New Macbook Pro's

[Denise Wall]

God help me I just broke down and got a 13" MBP. It won't come for a few days. Anybody else got one yet?

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Dom Stevenson

...i've not yet reached the stage when i can seriously stomach a return to Windows, but Apple need to raise their game for Video people IMO.

Echoed throughout the community, to be sure.

However I do have a "bright side" to the land of other possibilities: I've been on the CS5 beta team for a bit now and have played with PP/Encore both on 10.6 and Vista-64 and I'm impressed, especially on the Windows side. I fully expected I could get the Win version to crash or at least hiccup when throwing it really heavy-duty tasks (like beta testers are supposed to) and it never did. And, it crunched the exact same test sequence faster than on the Mac-side (there are specific reasons for this that I'm not allowed to divulge as of yet).

So while I concur with your squeamishness about possibly crossing over in the future I think those fears rest with the well-known "I can crash XP by just looking at it" days; Vista-64 is rock solid with CS5 and I suspect Win-7 would be even better.

But don't misunderstand me, I'm not about to abandon my Mac-based platform anytime soon even if Apple goes completely wonky and leaves FCS in the dust for much-required updates, but what Adobe has brought forward with PP is very significant and will make both Mac and PC editors extremely happy.

[Andrew Clark]

Well as disappointed, angry or whatever people feel about Mr. Jobs and the direction he's taking the company; it's HIS company. He is a VERY smart individual and I wish him continued good health.

Back to the topic of the new MBP's, they are very nice. Could it be better?! Of course....but then again so can the Lenovo's, Sony's, Dell's, etc....

[Dom Stevenson]

Andrew Clark

"whatever people feel about Mr. Jobs and the direction he's taking the company; it's HIS company"

Well, yes. However Jobs has done very nicely out of video folks who've been very loyal to his company and have been rewarded with excellent tools up until a couple of years ago. The fact is things have drifted somewhat lately, and some of the decisions they've made have not been good for us. No Bluray, shiny screens, No Firewire for Macbooks FFS!

And one can argue that Jobs doesn't care because he's got his iphones/pads etc, but a time may come when video people decide they don't need Apple anymore, and that would be a shame.

Final Cut Pro is far and away the most popular NLE in the world, but i can see the competition moving closer if Apple are seen to be dithering.

FCS3 was a joke compared with the previous upgrade, and Apple need to pull their finger out.

[Chris Korrow]

I totally agree. However the creative individual that bought into & supported Apple because it was the better platform/hardware for their industry, are now backed into a corner with the choice of 2 machines. A 17" MBP and a MP and neither are at the top of their game. This equals understandable frustration.

Personally I think it might be time for these "frustrated individuals" to stand together and maybe start some kind of "public" petition. (Dissatisfied Apple pro users). Apples whole ad campaign revolves around how people love their macs, if a large group of pro users came to them with the possibility of going public with their grievances, I think Apple would have to listen.

[Andrew Clark]

Just curious, does anybody know if these new MBP's have a SATA I or SATA II capable interface?

I remember some talk about the previous MBP's having only SATA I capabilities until a firmware upgrade was issued. Don't know how true that is.

Can anyone shed some light on these issues?

[Thomas Smet]

This is why I have never been such a huge fan of laptops. You pay a premium for mediocre performance and you are usually stuck with only a few options that may not always work out for you. I see so many film students buy a 17" MBP thinking it is going to be a killer system for editing when a base model Imac would have beat the pants off of it for 1/2 the price. Heck even the Mac Mini outside of the video card was equal to every Mac laptop except the 17" I know a lot of pros laugh at the Mac Mini but if you compare the specs it has the same guts as most of the laptops and performs just as well except when using the gpu. Sure raw power isn't everything but it is when you are editing and when you are on a budget. I personally have never been a fan of editing on a laptop anyway due to ergonomics and the small screen size.

Seriously instead of buying a 17" MBP it makes more sense to buy a 21.5" Imac for $1,200.00 and a 13" MB for $1,000.00. This gives you better editing performance then the 17" plus even more mobile portability and decent performance for rough edits. It also allows you to do a network render or just use one system for rendering from your external drive while you work on your next project on the other system.

The problem I have with the new MBP's is that they are misleading as well. If you look at the Apple Store all they say is core i5 or i7 at 2.53 Ghz or 2.66 Ghz. Now if you look at the 27" Imac it says the same thing but in the case of the Imac they are true quad core cpu's while the MBP's are dual core versions of the cpu. This could trick a lot of people who don't know better to look deeper into what i5 and i7 really mean. Sure there is a little blurb that says each processor features two cores but how many people are going to miss that? Although to be fair to Apple this has more to do with the lame way Intel is naming their current cpu's.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Thomas,

this is a seperate discussion. Everyone knows a desktop always gives better performance then a laptop (often), but mobility can be VERY important in our business. And also: a laptop is powerful enough for many high end tasks, like editing HD, exporting and making graphics even, and authoring dvd's.

A 15" MBP of a couple years ago was perfectly capable of doing such things. But with cutting out the Expresscard slot they now force video pro's to buy a 17", which is much more expensive (and bigger).
And because the glossy screens are standard, now you also have to pay a premium just to have a matte screen.

An iMac i7 seems like a great machine. I'm even thinking about buying one. But only one firewire800 port without anything else? Damnit, that's limiting.
Just an Expresscardslot would do so much...
But no. You have to buy a Mac Pro for that.

Apple has now cornered video-people. They all have investments in the Apple platform (which still has a great OS, and many great software), which is often difficult to leave. But every year they make the prices higher for the machines capable for our work. Because of power? No. Because leaving out ports and connectability. Small things. A 13" MBP has enough power to edit. That's not the problem. Not being able to connect a RAID for instance, is one problem. Only having one VERY high glossy screen.

In 2008 I bought a MBP for 1800 euros with Expresscard slot, matte screen, Dual-link DVI, and 2 firewire ports.
If I want to do the same thing now, I have to spend 2500 euros.
I have to buy the 17", I have to pay a premium for the matte screen, I have to buy very expensive adapters, and i STILL only have one firewire port.
The discussion has nothing to do with choosing a laptop over a desktop. Although there you can also notice that Apple is making the prices of Mac Pro's more expensive every year. They know the video-people need these certain things, so they HAVE to pony up the money because of significant investments in software. If I hear that there was a time of 1500 euros-Powermacs, than I'm thinking: what the hell? That's a 1000 dollar difference with today for the cheapest intro-model!

Yes, Apple makes great computers. Their software is great - except for the fact that FCS is running behind the competition now in many aspects. But making your loyal customers pay 700 to 1000 euros more, just because you are artificially deciding to cut ports, cut models, and cut everything you want that they need... is just greedy. And THEN on top of that, calling these laptop models "Macbook Pro's" ... is... very sad.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

How about an eSata port? That can't be that hard and it would reduce the call for an ExpressPort on the 15".

Be careful here - this may work for SOME but then keeps some from being able to use Matrox's MXO2 line. This is the FUNDAMENTAL problem: what SOME people need for their workflow isn't what others need.

EDIT: Of course, the 15" doesn't currently offer EITHER...

[William Hohauser]

The reason I mention that it shouldn't be hard is that, unless I'm mistaken, SATA is built into the motherboard for the internal drive already. A little bit of engineering (how easy to say that) can bring a port to the chassis. On the other hand, I can see where the space needed for an expresscard slot is space Apple thought better used for something else, like dual video boards. Has anybody seen what is in place of the slot on the new 15"? I'm sure it has been filled up with something.

[Andy Wilkinson]

Well this is what's inside - not a lot of spare room - but to paraphrase what you wrote, if the Marketing will is there, the Engineers can make it happen. I know 'cause I spent 20 years doing just that - not with computers though!

15-inch Core i5 MacBook Pro torn asunder: no alarms and no surprises -- Engadget

[Chris Korrow]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

Has anybody seen what is in place of the slot on the new 15"? I'm sure it has been filled up with something.

well starting last year, when they took out the express slot they added the SD card slot, Looks like they crammed all the connections on the left side, the SD slot is in the place of the old express slot & the CD/DVD is on the right, where most of the connections are on my 07. Of course having the express slot instead, does not limit SD card users.

[William Hohauser]

How many 15" laptops w/ expresscard slot would Apple have to sell to make it feasible for them to make that model in addition to the SD slot model? 1000? 10,000? How can people convince them that they would not loose 17" sales?

[Chris Korrow]

But what's the point. An express media reader is about $30. Currently I use Compact flash cards and no SD, so an express 34 MBP with no SD slot should please everyone.

They don't need 2 designs.

They would lose some 17" sales, but they wouldn't lose sales. Sounds like a lot of us are just holding onto our older 15" because of this.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

How can people convince them that they would not loose 17" sales?

They would.
It's simple. People who used to want to buy a 17" are still going to buy a 17".
People who used to buy a 15" and didn't need the expresscard slot will still buy a 15".
But all the people who used to buy the 15" and needed the expresscard slot now buy a 17" (or switch platforms).