PC Mag has Reviews for new mb and mbp

Macbook Pro
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332514,00.asp

Macbook
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332519,00.asp

enjoy
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Laptopmag mini review Macbook
http://blog.laptopmag.com/mini-review-of-new-13-inch-macbook

 

Oh wow, the 9400M in the Macbook out performs the HD3450 (which in turn out performs a 8400M). Didn't see that one coming. I wonder if the test systems had the same amount of RAM though.

 

I find it funny that they compare a 2,500$ mbp to a 1,000$ Dell Studio 15. Aren't you supposed to compare a notebook to something in the same class?

 

I'm impressed by the comments about the sturdiness. I'll need to see this in person.

 

I find it funny that the reviewer had to run most of his tests on the MBP using Vista and not on OS X.

 

Uhh, how else do you do a comparison test between the two computers?

Comparing OSX version and then vista? Thats not really fair, for lots of reasons.

Plus theres so many PC's that come out, that theres tools to benchmark them and so forth. OSX doesnt have as many benchmarking tools, and again you couldnt compare an OSX benchmark to a PC one.

 

When will NBR get some reviews of the new mb/mbp's? Does anyone know? [looks squarely at the mods and admins ]

 

lol, they havnt done a review in years, maybe this will be the motivation for them to do it ;p

 

Could this mean the 9600M GT is now benefiting from the GeForceBoost part of Hybrid SLI?

 

You mean an apple review? If it's indeed been years, you must have been a lurker here for quite a long time before finally signing up.

 

That's very interesting to me, as this implies that the 3DMark should be over 6K as the older 8800m GT and the stock 9600m GT is averaging around 4.5-5K

I thought it could be that the HP is DDR2 and the MBP is DDR3 but I am unabel to find confirmation of the HP GPU Ram speed.

 

I'm so infatuated with these notebooks..

 

According the latest news on MAcrumors, the word from Nvidia is that the new MBP does not support dual graphics simultaneously. I'm not all that disappointed though. I posted in another thread that my stock 3dMark 06 scores came it at 5800. Some laptopvideo2go drivers should push that up past 6k.

 

and as i said in other thread,it will improve with snow leopard.

P.S. mikespit1,can you please give us some crysis benchmarks?

 

Sure, but it'll have to be tonight since I am at work right now~

 

Possible...and PC Mag's review was using Vista on the MBP so that might make the difference.


What most interests me about this is that if an integrated 9400 can boost the performance of a dedicated 9600 then the door of possibility is opened up for the integrated 9600, which Ive heard mentioned, to boost the performance of a dedicated 9800 GPU in a machine like the Sager NPs or Gateway FX.

Dell's new XPS series is rumored to have Hybrid SLi but if they really want to shock people on their asses they could put a 9600/9800 combo in a 15" Alienware refresh.

 

I really doubt they're going to fit both of those cards in a 15" chassis without everything overheating. They had troubles with a single 8800M GTX without it overheating.

 

WilliamG has one here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=310477

 

Hi, mikespit1.

Can you give us some info on how the touchpad works under bootcamp. Since there's no physical buttons, the tap to click function must work?

Thanks.

 

3 hours battery life for MB is disappointing

 

PC Mag estimates 4 hours: "By my estimates, general-purpose tasks like surfing the Web, word processing, and light photo editing should get you close to four hours of battery life running on Leopard."

 

Apple estimates 5 hours for the MB and MBP with the lower graphic chip running. Thats with mid brightness and light usage (as phil says).

Thats uhh... actually somewhat disapointing. With several other laptops getting well over that (dell eseries can get 16) I was hoping to see 8 hours on at least the MB.

I'm still concerned about the battery quality from Apple. I bet their battery life quote is obtainable (I was sure I was getting 4 hours on my first gen MBP)... but after a few months, it drops sharply. My new battery is not a year old, with just over 100 cycles and its down to 40% max life. I don't believe the MB suffered the same battery issues as the MBP and it looks like they're using new batteries now... just hope they don't have the same ****ed issue.

 

Sure. I haven't used the touchpad all that extensively. The thing about the touchpad is that there's still a mechanical button underneath the panel that you have to click. It actually makes left clicking kind of annoying because when you use the button it shifts the entire pad which can shift the cursor around. I think there are options within OS X for tap clicking and scrolling and such, but so far I haven't found those options in Windows, though I haven't look all that hard. I'll be sure to check them out now though.

 

How do you right click by default in Windows?

 

As far as up to 16 hours battery life (or 24 with HP), those are very specialized cases. They require you to have the low voltage processors, SSD, LED screens, larger (usually like 12 cell), heavy batteries, and so on. It usually costs upwards of $3k to get that kind of battery life out of those machines, so it's not really comparable for the Macbook.

More comparable is like the dv3500 or the XPSM1330, both of which get about 4 hours suggested battery life with the extended life batteries (6 cell). So the Macbook is right on par with those models. At least you can buy an extra battery and swap it out fairly easily with the new models, too, and the batteries are cheaper than from Dell (129 from Apple vs. 154 to 199 from Dell).

As to battery quality, it's really not an Apple thing for them to go out quickly. My Dell battery went out in just over a year completely. At just over a year and a half life, the battery was completely wasted. It happens a lot, especially if you leave the computer plugged in all the time (as I did with my Dell) or let it discharge all the way down.

 

??

4.5-5 hours from a 45Whr battery is pretty good, and shows a fantastic job of power and ACPI management in BIOS - MoL comparable to what Lenovo is achieving with their systems. Dell standard battery is 56Whr, so it's bigger and heavier for similar runtime.

Now, I'll agree that they could have achieved better with a higher power battery but that ends up being either a design or engineering decision for what to put in there.

 

PCMag updated their results-

Laptopmag also have done a review as well. In view of all those cons that the reviwer listed i would not have rated it quite so highly myself because it is lacking in a few things. Probably if this was a PC it would not have scored so highly because of the lack of it features it has.
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/apple-macbook-2008.aspx?page=1
Gizmondo also have done an overall review of the laptop.
http://gizmodo.com/5063492/macbook-and-macbook-pro-dual-review
This is the first look review on C-Net
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030092,49299367-1,00.htm
This is the pc pro review
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/index.cfm?reviewid=105896

 

I'm not surprised that PCMAG is unimpressed with the MB's price, but people reviewing the MB have to take the market into consideration. The MB has to be compared with other 13" laptops that have premium features like metallic casing, LED screen, Centrino 2, dedicated GPU, etc., and in its class, the MB is actually cheaper than the Sony Vaio and has newer CPUs (as well as backlit keyboard) compared to a similarly priced XPS.

 

It's odd that the battery life of the New MBP drops from the 3h 56mins of the early 2008 model to 2h flat especially when the performance increase isn't significant or in some cases no increase at all.

Where is all the battery life going?

 

Perhaps lower battery capacity. According to a review on this board, the new MB's battery is only around 4200mAh.