Thumbs up or down for the new Macs?
My current MacBook Pro is coming up on it’s one year anniversary. It’s hardly old and in pristine shape. I baby all the machines I have. Scratch free is a good thing if you decide to sell. But should I sell the one I have?
Today Steve Jobs took the wraps of the new machines. There’s plenty to like so I’ll start with the good stuff and work my way to the puzzles. Since I haven’t actually seen one up close and personal, some of this will be a paper based review. But some of it will be based on experience with other machines.
The Case
First and foremost, I like the new cases. Like my MacBook Pro, you just know before you even touch one that they are going to be velvety smooth to the touch. Luxurious. You can tell by looking at the picture below and on the Apple site. Attention to detail was job one. Tight tolerances. Sleek lines. And Apple Marketing is all over it in their descriptions. Comparing the process of building the new MacBook Pro to a spacecraft. Just be careful you aren’t paying spacecraft prices. We’ll look at that in a bit.
You notice a new and drastic change for the MacBook Pro. In the picture above you see the new machine closed. It looks similar in many ways to the machine I have. Silver and kewl. Obviously of Apple heritage. But when you open it, there is a very different look. Before we get to that and before I forget, don’t forget the bottom of the machine. Apple has changed the bottom to give you better access for hard drive upgrades. Finally.
The Screen and GPU
The first thing about the new look that is going to jump out at you is the glass glossy screen with the black bezel around it. I haven’t seen the real deal yet but according to the descriptions, the backlit screen color and contrast is stellar. And Apple has added new high powered NVIDIA GeForce 9600M video chipset to drive that beautiful screen on the MacBook Pro, and the 9400M for the MacBook. The MacBook Pro actually has both GPUs and will use the 9400M for battery conservation.
Apple also did the right thing in my opinion by moving to a mini DisplayPort for external monitor and projector connections. Those connectors are going to run you $29-$99 extra since they didn’t include any with the machine this time around. Most people with get the $29 VGA connector and move on.
Input
The keyboard has changed. It’s black. Big deal. However, the new touchpad is a very big deal. It’s a multi-touch glass device. You know, like having an iPhone built-in to your MacBook. This obviously has a lot of thought put into it. I mean think about it. We’ve been bitching about the single button for years. What does Apple do? They remove the freaking button. That is just precious.
Ports
I’ve seen a lot of bitching about the ports on the new machine. Whining about the mini DisplayPort. A lot of noise about dropping IEEE 1394 (Firewire). Not enough USB ports. Then I realized they were talking about the MacBook, not the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro has a Firewire 800 port as indicated in the picture at right. The MacBook Pro also has a 34mm ExpressCard slot so you could add the Firewire even if it didn’t have the 800 port.
Here’s the problem as I see it. Power users, especially those that want high speed external hard drive connections are going to want to use eSATA cards. Since Apple didn’t include a built-in eSATA port like Dell, an ExpressCard slot and card would be required. That automatically excludes the 13” MacBook from consideration. On the other hand a USB 2.0 connection to a hard drive is more typical of the majority of users. So is the lack of a Firewire port and ExpressCard slot a show stopper for a power user? Probably not, but I thought you should be aware of these differences. Something to consider.
Gripes on Looks
Time to add some of the Cons as I see them. In the beginning of this post I started talking about appearance. I prefer the all silver look of my circa November 2007 MacBook Pro. I like the silver keyboard.
If precision aluminum is the new gold standard, why didn’t Apple stick with silver? Was it impossible to put a silver bezel around the screen? If that’s the case, then I can understand the black keyboard. I certainly hope it looks better in person because the pictures don’t excite me.
My ThinkPad is solid black. Next thing you know Lenovo is going to start making two tone ThinkPads. Ok, that will probably be a cold day in hell. I must admit though, the new MacBook does look better than the white or black models of old. I guess it’s the Pro that confuses me.
Technical Gripes
Where’s the Blu-ray drive option? I mean come on Apple. Do you really expect everyone to buy ALL of their video via iTunes and download it? Well of course you do, but it would be mighty big of you to consider the one and only high def disk standard in your high end product. It doesn’t have to be a burner, but a player would have been a nice option.
Where’s the Quad Core? Are you really going to let Dell and the other OEMs out gun you in performance this time around? On the last wave of MacBook Pros the common comment was “the fastest laptop made”. Are you even close this time around or is it time to be pragmatic? Frankly, unless you really nailed the cooling on this machine it’s probably better that you didn’t add a Quad option to the 15.4” MacBook Pro.
Where’s the certified 8GB or 16GB RAM configuration? I know a lot of people running Parallels or Fusion for virtualization and could really use more than 4GB of memory. I understand DDR3 1066MHz 4GB SoDIMMs are highly constrained right now, but it would have been great to at least see some certification in the specs for this go around with some comments about the supply side of the problem. All of the other laptop makers are in the same boat, but at least many of the other OEMs are creating 8GB configurations. Dell went crazy and has a 16GB monster coming.
I know, a lot of this is likely to show up in an updated 17” MacBook Pro. Where’s the updated 17” MacBook Pro?
And about the darn screen. First of all, sticking with a 15.4” LCD screen at a native resolution of 1440x900 is pretty lame if you ask me. That’s a great resolution at 14.1” but at 15.4” it really should be 1680x1050. Especially for the price of the Pro. And what’s with the glossy screen? Have fun with that in airports and other situations with overhead lighting. I’ll keep the matte finish of my current MacBook Pro and every other laptop I have.
Price
All I’m going to say about price is that money is in short supply, and the new Macs aren’t cheap. I kept hearing about a MacBook in the $799-899 range. The new 4GB RAM MacBook is $1749. That’s a long way from even $899.
So back to one of the first questions in this post. Should I sell my current MacBook Pro and run out and buy the new machine? In my case the answer is absolutely not. My MacBook Pro has at least 2-3 years left in it.
So I guess we’ll see if the new machines are widely accepted and adored. Apple has a good track record of late, but I’m not so sure about these machines at the current prices. It will be interesting to see how quickly they start discounting them. I wouldn’t look for any killer deals until after Christmas, but then again, larger economic forces may have an impact before then. I don’t see many people spending a lot of cash right now.
[UPDATE for 10/19] I stopped by the local Apple store here in Southlake and spent about 20 minutes looking at the new 13” MacBook. As suspected, it’s a great looking machine closed. I don’t really care for it opened. I like my MacBook Pro better. Glossy isn’t for everyone and it certainly isn’t for me.
