Apple unveils new Macbook family

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: VinylxScratches
You will love it TheWart. You may never go back 😉

Almost certainly not with a portable. Apple makes very possibly the best notebooks on the market right now. I have heard murmurs and have seen first hand that Lenovo's quality is below what IBM's was for the thinkpads, and the thinkpads still have very poor trackpads.

The build quality, battery life, screens, keyboards, trackpads... Apple's notebooks are top quality in every regard, and OS X is an absolute joy to use on a laptop. There are lots of little things about it that make it much better on a smaller screen than Windows or Linux.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: TheWart
I placed my order for the stock 13" (lower end one) last night, and it should be here by Monday. I am quite excited as this is my first upgrade since I got my Asus Z63A back in the fall of 2005...this seems like the perfect laptop for me: fast, light, and with great battery life.

Nice. I can't wait until I can order mine 🙂

 

[Eug]

1) I'm sooooo glad I waited. I didn't bother with the previous entry-level Unibody 13" because it was expensive, it didn't have a glowing keyboard, and it had no Firewire. So, I just bought a CAD$899 refurb white MacBook... which had Firewire... and recently sold it for CAD$775. Now I can buy the new Unibody with the illuminated keyboard with Firewire for less money.

2) This new battery technology is absolutely killer. Awesome. In fact, this is the awesomest upgrade I've ever seen on a laptop. Very impressive. It's like having two batteries now, but without the additional weight.

3) Snobbery? WTF? Anyways, I "upgraded" from an iBook to a TiBook, and then back "down" to the iBook again. One thing I noted with the original iBook, women used to come out of the woodwork to ask about it. Particularly women under the age of 35 too. They just loved the design. For this reason I liked the girly design very, very much. 😉 As soon as I got the TiBook, all of that stopped. It became clear to me that their interest was in the laptop, and not its owner. 🙁 😛

I'm buying my 13" Pro next week. 🙂

Originally posted by: Kaido
Apparently the new Audio Jack supports both digital input AND output, according to Engadget. They're reviewing it now and said they would post more details when they're done...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/0...unboxing-and-hands-on/

That is not correct. It supports analogue input, but not digital input. That's the one downer for me, but luckily, I have an iMac for digital input for the rare times I need it.

The good news for me is that it supports both analogue output and digital output, as I use both.

Also the SD card is bootable 🙂

http://i.gizmodo.com/5285969/n...-from-internal-sd-slot

Nice, but SD is quite a bit slower than ExpressCard SSDs, and the SD port is obviously not as flexible. (The SD port doesn't support SDIO.) I don't care though as I wasn't expecting either slot in a 13".

However, I do find it curious that the 15" has lost the EC slot as well. That's a real downer for those in the 15" true Pro market, because 15" is an excellent compromise between size and functionality. It's a little less attractive now without the EC port IMO. A small not but insignificant number of pros use EC to add eSATA. In fact, I think adding eSATA would have been more useful than SD.

I personally have no use for SD, as all my camera equipment is CompactFlash. That would have been a more versatile port, as you can get SD->CF adapters. However, I guess Apple went for the mainstream, as SD is more common in consumer cameras.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

The MacRumors forums are abuzz with concern about the fact that many or all of the new 13" and 15" MBPs only have 1.5 Gb SATA1. It sounds like the hardware is fully capable of 3.0 Gb SATA2, but Apple may have hampered it to save on power and, thus, gain improved battery life. This only matters with fast SSDs, but it is discouraging, especially since the MBA and the white MB have SATA2 - hopefully they fix it through a firmware update.

EDITED to correct my typos in the SATA speeds.

 

[Jack Flash]

Really thinking about one of the 13" in August from the refurb store on tax free day... that is if I can find one.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
The MacRumors forums are abuzz with concern about the fact that many or all of the new 13" and 15" MBPs only have 1.5 GB SATA1. It sounds like the hardware is fully capable of 3.0 GB SATA2, but Apple may have hampered it to save on power and, thus, gain improved battery life. This only matters with fast SSDs, but it is discouraging, especially since the MBA and the white MB have SATA2 - hopefully they fix it through a firmware update.

1.5GB is pretty fast. However, if you mean 1.5 Gb, then it does limit many SSD read speeds.

 

[fatpat268]

I'm considering buying a 13 macbook pro, but how easy will it be to upgrade the ram and harddrive?

I refuse to pay the insane upgrade prices on the base cost, but I do want 4gb ram and at least a 320gb hard drive.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
The MacRumors forums are abuzz with concern about the fact that many or all of the new 13" and 15" MBPs only have 1.5 GB SATA1. It sounds like the hardware is fully capable of 3.0 GB SATA2, but Apple may have hampered it to save on power and, thus, gain improved battery life. This only matters with fast SSDs, but it is discouraging, especially since the MBA and the white MB have SATA2 - hopefully they fix it through a firmware update.

1.5GB is pretty fast. However, if you mean 1.5 Gb, then it does limit many SSD read speeds.

Yep, 1.5Gbps

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: fatpat268
I'm considering buying a 13 macbook pro, but how easy will it be to upgrade the ram and harddrive?

I refuse to pay the insane upgrade prices on the base cost, but I do want 4gb ram and at least a 320gb hard drive.

Remove the 10 philips head screws holding the bottom in place, remove the next 2 screws holding the hard drive in place. Remove the RAM like you would any other laptop.

So, not too hard.

 

[Eug]

I'm gonna stick with 2 GB for now since this is just an occasional use machine, but if I want to upgrade, 4 GB DDR3 is now finally cheap. It was quite expensive last year.

 

[fatpat268]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: fatpat268
I'm considering buying a 13 macbook pro, but how easy will it be to upgrade the ram and harddrive?

I refuse to pay the insane upgrade prices on the base cost, but I do want 4gb ram and at least a 320gb hard drive.

Remove the 10 philips head screws holding the bottom in place, remove the next 2 screws holding the hard drive in place. Remove the RAM like you would any other laptop.

So, not too hard.

Thanks, only reason why I asked was because my dell has various compartments to make it easy, the the mbp is smooth on the bottom. Doesn't sound too bad though, I've replaced hdd's and ram in other laptops before.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
The MacRumors forums are abuzz with concern about the fact that many or all of the new 13" and 15" MBPs only have 1.5 GB SATA1. It sounds like the hardware is fully capable of 3.0 GB SATA2, but Apple may have hampered it to save on power and, thus, gain improved battery life. This only matters with fast SSDs, but it is discouraging, especially since the MBA and the white MB have SATA2 - hopefully they fix it through a firmware update.

1.5GB is pretty fast. However, if you mean 1.5 Gb, then it does limit many SSD read speeds.

Yep, 1.5Gbps

Hum...OCZ's Vertex line of SSDs hit 250 MB/s out of the box (like the 120G for $355). If you're only getting around 150 MB/s on the 1.5GBps SATA1 connection (is that the right MB/s speed with the encoding and whatnot?), that seems like a pretty big deal given the price vs. size on the SSD drive...you're losing 100 MB/s right off the bat.

 

[Kaido]

Haha:

http://macenstein.com/default/archives/4600

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
The MacRumors forums are abuzz with concern about the fact that many or all of the new 13" and 15" MBPs only have 1.5 GB SATA1. It sounds like the hardware is fully capable of 3.0 GB SATA2, but Apple may have hampered it to save on power and, thus, gain improved battery life. This only matters with fast SSDs, but it is discouraging, especially since the MBA and the white MB have SATA2 - hopefully they fix it through a firmware update.

1.5GB is pretty fast. However, if you mean 1.5 Gb, then it does limit many SSD read speeds.

Yep, 1.5Gbps

Hum...OCZ's Vertex line of SSDs hit 250 MB/s out of the box (like the 120G for $355). If you're only getting around 150 MB/s on the 1.5GBps SATA1 connection (is that the right MB/s speed with the encoding and whatnot?), that seems like a pretty big deal given the price vs. size on the SSD drive...you're losing 100 MB/s right off the bat.

150/8 is around 180 which is still freaking fast. I think apple made the right choice here, going with battery life over speed.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
The MacRumors forums are abuzz with concern about the fact that many or all of the new 13" and 15" MBPs only have 1.5 GB SATA1. It sounds like the hardware is fully capable of 3.0 GB SATA2, but Apple may have hampered it to save on power and, thus, gain improved battery life. This only matters with fast SSDs, but it is discouraging, especially since the MBA and the white MB have SATA2 - hopefully they fix it through a firmware update.

1.5GB is pretty fast. However, if you mean 1.5 Gb, then it does limit many SSD read speeds.

Yep, 1.5Gbps

Hum...OCZ's Vertex line of SSDs hit 250 MB/s out of the box (like the 120G for $355). If you're only getting around 150 MB/s on the 1.5GBps SATA1 connection (is that the right MB/s speed with the encoding and whatnot?), that seems like a pretty big deal given the price vs. size on the SSD drive...you're losing 100 MB/s right off the bat.

150/8 is around 180 which is still freaking fast. I think apple made the right choice here, going with battery life over speed.

It is also distinctly possible that it can be updated via Software Update, and another thing to check is if it is at 1.5 speed in Windows as well. If it isn't, then it is absolutely an artificial ploy on Apple's part to do... something. I don't believe the battery life thing... seriously, how much of a difference could there be?

 

[TheWart]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Originally posted by: Hacp

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
The MacRumors forums are abuzz with concern about the fact that many or all of the new 13" and 15" MBPs only have 1.5 GB SATA1. It sounds like the hardware is fully capable of 3.0 GB SATA2, but Apple may have hampered it to save on power and, thus, gain improved battery life. This only matters with fast SSDs, but it is discouraging, especially since the MBA and the white MB have SATA2 - hopefully they fix it through a firmware update.

1.5GB is pretty fast. However, if you mean 1.5 Gb, then it does limit many SSD read speeds.

Yep, 1.5Gbps

Hum...OCZ's Vertex line of SSDs hit 250 MB/s out of the box (like the 120G for $355). If you're only getting around 150 MB/s on the 1.5GBps SATA1 connection (is that the right MB/s speed with the encoding and whatnot?), that seems like a pretty big deal given the price vs. size on the SSD drive...you're losing 100 MB/s right off the bat.

150/8 is around 180 which is still freaking fast. I think apple made the right choice here, going with battery life over speed.

It is also distinctly possible that it can be updated via Software Update, and another thing to check is if it is at 1.5 speed in Windows as well. If it isn't, then it is absolutely an artificial ploy on Apple's part to do... something. I don't believe the battery life thing... seriously, how much of a difference could there be?

As my 13" MBP will be here tomorrow, I have been following this issue closely and have read the entire thread at MacRumors. Here is where things stand:
-People have verified that the bus appears to be gimped in Windows as well
-It is the exact same chipset as the old unibody macbooks
-People who have the new 13" MBP with their own SSD installed say that the system is super fast (in terms of bootup, app launches, etc), but the drive is limited to ~150MBs when it comes to large file transfers/movements

This is quite lame imo....I bet that it is fixable with a firmware patch, but who knows. I originally planned on getting an SSD in about a year or so, and given that one still sees a vast improvement in terms of noise and speed despite the 1.5Gbs bus, I don't think it is the end of the world. However, it is a ridiculous move, especially if what people are saying about the power savings (like .2 or .3 watts, compared to say 25w for a cpu) are true.

EDIT:

Update from someone who ran a few tests:

Doubt my tests add or help anything to this discussion but thought I'd post anyways. Brand new 2.26 13" Macbook Pro with 4GB Ram. Tested with stock Hard drive and brand new 128GB Corsair SSD. It took 36 minutes to install OSX on the Corsair SSD. Not sure if this is fast/slow/average.

This SSD is not known for being the fastest on the market, but it is top rated as far as reliability. After using a SSD in my Dell Mini for the past few months, I can never ever ever go back to a hard drive in a laptop again.

Each test I did 5 times and averaged all the results out.

Stock Harddrive in new 13" Macbook Pro with only the pre-loaded programs installed, and all updates applied. The only other thing I did was delete Safari and Mail and install Firefox and Thunderbird.
Boot Time: 34.3 seconds
Shutdown Time: 4.1 seconds

New Corsair 128GB SSD with everything exactly the same, same pre-loaded programs, Deleted Safari/Mail and installed Firefox/Thunderbird.
Boot Time: 22.6 seconds
Shutdown Time: 2.8 seconds

Where the SSD really shines is launching apps, instead of the 3-4 dock bounces I got on my iMac when launching programs like Excel and Photoshop, every single program I have tried has launched on the first bounce.

 

[0roo0roo]

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3580&p=1
well anand seems to like the battery life increase!

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Hacp
150/8 is around 180 which is still freaking fast. I think apple made the right choice here, going with battery life over speed.

150/10, they're using 8b/10b encoding.

 

[Kaido]

Engadget says that 1.5GBps is now standard, unless your order the SSD config, which comes with 3GBps:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/0...ve-1-5gbps-sata-chips/

So if you want 3GBps, you gotta pay upfront for the SSD from Apple.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: Kaido
Engadget says that 1.5GBps is now standard, unless your order the SSD config, which comes with 3GBps:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/0...ve-1-5gbps-sata-chips/

So if you want 3GBps, you gotta pay upfront for the SSD from Apple.

Oh.. ouch! That's not cool at all. I'm not paying Apple that extra cash for a SSD. Hopefully when they come down in price and I can afford one, it'll become a standard feature again.. but this is not a cool move AT ALL. :|

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I bet they end up fixing this through a firmware update. It doesn't really make sense to cripple what amounts to a free feature of the hardware for no reason at all (unless this really is a battery life "feature." I don't care much about it one way or the other, but the idea of Apple doing this just to sell SSD-equipped machines is galling.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
I bet they end up fixing this through a firmware update. It doesn't really make sense to cripple what amounts to a free feature of the hardware for no reason at all (unless this really is a battery life "feature." I don't care much about it one way or the other, but the idea of Apple doing this just to sell SSD-equipped machines is galling.

Well, the way I see it is like this, they aren't going to advertise that they gimped the SATA port on the non-SSD models, which is the only way they could then advertise that it is faster on the SSD models.

The only people that know about this are the people that are tapped into the tech community. Anyone that would knew enough to want the SSD, but not enough to put in their own will just get the SSD from Apple since a little bit of convenience is worth a little bit of cash to them.

This affects people like us, but only obliquely. I for one, would have no problem putting a new hard drive into a MacBook Pro, but SSDs are still way too expensive for my tastes, and I would rather have space over speed.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Don Vito Corleone
I bet they end up fixing this through a firmware update. It doesn't really make sense to cripple what amounts to a free feature of the hardware for no reason at all (unless this really is a battery life "feature." I don't care much about it one way or the other, but the idea of Apple doing this just to sell SSD-equipped machines is galling.

Well, the way I see it is like this, they aren't going to advertise that they gimped the SATA port on the non-SSD models, which is the only way they could then advertise that it is faster on the SSD models.

The only people that know about this are the people that are tapped into the tech community. Anyone that would knew enough to want the SSD, but not enough to put in their own will just get the SSD from Apple since a little bit of convenience is worth a little bit of cash to them.

This affects people like us, but only obliquely. I for one, would have no problem putting a new hard drive into a MacBook Pro, but SSDs are still way too expensive for my tastes, and I would rather have space over speed.

This is a problem for the future. SSDs aren't cheap enough for the mainstream, but in a year or two they will be. By that time people aren't going to want to upgrade their laptops just to get this tech. I know I won't. I'm holding out as long as I can, but I probably will be upgrading this fall/winter, and I want to have the SATA II bus speed, since I expect the laptop to last me 2 or more years.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: TheStu

This affects people like us, but only obliquely. I for one, would have no problem putting a new hard drive into a MacBook Pro, but SSDs are still way too expensive for my tastes, and I would rather have space over speed.

I'm in the same boat. I could imagine plugging in an SSD once 256GB or larger drives are cheap (sub-$100), but that will be a long way away. Still, it would certainly be my preference not to have the SATA port slowed for no apparent reason. I certainly don't consider this a show-stopper but it's a little disappointing.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I'm trying to read through the thread pages at Macrumors, but it's laborious separating out actual reports and confirmations from OT posts, flames and trolls (seriously, they're worse than ATPN).

So far, it seems like ALL 13" and 15" units are limited to 1.5. 17", whitebook and air are at 3. Personally, I think it's just a goof to be remedied.

Everyone else in that thread is either decrying the issue as a nefarious plot by Apple, or belittling the issue by declaring 99% users won't ever use the speed.