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Stability of the Macbook Pro 15 vs 17

P

PC2MAC2009

macrumors newbie
Original poster
To all the MacCook Pro 15 owners... has Apple fixed all the technical issues with this laptop - things like the RAM (2GB and 4GB) and the display freeze? I would like to buy a MacBook Pro but unclear as to whether the issues are resolved. Also, does the 17 MBP have the same internals and thus likely to suffer from the same issues?

I am literally about to press the buy button on a Dell Studio 16 laptop even with the Vista issues, but prefer to make the switch to the MAC.

Your advice is appreciated.
 
I don't think anyone can attest to the stability of the 15" MBP VS. 17"MBP, as I don't think the 17" pro has made it into hands yet.
 
I bought a new unibody 15" when it came out and the only issues I can think of are these:

1) Gets hot in clamshell mode. Not a biggie, mainly causes the fan to run alot.

2) Bootcamp sucks. When I bought my first Mac I thought I'd use BootCamp 90% of the time but the touchpad support isn't great. Fortunately VMWare Fusion is awesome. Still have Vista on BootCamp but just for emergencies.

I do web and database development mostly and having the ability to test on Mac browsers as well as IE is great. Eventually plan to get back to iPhone programming when I get more time.
 
The technical issues on the 15 MBP

It is still a bit unclear to me as to whether I can safely buy the 15 MBP. It seems that the patch that apple released related to the Nvidia card (display issue) didnt work and if you upgrade your RAM to 4GB, the thing freezes.

Again, I really would like to switch here but since I have never owned a Mac, am concerned about stability...
 
No one can comment on the 17" unibody since it has not been shipped yet. I picked up my 15" unibody the day they were released and have not upgraded to 4GB of RAM because of the issues with freezes. In the past three months, I have experienced seven freezes and consider myself lucky since I've read about others almost daily issues. You will have to wait ten days plus before anyone can review the 17" updated MBP.
 
mine is 1 month old

my 2.4 15.4" unibody macbook pro is around 1 month old and I've had no issue with stability thus far. When I first switched I missed the key board and matte screen of my previous gen MBP but now getting use to the new model it seems just fine.

I would still like firewire 400 though, not sure why they removed this?
 
I bought unibody mbp15" in November. It has no major problems.
One problem is bootcamp doesnt really support trackpad. Sometimes it works, sometimes it wont.
 
Hello.

Im a proud owner of an Apple MacBook Pro 15" (Unibody) 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and i had no issue with it yet. (I hope not) All i can say it's that it works flawlessly with my Apple 24" LED Cinema Display. Also it does not get hot when i close the lid in clamshell mode... maybe because my room is cold (Canadian winter). I don't run BootCamp since i don't need windows for professional work and Im happy with Leopard. My two graphic cards on the unibody works fine. My display never froze... nether it froze then i connect it to my LED cinema display.

I really don't know where you get that information about "display freezing" on the unibodies. 😕

I used to own a classic 17" MacBook Pro 2 months ago and i can agree that the laptop gets really hot on the top edge of keyboards but now... with the unibodies they fixed that issue... maybe not for the unlucky dudes and dudettes out there. Still no issue with display freezing to the old model. Im not sure about the new 17" unibody.

To me the 15" and 17" is no different other then one more USB, a bigger display, a bigger speaker and stereo, unremovable battery, more slots for RAMs and a little bit more processor. But they both have the same graphic cards and logic board.
 
PC2MAC2009 said:
It is still a bit unclear to me as to whether I can safely buy the 15 MBP. It seems that the patch that apple released related to the Nvidia card (display issue) didnt work and if you upgrade your RAM to 4GB, the thing freezes.
Click to expand...

I've been running 4GB of RAM (upgraded myself) since I bought the machine several months ago. I haven't had any freezing nor any other issues. I believe the majority of the problems with the graphics cards were people using external monitors (Mac OS). In Bootcamp some were seeing locks up or shutdowns when playing games, but I believe those were only a few cases, and if you prop up the machine a little or use a cooler the problem went away. No one knows for sure about the 17". In the past Apple has ran the video card a bit faster due to the better cooling ability of the larger chassis. I wouldn't expect the 17" to run any hotter than the 15" (which runs cold in Mac OS).

I was looking at the new Dells myself for something to play around with. From the posts I've read around the web the initial batch of machines seem to have several issues. If you decide to go with the Dell you might give them a few weeks to work out the bugs.
 
I have 4gb of RAM (Apple stock) and have had no freezes because of it. Also no display issues with a 23" Cinema Display.
 
Launch day 2.53 unibody and I've used it with a 20" and 24" ACD with no problems whatsoever, in clamshell mode 95% of the time.

About the only time I take it out of clamshell is the occasional business trip, or when I watch a TV show on the MBP display via the Slingbox client while I work on the 24" ACD.
 
Pika said:
Maybe external monitors other then the Apple 24" LED Cinema Display.
Click to expand...

I use my MBP with a 20" ACD and it runs fine no issues whatsoever... it looks awesome. best combo ever if you cannot afford the 24 or just hate glossy displays with a vengance when you have a choice
 
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