The New Macintosh Laptop Line - how much of an Improvement are They?
To look at, the new 15 inch MacBook Pro isn't all that different from the models that were in vogue last year. Those models last year brought in innovations like the captive battery, and the SD slot; to all appearances, the current iteration of the famed Macintosh laptop line doesn't have anything earthshaking to offer? Well, looks can be deceiving; for under the shiny single piece aluminum mold that makes for the surface of the laptop, lie some impressive revamps in architecture and performance.
There are three models in the 15 inch MacBook Pro line; and visually, you'd be hard-pressed to tell them apart. Let's get with the features they do share first - they all come with a 15.4 inch LED screen, twin graphics processors and 4GB of DDR3 RAM. All three models in the range have left the Core2 Duo processors behind that powered the previous Macintosh laptop line for new fleetfooted Core i ones. The prices range from $1800 for the baby of the bunch that runs on an i5, all the way to the $2200 2.66 GHz Intel i7.
Undoubtedly, most revolutionary feature in the new MacBook Pro line is the graphics engine - actually, it's the way there are two separate graphics engines, both simultaneously powered up. There are innovations here on two levels. The dual graphics chips aren't intended to pull together as dual graphics cards as you wouls see in an ATI Crossfire system. Instead, they are laid out for two levels of performance. There is a basic Intel integrated video chip of the kind that you would see on any standard Windows desktop motherboard, and ten there is a separate NVidia GT330M chip that is equipped with its own RAM. Standard garden-variety display functions go to the integrated video chip, and the heavy lifting if there is any, is done by the discrete card. This is quite innovative, to have the OS decide when and how to switch dynamically between two different graphics engines. It never used to be dynamic - you always have to log out and log in back again if you needed to see a change.
Another hysterical new feature on the new MacBook Pro is the new multi-touch glass trackpad. If you ever used one of Apple's new mobile devices, the iPad or the iPhone, you'd know how to use Apple's barnd of multi-touch. For instance, scrolling through a page just requires you to swipe your finger across; the page acts as if it understands the rules of momentum and inertia, and keeps rolling until it slowly loses steam. This feature isn't available on any older Macintosh laptop - not even as an upgrade. And the DisplayPort output now sends multichannel audio through as well. If you want to use the sound on your HDMI flat screen, you have to make sure that you get the appropriate Apple adapter.
I kind of expected that Apple would bring in Blu-ray and USB 3 on its new MacBook; this hasn't happened though; Steve Jobs just put out a statement that says that Apple doesn't believe in Blu-ray (even though they threw their support behind it in the format wars from three years ago). The company believes that it won't be long before people discard physical media altogether in favor of going with downloads completely.
I expected a lot of the new MacBook Pro when they advertised nine hour battery life.They must have really optimistic measurement techniques, because running stuff like movies, I could coax no more than four hours out of the battery. For such a powerful laptop and such a bright screen, that doesn't seem exactly stingy though. Of all the models in the entire revamped 15" Macbook line, I find the entry model especially tempting. It comes with a screaming fast i5 processor, a larger hard drive, discrete graphics, and the value for money is hard to argue with.