Hands-On Report--Our New 2.16 GHz MacBook Pro
We sold our 17" 1.67Ghz PowerBook G4 near the end of December on a hunch that Apple might release a new PowerBook at Macworld in early January. If not, we still had a 1st generation 12" 867MHz PowerBook G4 in inventory to use until Apple did so. To the surprise of many, Apple did announce the new MacBook Pro at Macworld. We spent a lot of time with it and provided a brief hands-on review from Macworld. The 1.83GHz MacBook Pros on display were very fast and the screens were very bright. We called it a "definite winner" but noted its heat issue and its lack of a PC card slot, i.e. a cutting-edge 34mm Express Card slot instead.
Our MacBook Pro was ordered with the optional 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo CPU and the optional 7200RPM 100GB hard drive in order for it to be as fast as possible. We are still looking for a 'Book that's fast-enough to replace our Power Mac G5. From all reports, the new MacBook Pro just might be the one. Of course, it will also drive our 30" Cinema Display.
The only other CTO items are an Apple USB modem and an extra AC adapter since none of our older ones will work with the MacBook Pro. We ordered a third-party 1GB RAM chip so that our new MacBook Pro would have 2GB of RAM and saved $100 off the Apple price. The RAM was here waiting on Monday.
Look & Feel
The MacBook Pro is 0.4" wider than a 15" PowerBook G4 and it looks hauntingly like a 17" PowerBook G4 and we have owned three (1GHz, 1.5GHz and 1.67GHz). It especially looks like a 17" Powerbook G4 when opened with the 15.4" low aspect ratio screen with 1440x900 pixels--the same as our last 17" PowerBook G4. But the MacBook Pro is 1.3lbs lighter at 5.6lbs.
There are other features of the MacBook Pro that appear to have a 17" PowerBook G4 heritage. The new lithium polymer battery looks like a 17" PowerBook G4 battery and the track pad is the same size. We feel right at home behind the keyboard.
The second thing we noticed, i.e. after the uncanny resemblance to our previous 17" PowerBook G4s, is that the trackpad clicker is butter-smooth, at least as compared with the ones on our previous 17" PowerBook G4s. The MacBook Pro's trackpad clicker is much easier to depress so we won't miss clicks or tire our thumb muscles like we occasionally did on our former 17" models. Two-finger scrolling works great. Of course, there are the built-in iSight camera and infrared port additions and the loss of the FireWire 800, modem and s-video ports. We won't have to carry around our iSight any longer but now we'll have to carry the gum pack sized modem instead, a good trade actually. We won't miss the 1.3lbs in weight. We will miss the lack of a PC card slot for our Verizon AirPrime card but our 12" PowerBook G4 didn't have a PC card slot either. And we expect that an Express Card replacement will come out sometime in the near future.
Fortunately, our MacBook Pro with a serial number starting 8614... does not have the screen whine or the CPU whine that some with earlier builds complained about, at least not that we can hear. Nor is there any problem with either speaker. Its screen is perfect, i.e. it has no dead or problematic pixels--our run of good luck with LCD screens is still intact. All of the keys are the same height an straight. The only cosmetic issue is a slight upward bend in the right hand side of the screen's top that is only visible when the screen is closed--with a tiny bit of careful flexing of that corner the screen, it now appears to be perfectly straight.
Our only use issue is that our MacBook Pro frequently does not automatically reconnect to our AirPort network after a long sleep or a restart. We have the same issue with our iMac Core Duo.
Speed
After downloading and installing Mac OS X 10.4.6 and a myriad of other software updates, we ran our suite of speed tests on our 2.16GHz MacBook Pro. The speed tests are composed of a series of "canned" benchmark applications and several so-called "real world" tests that anyone can repeat on their own Mac for comparison by following the steps that we perform. In the table below we also list the previous results from our 20" 2GHz iMac Core Duo with 2GB RAM and Power Mac G5 Quad with 2.5GB of RAM for comparison. Except for the RAM, both comparison computers are stock.
Here are the results:
| Test | Mac Running Mac OSX 10.4.6 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
MacBook Pro
2.16 GHz |
iMac Core Duo
2.0 GHz |
Power Mac G5 Quad
2.5 GHz |
|
| Benchmarks: | |||
| Altivec Fractal 1.3 (GFLOPS) |
4.1
|
3.7
|
25.3
|
|
Cinebench R9.5 - Rendering (X)
|
622
|
579
|
1178
|
|
- OpenGL Hardware Lighting
|
2475
|
2542
|
3296
|
| Let1kWindowsBloom 1.0 (sec) |
15
|
11
|
6
|
| Xbench 1.2+ - CPU |
76
|
76
|
124
|
| - Threading |
211
|
199
|
243
|
| - Memory |
111
|
110
|
149
|
| - Quartz Graphics |
62
|
72
|
149
|
| - OpenGL Graphics |
142
|
136
|
136
|
| - User Interface Graphics |
nv
|
nv
|
236
|
| "Real World" Tests: | |||
| Startup (sec) |
22
|
64
|
41
|
| Shutdown (sec) |
8
|
6
|
12
|
| Dup. 500 MB Folder of Files (sec) |
34
|
32
|
34
|
| Scroll 144p Adobe 7.0.7 Reader File (sec) |
69
|
62
|
32
|
| Export DV Movie in iMovie HD 6.0.2 (sec) |
46
|
-
|
44
|
| Quake III Arena 1.32 (frames/sec) |
134
|
-
|
417
|
|
Halo 1.5.2 (frames/sec)
|
22
|
-
|
31
|
|
Call of Duty 1.4 (frames/sec)
|
32
|
-
|
84
|
|
Doom 3 1.3A (HQ/MQ)
|
41/68
|
51/65
|
53
|
|
Quake 4 1.0 (HQ/MQ)
|
37/56
|
-
|
-
|
The performance of the 2.16GHz MacBook Pro and 2GHz iMac Core Duo are pretty similar as might be expected. The iMac has a larger and faster hard drive but the graphics are the same ATI Radeon X1600 and the MacBook Pro has a slightly faster Intel Core Duo processor.
The Power Mac G5 Quad blows both Intel-based Macs away in all of the canned benchmarks with one exception, the OpenGL Graphics test in Xbench 1.2. There, the MacBook Pro wins by a nose. But what's important is that both Intel-based Macs do as well as the Power Mac G5 Quad portending good news in 3-D graphics game department.
In the "Real Word" tests, the Intel-based Macs do much better relative to the Power Mac G5 Quad, winning three of the five tests with Universal Binary applications and coming very close on the other two (iMovie export and Doom 3). Quake 4 runs very well on the MacBook Pro. As for the non-native applications, Adobe Reader will likely come out with a Universal Binary eventually. While we don't expect to see a Universal binary of Quake III Arena, Aspyr Media has Call of Duty on its list for conversion and we hope Halo will get a Universal Binary version, too. The MacBook Pro is the undisputed startup champion among these three Macs.
Heat
Many people have complained about the heat generated by the MacBook Pro as being excessive. In our Macworld report we noted that the MacBook Pros ran on the hot side. Apple employees at Macworld explained that the display units were pre-production units getting heavy use and that production units under normal use would be expected to run much cooler.
Our MacBook Pro does not get much warmer than our previous PowerBook G4s unless we are doing something that is graphics and CPU intensive--like benchmarking or playing a 3-D game--with the AC adapter connected. Then, it gets very warm on the bottom near the back center-left and just above the function keys, also center-left. But it's not too hot for us to touch or hold or rest on our clothed lap. With regard to heat, our MacBook Pro is very similar to our original 867 MHz Powerbook G4 but only when doing something graphics and CPU intensive and with the AC adapter connected. However, the MacBook Pro does not have obtrusive fans like the 12" PowerBook. In fact, the MacBook Pro's fans are among the quietest we've observed in notebooks.
Battery
We have not used our MacBook Pro long enough on the battery to get a really good handle on its battery life. We deep cycled our battery out of the box and the menu icon shows 4 hours 10 minutes when fully charged, setting the screen on the lowest setting and disconnecting the AC adapter. Our 17" PowerBook G4 used to show around 5 hours doing the same thing but typically yielded about 3 1/2 solid hours of word processing work. If the MacBook Pro's battery were the same kind as the Powerbook G4 battery (lithium ion), we'd expect to get a good 3 hours out of it while word processing with the screen dimmed. But the MacBook Pro's battery is a new lithium polymer battery, like those used in iPods, so more time with it on battery is needed to understand its performance characteristics.
Summary
We think our MacBook Pro is the best notebook we've ever used. Fortunately, the majority of applications that we use routinely are either Universal already or run very well in Rosetta emulation (e.g. Adobe GoLive CS2, SimpleFTP, NetNewsWire, and Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0). Even the latest 3-D games run well on the MacBook Pro, though non-Universal ones will need to be run at lower quality to get an acceptable frame rate. But Doom 3 is already Universal and so is Quake 4. With Call of Duty on Aspyr Media's to-do list and our MacBook Pro running our 30" Cinema Display just fine, our Power Mac G5 Quad may soon be on the market. [Bill Fox]
Saw something? Send a tip
The archive ran on reader tips. What did you see, where, and do you want the credit?