Macopinion

New MacBook Pro A Performer In Spite Of “Questionable” Apple Choices

It's always interesting to peruse non Apple-centric reviewers' impressions of Apple products. In his review of the new unibody 15" MacBook Pro, Computershopper's Les L. Shu is generally positive, but says that the poverty of accessories and adapters it ships with - none besides the necessary power cord and AC adapter is a chintzy bit of nickeling and dimeing for top-of-the-line computer. Especially that MiniDisplay port adapter that will set you back an extra $99, that is if you can find one at all.

In the positive column, Shu notes that while saying a laptop is built like a tank is a bit of a cliché, it does appropriately describe the impression he got from the MacBook Pro's solid, dense construction, which designer Jonathan Ive claims to be "fundamentally thinner, stronger and more robust". That impression may be a bit illusory according to this report from ITWire, but I'm sure Apple will take the compliment.

Back in criticism mode, Shu is not enchanted by the black accents around the screen, back, and keyboard, which in his estimation slightly cheapens the feel of the machine, a point on which I've been in agreement since the black accent theme debuted on the MacBook Pro last January. I rather like it on the aluminum iMac, but it doesn't translate gracefully to the laptop form factor - I think the prominence of the keyboard as a murkily black area with the laptop form factor is the key to this impression if you will. The aluminum-colored keyboards on the old school MacBook Pros and PowerBooks look classier and more aesthetically-pleasing to my eyes.

Another gripe I share with Shu is the MacBook Pro's relative poverty of ports. "The system still has only two USB ports, which is sure to annoy those who love to plug in a ton of peripherals," he comments. It certainly annoys me, and when even cheapo (and thin) PC netbooks often come with three USB ports, Ethernet, and internal modem, and a card reader, I don't perceive any reasonable excuse for Apple not doing likewise with the MacBook Pro, or for that matter the MacBook, other than a perverse ideological minimalism when it comes to I/O support. FireWire 400 is gone too, leaving us with a single FireWire 800 port, which is backward compatible with FireWire 400 but you need an adapter dongle which is more extra expense and bother to live with. At least it still has FireWire, which the unibody MacBook does not.

Speaking of which, if you'll forgive a digression, in my Low End Mac review this week of the Targus USB 2.0 High-Speed File Transfer Cable. which is designed to facilitate transferring large amounts of data from computer to computer via USB, serving essentially has a USB substitute for Apple's built-in FireWire Target Disk Mode, I note that this cable could ease the sting and become a popular workaround for buyers of the new, FireWire-bereft, Unibody MacBooks.

The High-Speed File Share Cable offers a claims maximum nominal transfer rate of 480 Mbps, although that speed will never be attained in real world applications, with something like 260 Mbps being more likely on most machines. However, some testers have reported that USB throughput on the Unibody MacBooks seems to be significantly faster than we've been accustomed to with older Macs.

The genius of the Targus High-Speed Data Transfer Cable is that it includes built-in file transfer software called EasySuite that works with both Mac OS X and Windows OS - it can be used to transfer files cross-platform as well as from Mac-to-Mac or Windows-to-Windows. And unlike FireWire Target Disk mode, one of the computers does not have to be shut down and restarted in order to set up file transfers.

As for another magesterial Apple decision not to offer a matte display option with the new MacBook Pro, Shu observes, and again I agree, that while a glossy display tends not to be an issue with a consumer notebook, the MacBook Pro is targeted at professionals. Personally I think they probably would have continued offering a matte display except it just doesn't work with the display under glass styling motif, so function has followed form as is so often the case with Apple hardware.

Shu notes that the MacBook Pro delivers in the performance column but still runs hot. This is true, although there has been a substantial improvement with the latest Penryn Core 2 Duo CPUs, which draw less power (and thus create less heat) than older C2Ds, and especially the Core Duo chips used in the earliest MacBook Pros and MacBooks. OnScreen Scientist.com reports that his 1sr Gen Core Duo MacBook Pro can hit operating temperatures of 100° C or 212° F, (the boiling point of water) while running graphics-intensive software under Windows Vista installed on a Boot Camp partition on my first generation MacBook Pro, and has recently observed temperatures under Mac OS 10.5.5 climbing to levels that make the Vista temperatures seem mild in comparison, however, hitting 104° C with the Microsoft Update program open, and 121° C (250° F) during a photo download with a browser before automatically shutting down.

Overall Les L. Shu concludes that from out-of-the-box to starting the OS to firing up applications, the company has made the experience completely seamless and enjoyable, and although some of Apple's choices are questionable, they are minor compared to how well the machine works. It's just too bad that Apple couldn't rethink those questionable choices and give us what we want rather than what they decide is good for us, which I think would be good for them.

A ChangeWave survey of 3,699 consumers conducted between Oct. 23 and Nov. 3 found that a full third of US notebook buyers surveyed, or 33 percent, plan to buy some form of Apple notebook during the holiday season or within the next 90 days from the start of November, and that about 20 percent of the 33 percent leans towards the higher-end MacBook Air and MacBook Pro systems, with notably a relatively small 7 percent likely to buy the new unibody 13-inch MacBooks (could the misbegotten decision to drop FireWire support be hurting worse than Apple anticipated?), with nearly as many at 6 percent setting their purchase sights the holdover (and FireWire-equipped) while plastic MacBook.



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Charles W. Moore

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