I am! But with 4G Ram. It is sad I won't be able to have a lit keyboard though!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The new MBP 13'' is a total fail.
- Thread starter Sarngate
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I am! But with 4G Ram. It is sad I won't be able to have a lit keyboard though!
I really wanna have the 13" for my location recording (up to 16 tracks)... and also for some editing in Final Cut Pro (choosing files, making basic cuts...). I'm probably getting and IMac when it's updated for final music mixes and also for video editing FXs.
I have been using my Intel Q6600 quad 2.4ghz with 4gb of ram and a cheapo ATI Radeon 512MB GPU for almost three years.
Would the new lower end 13" be upgrade from my current Windows machine??
I have been using my Intel Q6600 quad 2.4ghz with 4gb of ram and a cheapo ATI Radeon 512MB GPU for almost three years.
Would the new lower end 13" be upgrade from my current Windows machine??
Last edited:
Plenty of DJs and audio mixers like the 13" form factor for its portability...
There are plenty of professionals for whom the 13" is an ideal machine. Pretending otherwise is just ignorant.
I did forget about DJ's. I still fail to see what an extra, what, 20 DPI? means to them, but hey, could be something I missed.
What other professionals have a dire need for those extra few pixels? I'm genuinely curious. I would much rather have a 13" laptop than a 15". Now that the 13" is capably fast, I wouldn't hesitate to get it for photo editing. Even the 1650px screen on the 15" isn't tons of fun to edit on. I'd much rather work on a 1920x 23+" screen. It's not the resolution that makes all the difference, it's the physical size.
Yes. That's precisely what I said. Exactly. Verbatim.
I work quite a bit in InDesign. I would love those extra pixels. It's not a life or death thing - it's only a computer, but I would love them. Who wouldn't?
That's the first time I've seen writing labelled as something other than a 'professional task'. I'm a law professor, and I work exclusively on a 13" MB, with no external monitor - I find them distracting. That may well be stark raving bonkers to you, but it doesn't seem to bother me (and, of course, being able to see 3-4 lines at a time with a typewriter or displaywriter never particularly hurt some of the greatest academics, novelists and writers of the twentieth century.)
Err, I have a HP Elitebook mobile workstation for a desktop replacement and I've just replaced my 2010 MBP 13" with an i5 2011 model. It's about the perfect size for a very portable laptop. I design and develop software for a living and use it for software development, virtualisation environments etc. It's a great little notebook to work on, I prefer it to the HP/Lenovo business ultraportables which are all a similar size and screen resolution.
I think the implication being, writing is not particularly taxing to the average computer system and the outdated assumption that pro tasks on macs are limited to graphics, video, audio, animation and other visual arts related endeavors.
For your typical lawyer, technical writer or general office worker any of these new MBPs would have more than enough power.
Btw, I remember mag cards and typewriters wo displays!
Cheers,
You should try a bigger display.
Being able to display two documents side by side is invaluable. A small display might be fine for a novelist, but anyone who does research and works from sources can benefit from a big screen.
Those great academics you are referring to all had case books and journals sitting open next to their typewriters. I, for one, no longer use books for any sort of research, everything is on my computer.
The 1440x900 display on the 13" MBA barely allows me to be productive, the 1280x800 display on the MBP is just not good enough. Whenever I need to get any real work done I use my 1920x1080 desktop(and I wish I could afford the 2560x1440 iMac display).
I was really hoping for a lighter unit. Not as light as the MBA, obviously... but it could have been lighter than it is.
After going through the thread I feel there r many who feel ditched by the display resolution.Although it doesn't really matter to me.I use my comp. for normal usage which includes watching hi-def movies,some games,surfing etc.
Just to mention the geekbench of base model 13" in somewhere around 7xxx up from 45xx from 2010(as I remember) BIG upgrade.I just read on anandtech that even the graphics performance of intel hd3000 is Just a bit lesser then 320M and frankly even the 15" is not using any better GPU.I forgot to copy the link,u can just visit there site and search a bit.
Lastly,a PRO notebook is not just about GPU and CPU.Its a combination of everythng.I would like all u guys to name just one laptop which has a build quality like a macbook pro(including vaio z).And not to forget the backlit keyboard(mac users know its usability) the gorgeous looks and BRAND associated with the product.We guys usually take thez things for granted...
Anyways,I hope apple gives u all a BTO option but I'm surely getting 1 of thez...
Just to mention the geekbench of base model 13" in somewhere around 7xxx up from 45xx from 2010(as I remember) BIG upgrade.I just read on anandtech that even the graphics performance of intel hd3000 is Just a bit lesser then 320M and frankly even the 15" is not using any better GPU.I forgot to copy the link,u can just visit there site and search a bit.
Lastly,a PRO notebook is not just about GPU and CPU.Its a combination of everythng.I would like all u guys to name just one laptop which has a build quality like a macbook pro(including vaio z).And not to forget the backlit keyboard(mac users know its usability) the gorgeous looks and BRAND associated with the product.We guys usually take thez things for granted...
Anyways,I hope apple gives u all a BTO option but I'm surely getting 1 of thez...
Seeing though most of the uproar is over the Intel HD 3000 ( and rightly so) Maybe some manufacturer will come up with an AMD XPG style solution, using the light peak port to attach it to, this would be something i'm interested in. the 13" mbp is an excellent machine with power to punch, the only thing i feel that holds it back is the HD 3000.
I reckon the white MacBook will be upgraded in two or three months time. That way, lots of people who want the new, improved hardware will pay for the 13" MBP instead of the white MacBook for a few months, making more money for Apple, and then the white MacBook will get all the improvements.
Holy
a whole ton of you people need to calm down, sit down, and actually learn something. Starting with this:
The 13" MacBook Pro is a compact notebook.
What does that mean?
Well for starters it means you don't get a discrete GPU. So everybody complaining about that, go away. You got an IGP last generation, you're getting one this generation, and you're probably getting one next generation. It's the same no matter what manufacturer you go to, so deal with it. Furthermore the Intel HD 3000 graphics you get now don't perform that much differently from the 320M we had last round. It should offer better battery life as well, as it is gated and clocked by Sandy Bridge's power management circuitry.
It also means that this isn't an ultraportable like the Air, so you get to keep the optical drive for at least another generation. Apple is a company that makes decisions based on data, not your personal feelings. The data is obviously telling them that a lot of people still use optical drives.
Battery life, seriously? Apparently folks here can't read. In the fine print at the bottom of Apple's tech specs page, they list in plain english how they test. If you've been paying attention to details like this over the last few years you'll notice that the tests periodically change. Apple has devised a more realistic usage test that better reflects the battery life of their computers. They have chosen to implement that test on their new MacBook Pros (as well as the Air, as I recall) and have adjusted battery life figures accordingly. They deserve praise for this, being honest with the consumer is always appreciated.
This is a hardware refresh, not a chassis redesign. A lot of people apparently had decided Apple was going to release some Terminator-style liquid metal enclosure that is powered by the sun and can make you a sandwich. That's not happening.
Because the mood is bad news, i'll tell you how sensible people who understand technology feel about certain unimpressive specs.
Defaulting to a 5400RPM drive is a bit on the weak side. I am not sure why they did this.
Screen resolution vs the Air. We all like more pixels, it is unfortunate to have less. That said, the Air's display quality is substantially worse than the MacBook Pro's. Perhaps Apple cannot source a 13" 1440x900 display in sufficient quality, or perhaps they are just being lame. Either way I appreciate the nicer display, and can live sans the extra pixels without hysterics.
Now for the good news.
You get a SB i5. Wow, holy s***, that's awesome! Do you remember about a year ago when Apple bumped most of the mobile line to Nehalem CPUs? The 13" was left with a Penryn chip and a 320M. Everybody bitched and moaned, boo what is this stupid GPU thing, we want a fast processor! NOWWWW! Apple is bad, they are horrible, we hatesssss them preciousness. Okay folks, Apple has now given you a very nice, very fast, hyperthreaded i5. Now you're whining about the GPU see above. Deal with it. The 13" is actually quite zippy.
You get fast I/O! Double wow! One of the most annoying things about having a compact notebook is the lack of expandability that comes with. Guess what, that problem has potential to be solved in style. Thunderbolt is a very, very cool, fast, bus-level I/O that should give the MacBook Pro a lot of versatility in the near future. You can plug in a display, a fast SSD raid array, and maybe even your friend's antiquated USB 3 external drive all at the same time. This is potentially the best 13" notebook in history, and you're all pretending it's 2012 already? Chill, we've got another year at least before the Mayan gods come kill us all.
What we have here is a very good, yet imperfect, compact laptop. It will be great for many, less than ideal for some. Fortunately you aren't stuck, there are options in both directions of the Apple product lineup. If you need more power, go towards the 15". If more portability, head towards the Air. I don't think it could be more simple, but I do think it could have been accomplished with a lot less bitching by people who don't have a clue.
The 13" MacBook Pro is a compact notebook.
What does that mean?
Well for starters it means you don't get a discrete GPU. So everybody complaining about that, go away. You got an IGP last generation, you're getting one this generation, and you're probably getting one next generation. It's the same no matter what manufacturer you go to, so deal with it. Furthermore the Intel HD 3000 graphics you get now don't perform that much differently from the 320M we had last round. It should offer better battery life as well, as it is gated and clocked by Sandy Bridge's power management circuitry.
It also means that this isn't an ultraportable like the Air, so you get to keep the optical drive for at least another generation. Apple is a company that makes decisions based on data, not your personal feelings. The data is obviously telling them that a lot of people still use optical drives.
Battery life, seriously? Apparently folks here can't read. In the fine print at the bottom of Apple's tech specs page, they list in plain english how they test. If you've been paying attention to details like this over the last few years you'll notice that the tests periodically change. Apple has devised a more realistic usage test that better reflects the battery life of their computers. They have chosen to implement that test on their new MacBook Pros (as well as the Air, as I recall) and have adjusted battery life figures accordingly. They deserve praise for this, being honest with the consumer is always appreciated.
This is a hardware refresh, not a chassis redesign. A lot of people apparently had decided Apple was going to release some Terminator-style liquid metal enclosure that is powered by the sun and can make you a sandwich. That's not happening.
Because the mood is bad news, i'll tell you how sensible people who understand technology feel about certain unimpressive specs.
Defaulting to a 5400RPM drive is a bit on the weak side. I am not sure why they did this.
Screen resolution vs the Air. We all like more pixels, it is unfortunate to have less. That said, the Air's display quality is substantially worse than the MacBook Pro's. Perhaps Apple cannot source a 13" 1440x900 display in sufficient quality, or perhaps they are just being lame. Either way I appreciate the nicer display, and can live sans the extra pixels without hysterics.
Now for the good news.
You get a SB i5. Wow, holy s***, that's awesome! Do you remember about a year ago when Apple bumped most of the mobile line to Nehalem CPUs? The 13" was left with a Penryn chip and a 320M. Everybody bitched and moaned, boo what is this stupid GPU thing, we want a fast processor! NOWWWW! Apple is bad, they are horrible, we hatesssss them preciousness. Okay folks, Apple has now given you a very nice, very fast, hyperthreaded i5. Now you're whining about the GPU see above. Deal with it. The 13" is actually quite zippy.
You get fast I/O! Double wow! One of the most annoying things about having a compact notebook is the lack of expandability that comes with. Guess what, that problem has potential to be solved in style. Thunderbolt is a very, very cool, fast, bus-level I/O that should give the MacBook Pro a lot of versatility in the near future. You can plug in a display, a fast SSD raid array, and maybe even your friend's antiquated USB 3 external drive all at the same time. This is potentially the best 13" notebook in history, and you're all pretending it's 2012 already? Chill, we've got another year at least before the Mayan gods come kill us all.
What we have here is a very good, yet imperfect, compact laptop. It will be great for many, less than ideal for some. Fortunately you aren't stuck, there are options in both directions of the Apple product lineup. If you need more power, go towards the 15". If more portability, head towards the Air. I don't think it could be more simple, but I do think it could have been accomplished with a lot less bitching by people who don't have a clue.
Core 2 Duo are still available and will likely be available for quite a while, but Intel doesn't reduce their prices. Intel sells what was a mid-range chip in 2007 for the same price as a mid-range chip in 2011. You can check their price list; they even sell Core Solo (one core, about 1.6 GHz) at about the same price as the i5 that is now in the 13" MBP.
Personally, I want the cheapest possible disk and cheapest possible RAM in a MacBook because I'm going to upgrade it anyway. I want a disk drive that I can throw away without shedding any tears. But also, I couldn't hear the 5400rpm drive in my MBP, I can hear the 7200rpm one sometimes.
Customers were buying tons of the old MBP 13". It was the computer that was responsible for Apple having a 90% market share in the >$1000 laptop market. The new MBP 13" is much improved for the same money (in the UK, less money). So apart from the expected whiners on MacRumors, Apple is going to sell more of them than of the old MBP 13". And the whiners, I believe, fall into two categories: Those who wouldn't buy a Macintosh anyway, no matter what Apple did, and those who are buying a Macintosh anyway no matter how much they are whining.
Last edited:
I fall into the second category: I want to buy a new Mac. However, I do NOT want the new 13" MBP. It's craptastic compared to the Air 13" - slower graphics, no SSD, lower resolution screen, well, you get the point.
Let's imagine a Macbook Prair (Pro-Air):
Casing of the 13" MBP
Screen of the 13" Air (with silver surround - less reflections)
SSD + HDD (64GB SSD and 250GB HDD per example)
NO Optical drive
Backlit keyboard
Infrared
In/out port WITH optical output
Nvidia 320M graphics (or the AMD graphics from the new MBP 15" - lots of room without optical drive)
Intel Core i5 proc
Thunderbolt port and port layout from the MBP
Weight: around 1700 grams
Does that sound unreasonable to you? It sounds utterly reasonable to me, to be honest, this sounds like something Apple could have made instead of making us choose between graphics and processor power. I would buy that for, say, 1300 dollars, and it would have been a great machine too.
Where are they ? please post the links.....
Im thinking of buying a 13 inch because my current 2007 Imac is on its last legs....
HD3000 is BETTER than 320M
Check this thread:
Intel Graphics HD3000 vs NVIDIA GeForce 320M/330M GT - Real Benchmarks and Comparison
Check this thread:
Intel Graphics HD3000 vs NVIDIA GeForce 320M/330M GT - Real Benchmarks and Comparison
Well lets think about this a bit.
Why isn't Apple putting the 1440x900 display in the MBP? Is it marketing to increase sales of the Air and 15"? I don't think so, Apple loves to sell 13" MBPs. The profit margin is still healthy, they get a lot of Thunderbolt into the ecosystem. There's really no reason to rig the product line in that way. I think there is an actual technical reason Apple didn't do it this time around.
Why no default SSD? Apple wants this machine to sit between the $1,000 and $1,500 marks. That is "entry level" for a Mac notebook. SSDs would make the machine much more expensive. It would appeal to fewer people, sell fewer units.
Why would Apple stick an external IGP in this system? That's silly. The 320M is virtually no faster, it consumes more power, and this target audience doesn't care anyways for the most part. Intel's onboard GPU is really quite impressive.
And like I said earlier, Apple has the data. They know how many of their customers are using optical drives. It is apparently enough for them to continue to include it. The 13" is a relatively "mass market appeal" unit. A lot of folks still watch DVDs, a lot of them still load software from DVDs, a lot still rip CDs (weird, I know).
So herein lies the problem. Apple has built a machine for a target audience that they know exists. They are going to sell a lot of these things. That audience is not you, your requirements are unique and specific. It's the same reason Apple won't make a consumer tower, the audience that would actually buy it isn't very big. Despite what all the enthusiasts think.
Equivalent graphics. Benchmarks are mixed, but for all intents and purposes the graphics are about on par with the 320M. And there's is an SSD available, so you can't knock the MBP for that.
Sounds like a fantastic machine. I'd love to own one. In fact, part of me is glad they didn't release something like that, because then I would have a really hard time talking myself out of buying one.
But it won't be $1300. Adding an SSD and discrete graphics to the 13" would probably push the price up above $1600 - I guarantee that configuration would only be available in the high-end trim.
At which point, it's priced too close to the base 15" Pro.
The more I consider these new 13" Pros, the more impressed I am. The benchmarks are staggering: the new 13" is more powerful than last year's high-end 17" Pro. That's pretty impressive stuff.
Not a perfect upgrade, I admit (thanks, Intel, for making life so difficult). But still a completely respectable and even impressive upgrade.
Think about this.
From a marketing poing of view:
If Apple decided to put SSD,good GPU, 1440x900 along with back lit keys, good CPU, super drive and all the ports on 13" pro, then it would just kill the Air. No one will buy the air unless you want ultimate portability.
Apple must hold back on a few specs on the 13" pro to keep the air in the game.
It comes down to 2 choice : portability, graphics, resolution,sexy/cool factor and SSD on the air vs superdrive, lots of ports,more RAM and storage faster CPU, back lit keyboard and more power on the pro.
So there is a market for both depends on what you want to use it for.
They are targeted for different people. Apple will never bring out a product to kill another line of their devices. It will be bad for business if they do.
From a marketing poing of view:
If Apple decided to put SSD,good GPU, 1440x900 along with back lit keys, good CPU, super drive and all the ports on 13" pro, then it would just kill the Air. No one will buy the air unless you want ultimate portability.
Apple must hold back on a few specs on the 13" pro to keep the air in the game.
It comes down to 2 choice : portability, graphics, resolution,sexy/cool factor and SSD on the air vs superdrive, lots of ports,more RAM and storage faster CPU, back lit keyboard and more power on the pro.
So there is a market for both depends on what you want to use it for.
They are targeted for different people. Apple will never bring out a product to kill another line of their devices. It will be bad for business if they do.
I keep seeing this. The 13" MBP has a backlit keyboard. It is the Air that lacks it.
Actually, I'm going to change my mind entirely after looking at the benchmarks some one posted up in another thread.
http://www.techyalert.com/2011/02/25/macbook-pro-2010-vs-macbook-pro-2011/
The conclusion was, battery is about the same as the 2010, graphics slightly worse but he couldn't tell when playing (only knew cause his testing software told him), and the computer was much faster (it installed one game in half the time for example).
So, I'd say it's a pretty good success. Sure, they didn't improve the graphics, but they much improved the speed (it's about on par with last year's top end 15" MBP on speed). The battery hasn't gone down (be nice one day to see a true 10 hour battery but the battery is pretty good as is).
So, I'll say I'm jealous now of the 2011 with its faster speed and the potential of the thunderbolt connector (I'd so want to set that up when possible to only have to disconnect that connector and my magsafe). But my computer did improve what I wanted it to improve. And hopefully in a few years I can afford an upgrade.
http://www.techyalert.com/2011/02/25/macbook-pro-2010-vs-macbook-pro-2011/
The conclusion was, battery is about the same as the 2010, graphics slightly worse but he couldn't tell when playing (only knew cause his testing software told him), and the computer was much faster (it installed one game in half the time for example).
So, I'd say it's a pretty good success. Sure, they didn't improve the graphics, but they much improved the speed (it's about on par with last year's top end 15" MBP on speed). The battery hasn't gone down (be nice one day to see a true 10 hour battery but the battery is pretty good as is).
So, I'll say I'm jealous now of the 2011 with its faster speed and the potential of the thunderbolt connector (I'd so want to set that up when possible to only have to disconnect that connector and my magsafe). But my computer did improve what I wanted it to improve. And hopefully in a few years I can afford an upgrade
.