Apple’s MacBook Pro: Rotting Core?

[Guest]

Fantastic article, I really hope Apple read this, well written!

 

[Guest]

Seems the article missed some Macbook upgrades. It says it's been a year since an upgrade and more than 2 since a major one. Apple updated Macbook pros in June http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/06/08mbp.html and an update to Macbook in October. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/10/20macbook.html
Seems like updates happen pretty regularly. Maybe just an oversight, but worth mentioning.

 

[Guest]

I have been waiting for the new MacBook Pros for months now. There's no way I'm buying a laptop with a Core 2 processor. I would love an i7 quad core, but that might not happen. A lot of high end laptops have subwoofers, but that slab of aluminum won't allow something like that. A full size keyboard with numeric pad would be nice, too.

 

[skimage]

Apple bashing sure is fun. What I absolutely hate is the fact that I pretty much HAD to get a Macbook Pro in order to get a matte screen. I could've gotten a business class notebook, but those things are just as, if not more, ridiculous than Macs. Glossy gives me a headache and Mac was my only refuge. The specs are still very nice all around and I think 1440x900 is the perfect resolution for a 15" screen. Go too high and everything is super tiny. I love my Mac, I hate what it cost. But at the time I bought it, literally no other company had a matte screen option. Oh and I tried the screen covers. Those things are beyond crap. Image quality goes way down, glare is only diminished, and you either get bubbles or you have a stupid clip system.

 

[Guest]

"Versions of McAfee and Norton AntiVirus no longer worked with the new operating system" ?

That's the funniest thing i've read this week…

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]mrmoo500[/nom]Who really cares about apple on this site? Most people who use them would never vist a site like this.[/citation]

moron, lol. i have a pc and an apple machine. i totally love the MBP laptop that i have. yes i am also running WIN7 on it and no issues at all, as a matter of fact WIN7 runs much better on a apple machine. was the price worth it? i think so. i love how the bottom of the laptop is smooth and it does not have any vents to break or become clogged, not to mention a 2.8 ghz processor. there aren't very many PC laptops out there with a cpu over 2.2ghz in them.

you pay for quality and ingenuity. apple as some of the best looking hardware out there, not to mention their failure rate is also very low.

 

[Guest]

I'll put up with Blu-Ray when it's integration in the OS doesn't cause havoc elsewhere as it has in Windows. The crap people were and still are putting up with to get something simple like a legal, legitimately purchased disc play back on a supposedly supported graphics card and monitor is ridiculous and I can understand Apple not wanting to deal with the headache of explaining to customers why their supposedly HDCP complaint monitor won't allow them to play back content at full quality. I don't like the idea of a media format which requires specific encryption support at the kernel level. And beside that, long before Blu-Ray becomes as popular as DVD is today, it will have been killed by digital distribution.

 

[josh2012]

This is a great article and the same point I have been trying to argue in Mac forums, to little prevail.

I would like to see the following:

low end 13" get the 2.26 i5 with Intel's integrated graphics along with a NVIDIA 300 series optimizing the new Optimus technology and a screen upgrade everything else remain the same

high end 13" get the 2.53 i5 with same graphics set up and upgraded screen and a 7200 rpm hard drive option

low end 15" same processor and graphics set up and upgraded screen

mid level 15" i7 1.6 with the same graphics and screen upgrade

high end 15" i7 1.73 with the same set up

17" i7 1.73 with the same graphics solution and a screen upgrade plus a much needed sd card slot

 

[digiex]

Cry baby article, nobody forces you to buy Macs

 

[redplanet_returns]

What Apple Doesn't Want You To Realize

well...i think most of tom's readers realize...
but thx for the article anyways

 

[cisco]

I currently own a 13" macbook and an iMac. I would like to buy another 15", but have decided to wait. I really can't justify buying another laptop for 1800 that is essentially same speed as my current computers. The sexy part they have down, now they need to work on performance. If your paying 2k for a laptop it had better be the fastest technology available.

 

[garyshome]

Did all you Mac people vote for Obama?

 

[mikefarinha]

The opinions of this article and many of the comments are valid but many people miss the point of Apple. The bling factor. Many people buy $300 shoes and $400 jeans, and for the most part the people that buy those items swear by them. To them they are worth the premium price, regardless of the fact a $50 pair of shoes can be just as good.

When people invest so much of their money in a product it would be too painful to admit that the premium wasn't worth the price so they double down and fawn over their product. The emperor has no clothes but no one is willing to admit it in fear of looking foolish.

 

[Guest]

Looking at the system specs at launch of the MacBook Pro line in January 2006 (courtesy of wikipedia) we see the following. Current information on that part is included in parentheses. I'm unable to find launch prices to compare that as well, but saying the line has barely changed is ridiculous. I won't argue current value and expect to see at least i5s across the Macbook Pro line, i7 in the 17" as a standard or a BTO option maybe.

Jan 2006
1440x900 LCD screen (now LED)
512MB RAM, expandable to 2GB (now 4GB standard, expandable to 8GB)
100GB HD (now 250, 320 or 500GB HD)
1.83, 2 or 2.16GHz CPU Yonah (now 2.53, 2.66 or 2.8GHz Penryn)
ATI X1600 (now NVIDIA 9400 or 9400+9600M)
802.11a/b/g networking (now includes 802.11n as well)
(Price now is 1700, 2000 or 2300 depending on cpu/hard drive/vcard)

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]moron, lol. i have a pc and an apple machine. i totally love the MBP laptop that i have. yes i am also running WIN7 on it and no issues at all, as a matter of fact WIN7 runs much better on a apple machine. was the price worth it? i think so. i love how the bottom of the laptop is smooth and it does not have any vents to break or become clogged, not to mention a 2.8 ghz processor. there aren't very many PC laptops out there with a cpu over 2.2ghz in them. you pay for quality and ingenuity. apple as some of the best looking hardware out there, not to mention their failure rate is also very low.[/citation]

They would be a good hardware manufacturer if they were making PCs...

 

[Guest]

Well I have both PC and Apple, i have iphones and have had ipaq's. I must say that i think ill never buy an apple product again. It is grocely overpriced perhaps except on the specific day that it hits the market.

When you buy an apple product, you are effectively put in iJail, as you cannot do much with it other than what Apple prescribes. Putting music on my iphone has not succeded yet, but only because i, as a lot of other people, have my mucis on a central server, and itunes is a big slug when it comes to how you use it.

This is the most closed and producer dominated product on the market, and their customer support is extremely bad. One would think that when you pay this much for an antiquated product, you would at least get some fantastic customer support, but no. If something is wrong with you unit, even if it is obviously production errors, you better not have farted in its vicinity cause then you are toast.

The stories of people who have bought MacBook pros, HD backup systems, MacBooks, and have had to fight a huge battle to get what they are entitled to should be enough to not ever again buy Macs.

They have visual style, thats it.

Its a third rate, low performance, overpriced, pompous gold turd.

Now thats just my opinion

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]TommySch[/nom]They would be a good hardware manufacturer if they were making PCs...[/citation]

If you think about it, Apple does make PC machines via BOOT CAMP software. They just don't install the software because of Microsoft software infringement. That's why they developed BOOT CAMP and give their customers the option to install WINDOWS or not.

 

[Guest]

Apple's OS simply handles demanding tasks better than any Windows OS to date. That is what you pay for. User friendly, less crashes, less viruses, less tweaking system settings just to get software or hardware to work. Almost everthing simply works better on a Mac. As for crative tasks such as audio and video production, Apple is the best. With that being said I have both PC (XP) and Mac (Snow Leopard).

 

[Guest]

Apple's OS simply handles demanding tasks better than any Windows OS to date. That is what you pay for. User friendly, less crashes, less viruses, less tweaking system settings just to get software or hardware to work. Almost everthing simply works better on a Mac. As for crative tasks such as audio and video production, Apple is the best. With that being said I have both PC (XP) and Mac (Snow Leopard).

 

[quantumrand]

[citation][nom]SSquirrel[/nom]Looking at the system specs at launch of the MacBook Pro line in January 2006 (courtesy of wikipedia) we see the following. Current information on that part is included in parentheses. I'm unable to find launch prices to compare that as well, but saying the line has barely changed is ridiculous. I won't argue current value and expect to see at least i5s across the Macbook Pro line, i7 in the 17" as a standard or a BTO option maybe. Jan 20061440x900 LCD screen (now LED)512MB RAM, expandable to 2GB (now 4GB standard, expandable to 8GB)100GB HD (now 250, 320 or 500GB HD)1.83, 2 or 2.16GHz CPU Yonah (now 2.53, 2.66 or 2.8GHz Penryn)ATI X1600 (now NVIDIA 9400 or 9400+9600M)802.11a/b/g networking (now includes 802.11n as well)(Price now is 1700, 2000 or 2300 depending on cpu/hard drive/vcard)[/citation]

Don't forget that 2006 is 4 years ago now. Look back at 2008 and you'll see that the MBP line has been essentially unchanged since.