarbonate is more susceptible to scratches than acrylic.

Now as for your specific example, you can't generalize based off one event. For all you know that could be an outlier. A unibody Macbook could have cracked or not, still staying in one piece or shattering into many. I personally haven't seen either first hand. Think about a CD. It is made out of polycarbonate. Have you ever tried to snap one? The amount of force required to take it to the snapping point is quite remarkable. What is even more remarkable is that if you don't hit that point, it simply returns to its original shape. I'm also very surprised that under the stress of being run over the glass screen of the your Macbook Pro (assuming you have a glass screen) did not crack.
 
I would add that the plastic and aluminum versions are really no stronger than each other. If you drop either, expect the hard disk to go dead. However, the plastic macbook gets minor scratches from pretty much anything, including sleave cases and the macbook rubber from the display, while the pro doesn't scratch very easily unless you give it a big bump.

The pro also has more ram at 4 gb. If you add 4 gb ram to the macbook, the price difference becomes closes to $100. At that point, you might as well go with which color/case you like better. The pro is slightly thinner, and smaller, but not by much.
 
Exegesis48 said:
You say plastic is more durable, but you don't account for the fact that while aluminum does bend and dent easier, in that sense it is also able to withstand greater abuse. Plastic may not bend and dent, but it does break easier than aluminum. What's my point? My Macbook Pro got ran over after falling off the back of my car (where I inadvertently left it), and upon rescue, it was still fully functional. In fact my brother is still using it to this day.

Had that same laptop been made of plastic, i would've been picking up little pieces to file my insurance claim.
Click to expand...

Im sorry to say this, but you have never dropped a macbook from your car and never ran over it, so you wouldnt actually know if you would have to pick it up in little pieces.

Furthermore, polycarbonate is tougher than aluminum.
The only 2 things that aluminum stands out is
1. Against scratches (which polycarbonate is very scratch prone)
and
2. The absorption of shock in a drop, which polycarbonate is almost the same, and who wants to drop things on purpose? you want to take care of it.

Oh, and aluminum is more heat conductive, so basically in a cold or hot weather, the plastic would be 100x better than the aluminum, since the cold would affect the laptop faster and so would the heat.

So ya... i think polycarbonate is way better than aluminum, but again thats just personal opinion.
 
In regards to the screen, it was not a unibody model, it therefore did not have the glass screen, so take that for what it's worth.

As far as the aluminum not being as good for hot or cold weather, i'd argue it's better, as the aluminum kind of acts like a giant heat sink and pulls the heat away from the cores. As far as humidity though, that's another thing altogether. When I was in Iraq, taking the aluminum macbook pro out of my frigid air conditioned room into the frigid/humid desert would cause there to be a great deal of condensation, which i would have to be cautious to let it acclimate before powering anything on.
 
Exegesis48 said:
In regards to the screen, it was not a unibody model, it therefore did not have the glass screen, so take that for what it's worth.

As far as the aluminum not being as good for hot or cold weather, i'd argue it's better, as the aluminum kind of acts like a giant heat sink and pulls the heat away from the cores. As far as humidity though, that's another thing altogether. When I was in Iraq, taking the aluminum macbook pro out of my frigid air conditioned room into the frigid/humid desert would cause there to be a great deal of condensation, which i would have to be cautious to let it acclimate before powering anything on.
Click to expand...

Well, the core is actually next to the aluminum, so if the aluminum heats up. So will the core...
and, when you feel the temperature of your desktop, you dont stick your hand inside the actual cpu, you put your hand next to the cpu.
Anyways, I dont want to turn this into a Aluminum vs. Polycarbonate topic.
 
Nononon its okay, the casing DOES matter.
I just didnt want the whole topic go off topic
Well, it is sexy. Ill admit but $50 dollars in apps? that just. tempts me ALOT.
 
FX4568 said:
Hm... I see.
but I mean, is there something in the macbook pro that im missing from what I listed above?
Is it the aluminum body and the backlit keyboard what make a $100 difference?
plus, i know by a fact that plastic is much more durable than aluminum and doesnt bend as easy as aluminum...
and about backlit keybaord, it doesnt help any better since i heard the LCD screen is bright enough to show the keys + I can type without looking.
So. again, am I missing something?
Click to expand...

The plastic really isn't more durable than the aluminum. I have heard many stories about it cracking, warping, scratching, discoloring, etc. I have had my aluminum MB for over a year now and I have yet to scratch it, dent it, or do anything otherwise to cosmetically harm it. You have to drop it pretty hard to put a real dent in it or bend it. I'd go with the MBP
 
alust2013 said:
The plastic really isn't more durable than the aluminum. I have heard many stories about it cracking, warping, scratching, discoloring, etc. I have had my aluminum MB for over a year now and I have yet to scratch it, dent it, or do anything otherwise to cosmetically harm it. You have to drop it pretty hard to put a real dent in it or bend it. I'd go with the MBP
Click to expand...
Again, you can't make that claim based on the 'many stories you've heard' and your single experience with a Macbook Pro.
 
In the 2 years i've had my iphone, i've spent about $10 in apps. So $50 is kinda overkill for me. But i can see why that would be attractive to some.
 
Oh yeah, just another minor but subtle point. The power cord for both macbooks is white, so it matches the white macbook, but doesn't match the pro. :)
 
So in the end, it comes down to:

backlit keyboard
polycarbonate vs. aluminum

I heard the macbook doesnt have a fan??? is that true?
 
Macbook still has a fan, but i think it's only one versus the Macbook Pro which has two.
 

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the pannel under my macbook is bending out and some plastic on the outer keyboard has come loose on mine

i wud love a macbook pro
 
As a white macbook user (early 2009) let me throw in my 2 cents.
I have it for a year and a half. I've traveled half of Europe, U.S.A from east to west and the whole country of Australia with the macbook in my backpack, tucked nicely inside a very thick sleeve and with a standard A4 paper between the keyboard and the monitor. Now, inside this backpack were also a few clothes a camera and some other useful tourist stuff, all pushing against each other. So far though, the only cracks I've had, are at the base, left and right or the airvent, probably because I opened and closed the lid too many times. And the normal scratches you might expect from trips like that. No weird palmrest cracks or discoloration. And I'm really proud of it. It may not have some cool features like backlit keyboard (which I would really like, don't get me wrong) or the awesome feel of aluminium and some other things you mentioned. But the most important thing to me, is that polycarbonate doesn't block the Airport signal, unlike my travel buddy's macbook unibody that did. And that was the most helpful thing of all, because with my macbook we were able to book our next tickets without a hassle, using a wifi router that was maybe an inch too far for the unibody macbook to get a signal from.
Oh and the bottom case is much cooler than the MBP. To that effect, I also have the help of Arctic Silver 5 and a neat little app called Fan Control.
 
Macbook pro will last longer
(Aluminum=conductor- transfers heat+ keeps heat away from the internals
polycarbonate= insulator- doesn't transfer heat well so while it may feel cooler, it is worse on the internals for the long run)

polycarbonate discolors

Better resale value
sexy
etc etc
 
lilcosco08 said:
Macbook pro will last longer
(Aluminum=conductor- transfers heat+ keeps heat away from the internals
polycarbonate= insulator- doesn't transfer heat well so while it may feel cooler, it is worse on the internals for the long run)

polycarbonate discolors

Better resale value
sexy
etc etc
Click to expand...
Terribly inaccurate and based off of essentially nothing. It has nothing to do with getting the case material to absorb the heat. The idea of keeping a computer cool is getting heat away from everything. Passive coolers, aluminum fins with no fan, are usually pretty terrible. That is the Macbook Pro case, essentially. You are retaining all this extra heat in the aluminum, depending on outside air and heat transfer to cool it off. I'm assuming the Macbook contains the heat from where it is produced, allowing the fan to blow it out and away from the machine itself. But I digress, the battery will lose life, maybe even 2-3 of them, before any of the internals suffer from heat damage.
 
Did you just say the Macbook pro had no fan?
MEGA FACEPALM
You are so caught up in defending your precious macbook that you are ignoring the facts
 
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