Potential MBP buyer questions..........

Hello all:

I've got a thread posted on the "which laptop?" forum but I had a couple specific MBP 15" questions that I thought I would ask here.

According to the review posted on this site the MBP seemed to have thermal issues. How big of a problem is this? With medium use would the unit be too hot to actually use on a person's lap? How hot are the cpu&gpu running? Hot enough to cause hardware problems? Any reports of thermal shutdowns?

In looking at the refurb units do all the intel 15" MBP's have the same LED backlit screen that the current models have?

How difficult is it to replace the disk drives for someone use to building their own PCs? Are they standard 2.5" SATA drives? How exorbitant is it to have apple install a 200 GB 7200 drive in a refurb unit? I understand the warranty contentions.

Also asked in the other thread but, really, is it true that I can't maximize an application to use the entire screen?

Thanks in advance......
Doug

 

I'm not sure about the newest Macbook Pros, but I have the Santa Rosa model from June 2007 and have had no issue with heat whatsoever.

Shameless plug: If you're interested I'm selling this laptop here on NBR: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=258283

 

Ben, thanks for the info. I just read your for sale listing but I take it you are in the USA? I'm in Canada so it might not work with taxes, shipping, and any warranty that might be left.

Doug

 

I've got the Santa Rosa Macbook Pro which does get hot when you push it. I mean I'm playing Mass Effect for HOOUURRSS and the computer gets REALLY hot. But I've never had any shutdowns, BSoDs etc.

After loads of hours playing GRID and Mass Effect, my overclocked 8600m GT 256mb DDR had a nice 75-80 degrees Celsius. The point where you need to chill it down a bit is when it reaches 95. I could never get past 80 even with overclocking. Kinda weird too...

The Penryn Macbook Pros (the newer ones), the CPU is supposed to emanate less heat, so you shouldn't be in any troubles anyways..

To replace the HDD in the Macbook Pro you need to unscrew all the screws, lift the keyboard and get inside. That does however void your warranty.

This is kinda stupid of Apple: They made it that:

- Macbooks have user-replaceable HDD.
- Macbook Pros have user-replaceable RAM.

And for your last question, yes, you can maximize an app on the entire screen! I think the confusion for most people come in when the Dock is set to so you can see it all the time, like this:

http://www.sethdesantis.com/up/ae_screenshot.png

But then again, there's always the "show dock only when moving your mouse at the bottom of the screen" feature ( ), and then you can maximize the app on the entire screen, like so:

http://www.88slide.com/blog/uploaded_images/may_18_2006_screen.jpg

Cheers, hope this helps!

 

does it get hot only when playing or also when doing simple tasks such as programming through vmware? and he also asked if a person could se his macbook pro on his lap. i'm also curious about this..

 

I use Windows though bootcamp, I've never used vmware, but I'd figure, because vmware is virtualizing Windows, the CPU is working a little bit more than just web browsing or listening to mp3s.

So yeah, I'd say it would get a little hot, but you can still hold it on your lap.

The MBP never gets hot enough that you can't hold it in your lap, that is if you've got long pants

 

listen. as far as the thermal "problems" - it isn't getting any hotter than other laptops. the only real "problem" is that the aluminum case tends to get hot as the rest of the components. plastic cases don't conduct the heat, so even if the gpu is running at 75 degrees C on a normal laptop, the case won't get that hot.

the advantages are that aluminum case looks cool and basically acts as a massive heat sink (helps to dissipate heat a lot). its also more durable in the long term than plastic composites, which are usually obviously cheap.

running vmware fusion is pretty intensive. 2 operating systems at once. even without running any other osx applications or windows apps, just having vmware fusion up and running with windows is a pretty big deal. the laptop will definitely heat up some just by having it opened.

obviously its not going to cause hardware problems, it just might be slightly uncomfortable on your actual lap. jeans will also solve this problem, as stated above.

"I understand the warranty contentions." - are you sure? the odds of something just randomly breaking in your laptop are... pretty high. i mean, it depends on how you treat your machine and how lucky you are, but it can definitely happen.

that said, the hard drive won't be too difficult for you to replace. just find a step by step guide on google.

mac's use standard pc parts these days.

apple takes a different philosophy with screen maximizing. lets say you have a web browser open. most pages are 768 pixels wide. so instead of maximizing the entire page to fill up your whole screen, apple decided it would be better to give the thing 768 pixels in width, and then maximize vertically only.

each application decides the "best response to maximization" on its own. its a little weird at first, but it starts to make sense after you use it.

not every refurb ever will have the led backlighting. only the santa rosa machines have it. there are two santa rosa models out (current for sale and the previous machine). they have been out since like june of 07.

 

Thanks all for the answers folks....

For the temperature questions I read the review here on notebook review and was concerned because the laptop I currently have (Toshiba 17inch) has serious heat problems and will quit if it's not propped up on a couple books. Cleaned and reinstalled heatsinks not withstanding. Not the most ergonomic typing position and if the heat is high enough to active the thermal protection I have no doubt longevity is effected for at least some components.

I ask about the harddrive and screen since I was considering a refurbished unit from Apple and just swapping out the 120 5400 unit with a 200 7200rpm unit which would make a much larger difference in through put compared to the processor speed differences between a new and refurb model. It's only $150 for the drive and the old one gets used as aux storage. Can anyone tell if this model has the LED screen and which cpu version?
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore.woa/wa/RSLID?nplm=FA895LL/A

I was browsing through the posts here and got the rather scary idea I could not maximize an application like photoshop, where frankly there is never enough screen real estate. I doubt I would ever use most of the little aplets so having them consume screen space bothered me. Not an iLife kind of guy I'm afraid. Thanks very much cdnalsi for the screen prints: a picture is worth a thousand words.

I have to say the MBP so far is the obvious choice and with the bootcamp available for expensive programs like photoshop with inflexible license options it's much more attractive alternative than the powerpc models used to be.
The only contender at the moment is the LG P300 but so far I have not been able to see an actual model to compare -- has anyone used one or compared it to the MBP's screen?

Thanks again
Doug

 

Im running XP pro in VMware at this moment on one of my spaces, remotely connected to my business server, Playing World of Warcraft on another space, listening to music in iTunes on another space, and typing this in safari on a 4th space. My MBP is a cool comfy 65 C. Its a little warm on the bottom, but nothing incredible. So its snuggled up in my lap. Plus im currently getting 112 fps in WoW with all this going on at once.

 

Oh just another thing.

Of course Photoshop will start up fully maximized! That's ridiculous
But Chef here was talking about web-browsers that maximize as much as the current website you're viewing needs to.

And also, I'm not sure about this, but doesn't Adobe feature some kind of license that you can get the Mac OS X version of whatever-you-own for Windows? I mean if you already paid for it, and bought a new machine, and don't have Windows anymore, what are you supposed to do? Buy Photoshop AGAIN for Mac?? That's insane!

And yes, that refurb you posted is the Santa Rosa (you know by 2.2 and 2.4 CPU, 8600m 128MB and respectively 256MB), and so it does have the LED back lit screen, which might I add, is gorgeous!

 

Thanks, I've seen the screen and it is indeed tops, which is what brought me here to being with. But the little aplet icons never went away

Yesterday I brought some of my own full resolution photos and a color checker down to the store and give it a more complete check out. I was surprised how good the color rendition is and even un-profiled it was very close to the profiled toshiba laptop I currently use. Very even illumination and excellent viewing angles.

With photoshop I've got a relatively new workstation running vista with photoshop licensed for that. The MBP won't be a replacement for the workstation. The Adobe agreement allows me to also load photoshop on a 2nd windows machine (i.e. laptop) but from everything I've found out it does not allow the desktop to be windows and laptop mac (or vice versa). I believe though that using bootcamp to load XP or Vista and then photoshop is fine. The question may be how much am I willing to pay to avoid re-booting?

Every other package I have makes no such distinction if the software runs on both systems.

I'm going to contact Adobe tomorrow and see what's involved -- if it's a complete repurchase (which won't happen) or something more reasonable. But I'd still have to maintain two licenses, I'll bet. Not a deal breaker but more of an additional expense that has to be taken into account.

Thanks
Doug