Macbook Pro

[trogers8]

FedEx dropped off my 15in MacBook Pro this morning and I can't stop using it since then! I freaking love this thing. So quick and crisp. Every program works flawlessly without a hitch. Internet browsing is blazing fast, much faster than on my PC. The mail client is simple and straightfoward, no extra mumble jumble. I was a bit leary at first making the switch, but I have NO regrets after using it all day and already typing a report for school on it. And it's SO quiet...I could hear a pin drop in a room over this thing. Very nice design with the aluminum casing and at 5.4lbs its super portable too. Now I just gotta sell my 10lb 17in HP laptop on ebay lol.

[TJ213]

lol, I picked up my MacBook Pro just under a year ago to replace my massive HP (zd8000 or something) 17" "laptop" with 2 dead batteries.

Its still pretty quick and has almost no problems except it comes out of sleep kind of slowly, and the paint is starting to wear off at the bottom of the keyboard.



The thing that suprised me most about looking at the laptop itself, the bottom is insanely clean compared to the PC ones.

[e60.deluxe]

i like macbook pro, good machines, but its hard to pass up the same spec, size and weight and higher build quality in a Lenovo for less $$. i love my 15.4" T60, 5.2lbs.

Originally Posted by TJ213

The thing that suprised me most about looking at the laptop itself, the bottom is insanely clean compared to the PC ones.

yup no port replicator, no removable harddrive, no removable graphics card, no removable battery, no cooling vents so they have to cripple the graphics cards speed so it doesnt overheat, or anything like that. just 1 Memory slot.

you can take that to be good or bad i suppose.

[trogers8]

Originally Posted by e60.deluxe

i like macbook pro, good machines, but its hard to pass up the same spec, size and weight and higher build quality in a Lenovo for less $$. i love my 15.4" T60, 5.2lbs.



yup no port replicator, no removable harddrive, no removable graphics card, no removable battery, no cooling vents so they have to cripple the graphics cards speed so it doesnt overheat, or anything like that. just 1 Memory slot.

you can take that to be good or bad i suppose.

Who really upgrades all that stuff in a laptop anyways? Or needs to remove it?? I'd rather have the sleeker look imo. And the battery does remove on the pro. I don't think the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 128mbs of dedicated SDRAM is a crippled graphics card by any means.

[e60.deluxe]

Originally Posted by trogers8

Who really upgrades all that stuff in a laptop anyways? Or needs to remove it?? I'd rather have the sleeker look imo. And the battery does remove on the pro. I don't think the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 128mbs of dedicated SDRAM is a crippled graphics card by any means.

OMG the eyes in my upper leg are so happy it looks so sleek!

some people do, and therefore the reason i said it could be bad or good.

in my eyes, the port replicator is worth all the ugly on the bottom of a computer. AND ALOT of people use a port replicator. its incredibly usefull. the fact that Apple tries to get you to buy a keyboard and mouse and monitor when you order a laptop proves that even apple people have a use for a port replicator.

and Apple has been underclocking the graphics cards for years but we just never knew about it because OS X drivers dont allow you to see that information, windows XP driver did. and yes, the 8600M GT is underclocked, and so was the X1600 before it, and so was the 9700 PRo before it. the 9700 pro is not an Intel based system so it cant run XP but people have made hacked drivers to see the clock speeds after learning what Apple did with the X1600.

the X1600 was clocked at 310/278 when ATi specifications call for a clock speed of 475/470Mhz.

think about it, how would you like to dish out the money for a 2.4ghz CPU and really get a 1.6Ghz just so that the bottom looks ''more clean" what youd want to do is just buy a CPU labled as a 1.6Ghz, have the sleek bottom, and only pay for 1.6ghz cost.

apple should be providing less powerful graphics cards, and not onderclocking them, and chargin you less.

P.S. the 8600M GT is supposed to come with 256MB or 512MB of GDDR3 Memory, not 128MB SDRAM. SDRAM is OLD NEWS. thats not even about heat, thats just plain cheapness and scewing the customer out of more $.

[trogers8]

Well I am not a gamer, and I have no interest in clocking my video card to the max. Under clocking it isn't a way "cheaping" out the customers, it's a good way of conserving battery power and reducing heat without a substantial loss in actual performance of the hardware itself. I do no video-intensive applications so all that mumbo jumbo really isn't relevent. All those people running bootcamp and resetting their video cards to optium clocking are just taking a risk of overheating probably leading to damage Apple wouldn't even cover under warranty...because obviously apple did it for a reason.

ANYways..I didn't post to get in a war about my computer...I'm very happy with my purchase and I did a lot of research..I'm well aware of what I could have gotten for a similar price, but I chose the Mac path. I was really over my old PC and all my problems. But thanks for your input...I understand you were just stating some facts, its all good.

[Izzy]

Sweet, congrats. As I always say to my friends, you'll never see me touch a Mac without a hazard suit myself -- but I can see why people love them.

[e60.deluxe]

Originally Posted by trogers8

Well I am not a gamer, and I have no interest in clocking my video card to the max. Under clocking it isn't a way "cheaping" out the customers, it's a good way of conserving battery power and reducing heat without a substantial loss in actual performance of the hardware itself.

please reread. using cheap ram has nothing to do with heat or battery life. if you dont care about gaming, then get a laptop with a X3000. better battery life, cooler. but guess what, it doesnt look as good on paper, and Apple cant charge for it.

if you read on Apple forums, loads of people are pissed off at this. before with the X1600 they could use a program to restore the clock speed, but there isnt shit you can do about the RAM.

But Apple wants to be praised for offering a high end graphics card on a lightweight notebook with good batterylife and therefore pay extra for it. if they knew it was gonna be crippled, then they wouldnt pay the extra. they tell you about how their graphics cards are better cuz they dont steal ram from your CPU...even you (who doesnt care about games) brought that up.

it only steals during games, not on the desktop or it steals something like 2MB or 4MB on the desktop. not a big deal. but Apple wants to showcase the gaming ability and then cripple it so they can make the bottom side more pretty.

you say you didnt want to get into a post war..i ended with "you can take that as good or bad" which obviously means theres people on both sides, people who care about a 'clean underside' and people who care about function; you instigated the rest although TJ's the one who brought up PCs ugly underside in teh first place.

its sad, apple products are very good, but i cant stand the things they do to suck every cent out of their customers, and the huge sacrifices they make to functionality just to make the product look 5% better.

[trogers8]

OH believe me I probably read just about EVERY forum out there that dealt with macs before I bought this. I weighed the good the bad and the ugly. Most everything was good that I was concered with....like you said people are going to look at it different ways for their different needs with computing. I was just ready to try something other than the PC that had been giving me so much trouble.

[brdhouse]

congrats! despite the facts presented on the graphics card, the most important fact is that OSX is great (and very stable). I've been using a 1.5 GHz G4 powerbook with 2GB RAM since 2004 with next to no problems... and it has held up very well over the years under graphics intensive (professional) use. I have even edited professional video in FCP... the rendering was slow, but no biggie. I did have a hard drive die a year or so ago, but I replaced it with no issues besides having to buy a tiny torx screw driver, lol. I'm looking forward to replacing it with a MBP this winter or early spring. yay!

[F-1 Si]

Congrat!! I need to get rid of my DEll laptop. I've been looking at Macs

[gx4th]

The only thing that bugs me about apple notebooks is the lack of the 2nd mouse button.

Yeah, ctrl click works, but it's now 2007, not 1984. External mice negates it but some people just like the touchpad feel.

That's it, small gripe, my 2 civics worth.

[06si]

does anyone know if the regular macbook will handle final cut pro or do i need the macbook pro. I would rather not spend 2k on a laptop im only gonna use for one thing

[brdhouse]

Originally Posted by 06si

does anyone know if the regular macbook will handle final cut pro or do i need the macbook pro. I would rather not spend 2k on a laptop im only gonna use for one thing

Taken from Apple.com:

Minimum system requirements to install all Final Cut Studio applications

* • A Macintosh computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, or Intel Xeon processor.
* • 1GB of RAM
* • An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* • A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* • Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later
* • QuickTime 7.1.6 or later
* • A DVD drive for installation

Recommended Configurations

The following are recommended for all applications:

* • 2GB of RAM when working with compressed HD and uncompressed SD sources
* • 4GB of RAM when working with uncompressed HD sources

Available Disk Space

* • 4GB of disk space required to install all applications
* • Additional 62GB required to install all optional templates, content, and tutorials (may be installed on separate disks):
* - 9GB for DVD Studio Pro content
* - 8GB for Motion templates and tutorial media
* - 24GB for Soundtrack Pro audio content
* - 12GB for LiveFonts and LiveType animated elements and templates
* - 2GB for Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio Tutorials media

[06si]

thanx for the help

[trogers8]

As far as the two mouse button things go...they have a setting where you can place two fingers on the mousepad and click and it pulls up the second mouse buttom functions. I find that just as easy as having two buttons. But I've used windows for so long it will take some time to get used to I'm sure.

[TJ213]

I just use an external mouse, notebook mice drive me crazy.


I know my mac isn't as powerful as the PC machines, but it runs faster, and is more enjoyable to use. Personally the UI, clean exterior, problem free operation, and just the overall experience is worth it IMO.

I have a 360 (read Halo3) to take care of any type of gaming.

[Bubble Gum Jr.]

Originally Posted by Izzy

Sweet, congrats. As I always say to my friends, you'll never see me touch a Mac without a hazard suit myself -- but I can see why people love them.

I love the look of Apple's products. They're really on top of the ball when it comes to electronics that look great and are fully functional. However what kills me is the lack of customization, price and the lack software. I didn't like their OS at first but it's pretty secure unlike Windows XP. Everyone says MacOSX is more stable, but I also find the lasted updated version of XP to be fairly stable at least my past systems have been. Not so sure about Vista, I had a bad experience when I tried it the first time, I kept getting blue screens randomly and my network connection was slow. I do admit that overall the MacOSX is better than Windows, however many people are afraid to switch because some softwares they use do not have a Mac equivalent that they're familiar with.

I'm a big gamer, so I want a powerful system and even the highest end Macbook Pro doesn't provide. When I look at the highest end Macbook Pro, I get the feeling that whoever is buying this is getting ripped off hardcore. If I could buy the shell and insert my own parts into it, I'd gladly do that. Nothing even comes close to it, except for maybe those Sony Vaios but that's only cause they're so tiny and compact. I just wished the Macbook offered more options and was priced a little more affordable. Because hardware wise for a laptop you're paying a large premium for what you're actually getting. But technology wise it's pretty advanced for it's time. Like most of the new Macbooks Pro's have