New Macbook Pro's

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Apple announced new Macbook Pro's today.

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro

Solid upgrade, but having to pay 135 euros extra just to get a matte display these days; does anyone agree that that kind of pricing is getting out of hand?

I was also hoping on an extra firewire port at least on the 15" en 17" and having the expresscard slot back on the 15". Oh well. Maybe in a couple of years for a slight optional pricing of 300 euros ;-)

But, in processors it's a solid upgrade, and having more battery life is always nice too.

[Denise Wall]

Not really a solid upgrade at 13" which is what I was looking for. I'm really bummed. Only Intel Core 2 Duo on the 13" is a deal breaker for me.

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Mathieu Ghekiere

I was also hoping on an extra firewire port at least on the 15" en 17" and having the expresscard slot back on the 15"...

Yep, Apple is sticking with their focus on pretty rather than usability. Glossy screens by default, a single FW800 port and still no ExpressCard on the 15" incher? Seems the "Pro" moniker for Mac-laptops is mostly another hyped marketing scheme by Apple; these machines are really high-end consumer devices.

By contrast you can get a Lenovo with (2) internal HDD's, ExpressCard slot, i7 CPU and a non-glossy screen by default and 8GB of RAM for a hundreds less than Apple's best offering. The hitch? It's a Windows machine.

As much as I'm a fan of the Mac OS I've absolutely no love for Apple's laptop offerings and definitely won't be purchasing a new one anytime soon - if ever if they stay this "pretty is more important than functionality" course.

[Andy Mees]

>Seems the "Pro" moniker for Mac-laptops is mostly another hyped marketing scheme

Agreed. That I feel lucky they kept the ExpressCard on the 17" is ridiculous. Don't know what they are thinking.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I'm also a big fan of their software and OS, but becoming less and less a fan of their laptops. So I'm having a very similar feeling.
Pitty, because they have some very good things going from them (multi-touch, very well built, very good battery life), but I can only look at the Macbook Pro I'm working at now (bought in januari 2008) and still having to say that despite the fact that it's maybe a slower system, it still has a great matte display, and I have no problem connecting firewire-related stuff at work, not to projectors, and no problem getting EX1 footage or eSata RAIDs via the Expresscard slot...

[Andy Wilkinson]

I agree. Yet again (I think for the second or third time now) I look at my mid 2008 15 inch MBP which does everything I would want (Expresscard 34 slot for my EX3's SxS cards, 15 inch matte display, FW800 & FW400, swappable battery etc.) and wonder if Apple will every produce a MBP again that I'd rather have than this nearly 2 year old workhorse.

As for the 13 inch MBP, well they were a joke and no way "Pro" right from the start (IMHO) and this latest update changes nothing on my opinion on that!

And just for the record, the 17 incher is too big and clumsy for my needs - my worst nightmare is I drop/loose the use of my current MBP and have to get one of those as a replacement.

Shame on you Apple. From a non iPad, non iPhone, non iPod owning person (got a blummin expensive 2009 Neharlem 8-core Mac Pro though so you ought to listen!)

[Jason Lowe]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

Yep, Apple is sticking with their focus on pretty rather than usability. Glossy screens by default, a single FW800 port and still no ExpressCard on the 15" incher? Seems the "Pro" moniker for Mac-laptops is mostly another hyped marketing scheme by Apple; these machines are really high-end consumer devices.

Apple seems to have this weird idea that "pro" features should be tied to an increase in screen size. I guess Jonathan Ives never did any production work in the field.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Ow, and another complaint, sorry to say: in Belgium for instance they upped the price of the cheapest 15" with 200 euros.

[Andy Wilkinson]

Wait! Look, just maybe Apple are starting to understand it's core customer's basic needs after all if the've finally caved in a tiny bit on that stupid mini display port thing (I've been running a 3rd party adapter cable for one of my Mac Pro's 2 big non-Apple Full HD displays for a year).

To quote...."Wait a second, can it be true? Is Apple really caving to the pressures of supporting a socket that's used by pretty much every home entertainment owner ever?"

Apple teases Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter, offers no price to balk at -- Engadget

So maybe one day we'll get that mega useful (for Pro stuff) Expresscard 34 slot back on a 15 inch MBP. Yep, I know, that's a leap too far for Jobs and I'm probably in dream land...

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Andy Wilkinson

my worst nightmare is I drop/loose the use of my current MBP and have to get one of those as a replacement.

Welcome to my world.

I had the last non-unibody 2.5Ghz 15" inch MBP *with* the express-card slot and it worked beautifully. I was using my wonderful 2-bay eSATA array (Firmtek) with the Sonnet Pro Expresscard adapter and it absolutely flowed FCS sequences almost as nicely as my old Mac Pro tower.

But, it was having the god-awful video issues associated with the Nvidia 8600M recall and after 2 main-board replacements Apple couldn't resolve the problems - it was so bad that you couldn't read any part of the screen at all.

So, they took my old machine and replaced it with the unibody 2.8Ghz version - at no cost to me. That's wonderful customer service BUT...

- I lost my Expresscard slot so no more super-fast external eSATA array, and I was forced to migrate over all my media to an external FW 2-drive setup. Much, much slower and it's painful.

- Only one FW port, now I can't connect any camera and offload footage to my FW array, I'll have to purchase a powered FW hub.

- Had to purchase the $100 mini dual-link DVI adapter to run my 30" ACD.

- The damned laptop screen is glossy; absolutely near-useless in the field without a shade or hood blocking ambient light. Really, really pissed about that.

Is it nice that Apple gave me a new machine at no cost? Totally. Is it faster than my 667Mhz bus-speed "old" version? You bet, CPU clock speeds and general usage is definitely faster. However my capabilities are also markedly hobbled without the EC34, only one FW port and a glossy screen.

Oh, and I can't simply remove the battery either when it's in "desktop mode" and save a non-required charging cycle (which also opens-up a big space for cooling). Nope, I'd have to uncork the lower case and physically unscrew the battery it from it's perma-mount. And all I can do is hope and pray the charging unit doesn't become defective and fry the battery - and the case - as I've seen happen in a few of the newer 17" inch models.

It's pretty, but it's dumbed-down and less capable. Totally backwards thinking, Apple.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

What for use is all that extra computer power, if you can't even use it normally because you need all these kinds of workarounds for the most simple things?

[Chris Korrow]

Seems like they should just drop the "pro" & extend the macbook line.

I was looking at an upgrade & giving my 2007 2.2 to my daughter for college, oh well...
Guess we'll just update her G3 ibook to OS 10.4 for this year.

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

Only one FW port, now I can't connect any camera and offload footage to my FW array, I'll have to purchase a powered FW hub..

Robert, doesn't the Mac Pro support daisy chaining on your drives? That's why firewire drives have the second firewire port. Plug your camera into that. I'm pretty sure I've done it on a PC but it's been a while, so I don't remember the specifics.

I know I've recently daisy chained two drives on my PC with no issues.

[Robert Lane]

I've found going all the way back to the G4 Powerbook that daisy-chaining during capture is a recipie for trouble; all that data IO easily leads to bottlenecking especially with DV50/100 bitrates. It can be done but it's not as robust as having a second, discrete FW channel - which I could easily get if I could use an ExpressCard-FW adapter and the array on the main bus.

Thankfully all my company's work is P2-based so it's a non-issue but when I get client tape-based work it's a whole different story.

But with this new machine even the "old" style workaround isn't possible which is more to the point; Apple "updates" the hardware and introduces more work and less efficiency for the working pro. And this is progress?

[Giovanni Pietro]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

Yep, Apple is sticking with their focus on pretty rather than usability. Glossy screens by default, a single FW800 port and still no ExpressCard on the 15" incher? Seems the "Pro" moniker for Mac-laptops is mostly another hyped marketing scheme by Apple; these machines are really high-end consumer devices.

By contrast you can get a Lenovo with (2) internal HDD's, ExpressCard slot, i7 CPU and a non-glossy screen by default and 8GB of RAM for a hundreds less than Apple's best offering. The hitch? It's a Windows machine.

As much as I'm a fan of the Mac OS I've absolutely no love for Apple's laptop offerings and definitely won't be purchasing a new one anytime soon - if ever if they stay this "pretty is more important than functionality" course.

prob is I just sent back a brand new lenovo, top of the line machine, fully loaded, paid a fortune (yes, even by Apple stdd) and .... what a disgusting shock when I opened it. Yes, I have used Apple forever. But guys, the build quality of those lenovocrap machines is ridiculous, the next day the wifi card was no longer working, and those disgusting little mouse buttons all over the place. And did you see the mouse pad ? Man, I tried, but no way.

I don't disagree conceptually with what you say, but it isn't as easy as saying "get a lenovo". I wish it was. I tried. It just is not.