I've used every size Apple laptop now, and I think the 13 inch is the best size possible. Any larger is just too unwieldy.
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Steve Jobs on 13-Inch MacBook Pro's Use of Intel Core 2 Duo Processors
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I've used every size Apple laptop now, and I think the 13 inch is the best size possible. Any larger is just too unwieldy.
And if you still a discrete GPU, is not a 1200$ laptop... If you don't stick a discrete GPU, an i5+integrated intel GPU is definitively not better than a C2D+320m.
FYI, if you want to make a good point, you should never compare Apple to Dell and especially not HP
Enough whining about games, if you want em go get a console.
It's not about games, it's about graphic-accelerated apps anyway.
It's not about games, it's about graphic-accelerated apps anyway.
From the article you link to:
"The 1.2-inch thick laptop is heftier than most of its class ... both the 13-inch Sony Z Series and Apple MacBook Pro are substantially thinner at .95-inches tall."
In short, the article you link to does not provide any evidence that "yes they can".
When the MacBook Pro came out with 7 hours battery believe but no easily swappable battery, there were loads and loads of people here complaining that 7 hours is not enough and they used a second battery to get 10 hours out of their MBP. So lots of people will be contradicting you.
10 hours is 43 percent more than 7 hours, and 100% more than 5 hours. No matter whether they are "real" hours or "marketing" hours.
I'm not sure why people expected an i5 in the 12", when we still have C2D in the 21.5 Imac. I'm not sure how the bumped processors do on the new Mac Pros, but the Imac 21.5 has the E8600 option, which currently outperforms the i5s when running current software (on many benchmarks). For most users, it will be another year or so before you start seeing any real advantages of having the i5.
In any case, not a surprising move by Apple (though not sure why they didn't include the E8600, as it is a very low temperature processor).
In any case, not a surprising move by Apple (though not sure why they didn't include the E8600, as it is a very low temperature processor).
RESEARCH tells me - the Asus is heavier, thicker and has half the battery life.
I wonder why it is that some people never understand the concept of marketing a product for a target audience?
Apple is not selling to customers who would kill for an extra 2 fps. They're selling to average users who might occasionally do a little gaming. (Face it, for the TRULY average user who does nothing more than email and surfing the web, any of these processors are overkill).
Apple has no interest in the hard-core gaming market.
I guess you never travel, right? I've spent more hours looking for a power outlet in airports than I'd care to remember. Not to mention, of course, that some people go on these things called airplanes where there may not be a power outlet near you. Or maybe you've heard of something called a vacation where you might sit outdoors under a tree and do some work while you relax.
So we're expected to believe that you know more about Apple's market than Jobs does?
Apple's target market is not interested in specs or which chip is newer than another. They want ease of use, reliability, great service, and good performance. As has been demonstrated, since Apple had to make a choice between a marginally faster CPU with slow graphics or a slightly slower GPU with faster graphics (and better energy consumption), the latter won.
lol, do your research, and then your will realise we are not the ones being idiots. You are just being an apologist.
They maybe be much thicker, but in the case of the Sony it weighs the same as the MBA, and offers a matte-ish screen standard.
I dunno why Apple didn't go for the GT335m in the 15 and 17in models.
Steve Jobs reply about "speedy graphics" are hilarious given there isn't a Macbook out there that has "speedy graphics" in it period. I suggest he stick with the fast CPUs because that's all they got going for them. I simply don't get the point in having a GPU that can throttle down to save battery life but doesn't have a powerful GPU for when you NEED it (or for when you can plug it in the wall at a gaming convention, for example and portability plus power is more important than battery life). I guess Steve doesn't get gaming on Macs yet (he seems to be waking up to the importance for them on the iPod Touch and iPad).
Who buys a Mac for gaming? The people who buy Macs are generally more sophisticated. Macs are a lifestlye choice for those who prefer reliability and elegance and not just specs.
I'm just fine with occasionally playing a Steam game. It's not my life and I don't care about picking up an extra 5fps on my opponent.
Would be strange to architecture (not just speed ) bump after only 6 months. On the 13" it is more likely a combo both space and supply that are contributing.
If can wait 6 months perhaps can wait 9-12 months and just pick up the next gen follow-on to Arrandale which seems likely to boost the IGP a bit more. The intel IGP in current Arrandale is only 20% behind the old 9400. Kind of backed into a corner though if only catch up and slightly pass that though on next iteration. Might work (as battery like would kick up a notch notch though).
However, this also keeps the pressure on Intel to keep cranking out C2D. If Nvidia finds other takers for the 320M ... they will. This isn't Apple only for long. The volume on the C2D will stay high enough that will make it harder to walk away from the money.
Also sends not so subtle message to intel that they need to improve their game if want all of Apple's IGP money. The other vendors who just shift to adding discrete chips everywhere are just rewarding Intel under delivering for them. That's extremely misguided. Not going to get you better product in the future.
This is also some increased reasonable behavior by Apple. Before they were almost OCD with the pricing. Model 1 price X , better model X + $300 , better model X + $300 , better model X + $300 .... (or $200 gap seperators in slightly higher brackets). It was always rigid and over $100 gaps. That gets to be goofy when really trade different user value emphasis faster CPU versus 2" of screen space. It is along two different dimensions. The gaps don't have to be as large for the consumer to clearly see the difference.
With the new 17" they have left just a $100 gap better "best" 15" and "entry" 17" .
One would hope they might try to apply that to top end of the iMac to bottom end of the Mac Pro transition. ( allow the product lines to life closer together in pricing that multi-hundred dollar increments. )
Additionally, on the targeted market front, there are the "I absolutely have to have an express card slot or I will die" folks who are now $200 closer to their objective.
Dropping the 17" will keep ExpressCard around for at least one more generation. Entry level 15" gets price increase because have to add 5 more chips to the motherboard. Discrete GPU and memory. Previously, entry level had fewer components and therefore reduced costs. In other words, you get more now. The bad news to get that initial point you have to pay a bit more now.
(and $300 gap seperation still enforced between 13" and 15". )
Not saying isn't a contributing factor, just not indication that it is the singular and primary factor.
I have still only seen hand waving demonstrations on how Apple slides a 2-5 more chips onto the motherboard of the 13" without substantively removing something else. Some folks advocate chucking the DVD drive. At that point thought what is large difference between 13" and MBA ?
If they killed the MBA , dropped the DVD drive and went to i3 that might work. I suspect a fraction of the MBA folks will have their knickers in a giant twist over that. But it would work. Perhaps fewer upset though if some of the "just need something to read email and lightweight work " MBA folks transition to iPads. If the iPad kills off another chunk of the MBA market like the 13" transitioning to MBP status did ... the merger of 13" and MBA would be a very reasonable move and opens the door for i3 + discrete GPU.
Presumably the reason Apple gave. Why is everyone searching for something more nefarious? Do you really think that Jobs went to the basement, found a janitor, and asked him to choose the CPU for the new MB?
Maybe, just maybe, Apple isn't after the 'geeks who attend gaming convention' market.
I personally think 10h battery life are awesome. What I really want to be able to do but usually never am is take the Notebook outside on a sunny day and study there, read pdfs, write a bit, program a bit. If the screen is bright enough these Notebooks are perfect for the task. With full brightness it will be more like 7h but that is still good enough, while 3h with full brightness is annoying.
The supply theory is very reasonable but I don't know how they did it with the 320M. Maybe 320M was some kind of a Plan B.
To add some tech knowledge to the battery life /GPU statement of Jobs. It does make sense. The current C2D 45nm silicon is flawless. I read about many C2D that run almost up to 1,8Ghz on min Voltage (.95V) the Nvidia GPU gives Apple great customizablity to really not waste any power. Intels HD graphics seems worse in battery life than the old one (look at Lenovo T410 vs T400). The 32nm CPU cores are a little more power efficient than C2D but the silicon is very new and needs a few Steppings to get better. Those 32nm cores need more VCore than current 45nm C2D which means there is still some room for improvement in terms of power consumption and clock speeds.
Due to the smaller battery a core i5 or i3 13" MBP would have a runtime of arround 7-8h. For most people this would still be more than enough and it kind of kills Jobs argument.
The real reason is probably. What can they do? What do people want? What can be marketed?
I am sure they didn't want to sell a MBP with Intel graphics only. The real difference between Intel HD and 9400m is not that big but many Fanboys I know that have little or no clue about CPUs/GPUs seem to think they know that Intel GPUs suck(which was true till now). Even with a small performance penalty that would give them a lot of bad press.
What a corei7 or i5 is away from here much less known in the general public and its benefits. Also Apple seems to think the 13" is for mainstream and not professionals. For mainstream apps (like Gaming, Office) there is little to no improvement with iX. Those Gizmodo benches don't tell the whole story. Truth is iX is even worse than C2D in some apps. It has its benefits in video encoding, rendering all stuff the "mainstream" doesn't do or at least not regularly.
Putting a dedicated GPU into the 13" would have only been possible with a removal of the optical drive and well I guess they thought people still need it. I'd have preferred to kill it and many here too I guess.
Decision for Apple
sell Corei5 with dedicated 310M, 7h battery, no optical drive int. for 1200$
or sell C2D with 320M 10h battery for 1200$.
while the latter is defintely quite a bit cheaper in parts.
Off topic. I would really like to here a statement why the hell they put 256MB dedicated RAM into a 1800$ notebook. That is simply not enough. The only 15" that really is decent is the top of the line notebook but that is just too expensive. They should have put 512/512/1024. I know 1GB is not necessary but 512 just is in many more modern Games and 1GB helps GPGPU stuff too. The difference in price and power consumption is negligable. It is only to get more people to pay for the expensive one. Quite a few people want 15" but at a reasonable price. 13" are regarding quality worth the money even with C2D. These 15" are a hard sell. One cheaper 15" reasonably specd 15" would definitely create much more interest in this form factor.
The supply theory is very reasonable but I don't know how they did it with the 320M. Maybe 320M was some kind of a Plan B.
To add some tech knowledge to the battery life /GPU statement of Jobs. It does make sense. The current C2D 45nm silicon is flawless. I read about many C2D that run almost up to 1,8Ghz on min Voltage (.95V) the Nvidia GPU gives Apple great customizablity to really not waste any power. Intels HD graphics seems worse in battery life than the old one (look at Lenovo T410 vs T400). The 32nm CPU cores are a little more power efficient than C2D but the silicon is very new and needs a few Steppings to get better. Those 32nm cores need more VCore than current 45nm C2D which means there is still some room for improvement in terms of power consumption and clock speeds.
Due to the smaller battery a core i5 or i3 13" MBP would have a runtime of arround 7-8h. For most people this would still be more than enough and it kind of kills Jobs argument.
The real reason is probably. What can they do? What do people want? What can be marketed?
I am sure they didn't want to sell a MBP with Intel graphics only. The real difference between Intel HD and 9400m is not that big but many Fanboys I know that have little or no clue about CPUs/GPUs seem to think they know that Intel GPUs suck(which was true till now). Even with a small performance penalty that would give them a lot of bad press.
What a corei7 or i5 is away from here much less known in the general public and its benefits. Also Apple seems to think the 13" is for mainstream and not professionals. For mainstream apps (like Gaming, Office) there is little to no improvement with iX. Those Gizmodo benches don't tell the whole story. Truth is iX is even worse than C2D in some apps. It has its benefits in video encoding, rendering all stuff the "mainstream" doesn't do or at least not regularly.
Putting a dedicated GPU into the 13" would have only been possible with a removal of the optical drive and well I guess they thought people still need it. I'd have preferred to kill it and many here too I guess.
Decision for Apple
sell Corei5 with dedicated 310M, 7h battery, no optical drive int. for 1200$
or sell C2D with 320M 10h battery for 1200$.
while the latter is defintely quite a bit cheaper in parts.
Off topic. I would really like to here a statement why the hell they put 256MB dedicated RAM into a 1800$ notebook. That is simply not enough. The only 15" that really is decent is the top of the line notebook but that is just too expensive. They should have put 512/512/1024. I know 1GB is not necessary but 512 just is in many more modern Games and 1GB helps GPGPU stuff too. The difference in price and power consumption is negligable. It is only to get more people to pay for the expensive one. Quite a few people want 15" but at a reasonable price. 13" are regarding quality worth the money even with C2D. These 15" are a hard sell. One cheaper 15" reasonably specd 15" would definitely create much more interest in this form factor.