The backlit LED screen is amazing...

Actually the tilt angle is an issue for people who like to use their laptops away from a desk/table. Never had a problem with TiPowerBook or Dell...This hinge was NOT the brightest idea.

 

It would be nice if it went back a little farther, but maybe it was a stability and sturdy-ness issue

 

If the tilt angle on the updated MBP is the same as the 'old' MBP's, it should be close to 120 degrees. The old 17", 15", and 12" Powerbooks tilted at a ~135 degree angle. Not a total deal breaker though, I will have to take a look for my self in the store.

It also looks like they evened out the bezel around the screen (the screen is shifted up closer to the isight camera). Current MBP owners might know what I'm talking about. But then again, I'm nit picky.

 

yey, see if you can find (maybe a friend will have one) someone with the old mac pro and put them side by side with a high res photo.
Just pinch one from pbase.com and have them showing on both screens.
Thats the only real way to realistically compare them both.

 

Can you guys post your temps?

idle / load ?

I reinstalled OS X and my MBP seems significantly toasty before the original install.

Anyway, I just installed bootcamp...

I'll get some benches up soon

 

People are drooling all over this laptop already.
*Hands out some tissue papers*

 

Stupid sitting position indeed. But picture this: You are standing against a table that comes up to your thigh (starbucks, school cafeteria) Your MBP on that table. You look down to point something out to a friend and realize the tilt of the screen isn't adequate. You try to tilt the screen back further, but nothing. The tables at the Apple store come up to about your hips or stomach so I never noticed it when I was playing around with the machines at the store.

Anyways, I got my question answered. Back on topic.

 

good luck getting that 1000 post count tonight... you will seem _that_ much more authoritative on all matters...

 

um yeah, bootcamp drivers aren't working.. i guess it hasn't been updated.. just burned the latest bootcamp CD from apples site

windows xp pro 32-bit

I get ?'s in devicemanager for

Audio Device
Built-in-iSight
Ethernet Controller
Video Controller

 

is the video controller the graphics card?

Since it's windows, I'm sure you can download laptop drivers from www.laptopvideo2go.com or something. And the audio device isn't importance for giving us benchmarks.

 

I apoligize, post deleted, i was not even aware of how many posts i had, I have a major issue with anything I watch on youtube nowadays I think

i am not trying to be the authority on anything, just posting what I think about something, but that video was ridiculous, without question. calling that a design flaw is definitely pushing it, it is pretty easy to see they made a compromise.

they chose overall laptop size over being able to tilt the screen farther back, which has been the case for many years now with their notebooks.

i won't keep people complaining about it, if it is an issue please post that it is, but come on now.

somewhat suprising they didn't go ahead and update bootcamp for the new models, shouldn't take too long i wouldn't think.

 

The new models came out?!

 

i completely agree with you on complaints over the tilt. I mean i can see how it could be a problem sitting on the floor, but then why don't you just sit at a desk? guess you have to "pick your battles", i don't think that should be a reason to go against buying a macbook unless you do all your computing in awkward positions. i also agree with you, that guy was ridiculous, he looked so uncomfortable just in that position with a laptop.

i would assume apple will update with bootcamp drivers. i can't see them not. I do have one question though - for USB ports, Airport Wireless and such are there drivers for XP and/or Vista with bootcamp so that all parts specifically for macs work with windows?

 

If any new MBP owners have a colorimeter, can you please measure the delta E values and the max luminance of the LED-backlit screen? Basiccolor is a good application that you can download and use for a trial period for free, compatible for both Windows and OS X.

 

thank you very much! i knew I wasn't the only one that thought that was a little ridiculous. I am not here to argue, and too many people come on to forums to do just that.

this is a review site, and I just thought people were definitely pushing it when bringing that up as a concern, but that is how it goes i guess, let them bring whatever they issue they like, ya know.

 

It's actually something of a huge annoyance. It always bothered me on my 13" MacBook. Sometimes you just need to tilt it back an extra inch to get away from the glare of the lights but it won't go back anymore. Or if you're relaxing on your couch watching TV and surfing the net, you can't push it back to a comfortable angle. My Gateway NX260X laptop can do a bit over a full 180-degree flip and it makes all the difference for viewing angles sometimes. So yes, it is a problem.

My other complaint is the lack of USB ports. 2 USB ports on a $2,000 laptop is just ridiculous. My 2.5" external backup hard drive takes up 2 USB ports by itself (one data, one power). An unpowered USB hub is of only so much use when you have multiple power-hungry accessories. Also, some of my devices tend to act funny through a USB hub (such as my wireless keyboard and wireless mouse - lag issues!).

But that's not enough to stop me from buying one this summer

 

I thought the main selling points to Macs and OSX was that there was no need to tinker with drivers and that Apple never releases half-baked machines. Guess that one is shot to hell.

 

Yeah, the lack of USB ports is pretty bad... I mean I'm sure there's enough room to fit at least one more port somewhere. This means I can only use my mouse and one other peripheral unless I want to clutter things up with a USB hub. On the other hand this is one of very few Santa Rosa notebooks to offer a DVI port! That more than evens things up for me right there. Lord knows there's more problems dealing with VGA/S-VIDEO out going to a DVI or HDMI source than using a $20 USB hub when necessary

As long as you just plan on using OSX, which is Apple's OS you're buying for the Apple computer you're purchasing, then you don't need to tinker with anything. Not apple's fault they can't get drivers out for a MS OS used by a beta boot camp in the nick of release time.

 

Boot Camp is still in beta. As far as I know, it will remain in beta until Leopard is released in a few months. You can't realistically expect a beta system to perform as well as a production system.

 

well give them a week to get the correct drivers for these things and it will in fact be that easy.

Bootcamp is a BETA software, and definitely isn't a main selling point of these computers, and really won't even be when Leopard comes out.

 

these computers have been and are still marketed to, Mac users, who are used to the fact that two of the main ports are in fact firewire. they aren't going to sacrifice any of the firewire ports for a USB, they are way to important for a huge market of Apple's market, pro video, photography and design.

and honestly, I used to feel the same way as you, there are lots of laptops that advertise the many usb ports, I think some 15" models even have 5 or something right? it is Apple's decision to stick to its strengths and their markets, they know they can't take a huge market share away from companies like Dell, etc. and I don't think that is what they are going for. they are contributing what they like to use to the market, and trying to convince other users that what they like to use is indeed, "better" etc.

that is my take on it. it definitely is a compromise for quite a few people, but some don't even think twice about it.

 

The other thing to remember about USB ports...when you see a lot of ports on a laptop, most of them are probably daisy chained to the primary hub resulting in less than 2.0 levels of performance.

My Acer 8104 has 4 external ports, and three of them are chained off the first USB controller. Only the first port is suitable for a fast external hard disk.

 

^^^great point. basically every single laptop works just like this.

not to mention firewire ports, all firewire ports on every Mac ever, share the same bus, so if you have a FW800 HDD, or FW400 plugged into a camera or deck it is technically better to be using USB for other things, and vice versa, this will effect very few people however, and isn't much of an issue at all.

and something a lot of people don't realize about FW800 devices, is that many of them can be daisy chained.

example: you have a FW800/usb/FW400 HDD, there are many available, most likely, that HDD will have an Extra FW800 port on it, which you can in fact plug another FW800 HDD into, or camera, etc. they are sharing one port of course, but they still work extremely fast and efficiently.

 

A comparison of the CCFL display to the new LED display:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/06/macbook-pro-backlight-comparison-led-vs-ccfl/

And it does look like they shrunk the top bezel around the screen.

 

amazing refresh for the screen !!
although the apple folks said that the difference will be imperceptible !

 

the off angle comparison is completely invalid. They have the two laptops in the same photo, which means the further away laptop will have a steeper viewing angle in relation to the camera(viewer). they didn't set up the shot so the viewing angle is same, instead they just put two laptops in the same photo, assuming that the viewing angle will be the same. as the article claims--it's a wholly unscientific comparison, so i wouldn't put too much weight on the photos.

 

I asked this in another thread too:

I want to know if it looks anything like this with the grey background (from system preferences -> desktop and screensaver -> desktop -> solid colors):
http://www.urbanloon.com/laptop_pics/

A pic in a similar setting as that would be greatly appreciated, and i'm willing to wait

also im very curious about the build quality, so pics of the seams etc... would be greatly appreciated.

 

Can someone comment on noise and heat?

A week ago I saw a new (recent at that time) 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo 15" MBP running the little sales demo at a Best Buy alongside two Macbooks (one black, one white). The MBP was really hot to the touch on the palmrests. The Macbooks? Cool running.

Then this past week I saw the same 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo 15" MBP sitting idle (Finder only) at a Fry's, and it was cool to the touch at the palm rests. There was no battery installed- just running off the power plug.

You can imagine I'm a little hesitant. Does running the video demo and charging a batter cause the MBP to get hot? I don't know.

The LED-lit MBP's are compelling, but with a zippier CPU and beefier graphics set, does it run warm?

 

Just wondering if anyone compared the LED backlit LCD of lastest MBP to Sony SZ's, which also equipted very good LED backlit LCD. Thank you!!