MC118LLA Macbook Pro

Customer Reviews

63 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
Real improvement, June 28, 2009
By Parry "laptop freak"

Coming from a troubled Nvidia 8600M GT MacBook Pro - let me say that I was very skeptical buying another Apple Laptop with nVidia chip in it.

However, one weekend I decided to visit the nearest Apple Retail Store and check out the newly released models. My decision was mostly influenced by the reduced prices and increased battery life.

After some debating over buying the older model for same price or getting the latest one we settled on the newest mid end $1999 model with 2 GPUs. As is common I got a very nice resale price for my older MacBook Pro as it had AppleCare.

This generation is an all around improvement over the past generation unless you happen to be using ExpressCard on 15" model that is. In our case we never used the ExpressCard after attempting to use a eSATA card that did not work really well. And we have a few SD Cards that we figure we can easily use.

So on to the specific improvements over its predecessor -
1) Battery Life - I was very doubtful that the battery would last any longer than 4 hours at the maximum but was pleasantly surprised to find that for surfing/email type and the occasional CNN/Youtube flash videos getting 6+ hours was quite easy.

2) Prices - No doubt prices are the most reasonable Apple laptops have ever had. If you have no need for the dual GPU you can get the $1699 model which comes with a respectable 2.53Ghz Processor, 4GB RAM and a very capable 9400M GPU.

3) Operating Temperature - I have owned my share of laptops (Apple and non-Apple) and I have to say this one is the coolest - it never gets too warm and I can use it on my lap all the times - even encoding videos using the HandBrake application did not make it uncomfortably hot. However if I switch it to use the 9600M GPU it gets warmer even on regular use. It also runs very quiet - the fans may be coming on but I never notice.

Initially there was a lot of furor over Apple's downgrade of the Serial-ATA interface speed (used to transfer data to and from the hard disk) to 1.5Gbps but Apple quickly restored the speeds to 3Gbps - I do not however notice any difference with the 5400RPM hard disk.

About the display - it is gorgeous and colors are vibrant. I had the opportunity to use a calibrated color profile to make it look even better. However I find the display to be a little too much reflective but I am coming from almost always using matte display so I figure it's a matter of getting used to it.

Apple's use of Mini DisplayPort is ahead of its time - not many displays support it and so I had to buy a $30 DVI adapter - not a big problem but Apple should at the very least re-start bundling the adapter with the Pro machines. Also, another USB port in lieu of the SD Card Reader would be quite welcome - people can use the SD Card Reader for only SD Cards, but a USB port can be used for SD Cards as well as other peripherals.

That said, this generation is overall a very nice improvement - the great battery life itself is enough to convince one to upgrade.

[ Edited to add some findings after extensive use ]

After using it for a few months, I find a handful of things moderately annoying about this laptop -

1) The positioning of USB ports - both USB ports are on one side of the laptop and they are far too closely positioned to use both at once. For example I found I could not attach my Sandisk USB thumb drive and anything else at a time. And I don't have any irregular/unusual devices. They should really go back to having the ports on two sides or at least position them a bit more apart.

2) The Lid of the laptop is loose - this was known to me before but I never thought it would become annoying. I don't routinely use the laptop in bed but whenever I do it's annoying.

3) The amount of RAM Apple advertises (4GB) is not actually entirely usable - only 3.75GB is. So you lose 256Mb of RAM for the dual GPU.
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I don't want to retread the tired "Macs vs. PCs" arguments here, but, let's face it, part of what you pay for when you buy a Mac are the aesthetics, and this is the most aesthetically pleasing piece of equipment I've ever worked with. Of course I know that for some purposes and for some people, PCs are likely to be more practical and versatile than Macs. For me, though, utility alone is not enough, and my last laptop (a Sony Vaio) turned out not to be very useful: after two years and when my warranty was up the motherboard failed and I had a brick on my hands. I switched to Macs about 10 years ago, when I started doing more video editing and creative work on my PC, and I've come to love the way they feel. I've worked with four different Macs over those ten years (two at work, and two at home), and I really like working with this one. I'd compare the difference between this laptop and PC laptops I've worked with on and off over the years (Sonys, Toshibas and Dells, to be exact) to the difference between taking notes in perfectly serviceable but ordinary notebooks and a Moleskine, or between a decent but generic pen and the one that fits your hand perfectly.

From the simplicity of the touch pad, that eliminates the button entirely so that the pad itself becomes both button and trackpad, to the smoothness and solidity of the unibody aluminum casing, to the glow of the screen against the black frame, to the surprisingly good sound from the speakers, to the look of the operating system with its clever and subtle animated icons, this is a fun machine to work and play with. I actually look forward to getting on and plugging in grades while listening to my iTunes, or to reading the news, or typing a report. The graphics capacity on this model is impressive, and the 2.8MHz processor combined with 4GB of RAM seems really to boost up the operations that have tended to take me the most time, like converting video from my AVCHD [[camcorder]], and rendering video on Final Cut Express. I'm very happy with this machine, and it does everything I want and does it very well.

I know I may sound like a Mac enthusiast here, but I'm not just a blind devotee. I've had my share of troubles with Macs, and other Apple products. No machine this complex is going to be flawless - there are too many things that can go wrong. But their service is generally good, and when you have a problem while under warranty they take care of it promptly and well - I have had a few occasions over the years to call Apple customer service and in every case they've taken care of my problem quickly. Also, once you get used to the operating system, you can see that they have worked hard to make it as easy and as flexible as possible. One thing I did when I got this one, since I knew I'd be working with Snow Leopard, was to sit down and really learn the ins and outs of the operating system - and there's no better guide for that than David Pogue's Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual. It's pretty straightforward, and easy enough to get used to, but it's a remarkably well-designed and robust operating system that can really work very well for you if you take the time to get to know its secrets. Working through some of the details helped me to appreciate even further how much flexibility there is built into this system, and how carefully the Mac developers have thought everything through, making it possible, for example to do almost everything in a few key strokes as well as with the mouse. It's a great machine, with a very nice design, that makes for a truly satisfying computing experience.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Apple's quality is going downhill, December 5, 2009
By Jonathan Birge (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

Without a doubt, the *design* of this laptop is fantastic. I love the solid machined aluminum frame, and the keyboard is the best of any laptop I've used. Unfortunately, Apple's quality has continued to slide. For one, despite the claims of the rabid Apple apologists (a vice of which I am recently reformed) the internals of Mac laptops is NO different from a PC's at this point. It's now all commodity hardware. And that probably explains why I've already had my SATA controller go bad. (The SATA controller is the motherboard chip that lets the CPU talk to the hard drive.) Looking online, many people are having the same problem. (If you ever see the spinning beachball come up when you think it shouldn't, check the "Activity Monitor" app to see if the disk throughput has temporarily dropped to zero. If so, you may be having similar problems.)

My friend just had to replace his entire motherboard, and it looks like I will have to as well. While Apple's saving grace is the fact that they at least stand behind their products, and their support is great, it would be nice if their products were more reliable to justify the premium. http://mb990lla-macbook.com/

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