MacBook Pro – Upgraded
The 15-inch MacBook Pro was upgraded from from the original Intel Core i5 CPUs to incorporate the latest second generation Sandy Bridge technology. MacBook Pros, whether 15- or 17-inch, now all ship with quad-core i7 chips.
Our $2199 test unit had a 2.2GHz quad-core Intel i7 processor, with 4GB RAM and 750GB of 5400rpm hard drive space. The 15-inch MacBook Pro no longer has an Nvidia GeForce 330M graphics card; instead Apple installs an AMD Radeon HD6490M on base models, though the review model had an even faster 6750M card.
The MacBook pro measures 14.4 x 9.8 x 0.95 inches and weighs 5.5 pounds or 6.2 pounds with the adaptor.
Apple’s iconic aluminium casing remains, so too the expansive glass multitouch trackpad. The screen size of our test model was 17.3 inches, all very familiar stats.
A block of aluminum, carved into a shell with support struts, makes up the unibody chassis of the MacBook Pro: slim, strong and flex-free.
Ports and connections are largely unchanged, except for one important addition – in place of the MiniDisplay port there is now a Thunderbolt socket, Intel’s high-speed port for displays or transferring data. Intel envisages Thunderbolt technology as an all-in-one successor to USB, FireWire, and DisplayPort – Thunderbolt allows up to 10Gb/s bi-directional data transfer.
The Apple MacBook Pro Winter 2011 is furnished with the following ports: a MiniDisplay/Thunderbolt socket, one FireWire 800 port, an SD-card reader, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, the usual headphone/microphone jacks, and two USB 2.0 ports. The SD card slot has been made SDXC-compatible in the new MacBook Pro, so works with higher-capacity SD cards.
The new MacBook Pros stick to Apple’s policy of holding the price steady while improving the product spec to make the machine faster and more powerful. Thus the 15-inch MacBook Pro still costs $1799. Although we still await HDMI, Blu-Ray, and 3G, the new Sandy Bridge i7 CPUs give a significant improvement in performance.
The huge multitouch trackpad display has been present in the MacBook Pro for years. Although pinch-and-zoom made the leap to the iPhone and is now standard on most notebooks, other multitouch gestures are still more or less exclusive to MacBook users, e.g. sweeping with four fingers to show/hide all active windows. Part of the Apple appeal is that once the user gets accustomed to these shortcuts, regular devices are slow and awkward by comparison. A number of Windows notebooks have added larger clickpads in the past year, incorporating similar multitouch functionality, but nothing yet rivals the MacBook Pro’s repertoire.
The 1440 x 900 pixel display is a higher resolution than the 1366-768 resolution found on many competing laptops, and for just $100 extra you can upgrade the screen to 1680 x 1050 pixels, or if you’re planning a lot of outside use, this upgrade can be to an ‘antiglare’ version for $150. And it’s a deeply impressive display – it’s sharp enough to allow for 25 or 30 icons to be shown down one side of the display for quick launch.
The new MacBook Pro also boasts a 720p webcam, which is compatible with the new Mac version of FaceTime, the video-conferencing app also found on the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch.
Overall, the Winter 2011 upgrade of the Apple MacBook Pro features the same exterior as its predecessor and adds some interesting features – Thunderbolt and FaceTime – but the real difference is in the engine – the Intel i7 Sandy Bridge processor backed by AMD Radeon HD 6750M GPU gives markedly superior performance. Quite simply, this is the fastest notebook we’ve seen. Another impressive upgrade from Apple.
Cnet has this video review of new 2011 MacBook Pro. Following that review, you can see short review of Sony Viao F series notebook. Enjoy!
Related posts:
- Apple MacBook Air on sale
- Review: MacBook Air
- New Macbook Pro?
- Macbook Air Supersize In Q1 2012
- Elgato Thunderbolt SSD
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