What makes a MacBook Pro, a pro?

I've been wondering what makes MBP's considered to be "pro", considering that all that differentiates between it and the MBA is an optical drive, and the GPU. It seems like Apple could just call all their laptop offerings as simply Macbooks. There is even rumors that the 15 and 17 inch MBP's going super slim.

So what makes a pro laptop a pro? Thoughts?

 

I remember when there were regular Macbooks.

 

i think one guy in a keynote actually said this when they transitioned the macbook aluminium unibody to macbook PRO 13".

"what makes a macbook pro... a macbook pro?" i believe. lol

 

Check out Anadtech's review of the new Macbook Airs. It shows exactly what you get on the Macbook Pro against the Air. There's a significant difference especially the screen quality. The Air can't compare to the Macbook Pro's screen.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4528/the-2011-macbook-air-11-13inch-review

 

The base model of the 13" MBP has the same specs as a regular macbook, so the $200 increase in price is for 1) aluminum unibody, 2) backlit keyboard, 3) SD card reader, 4) Better transition screen brightness

But thats it!

 

It is a PRO because that's what Steve Jobs and Macintosh named it and said so.

If they called it Macbook Beatles or Macbook Elvis then there's not a thing we can do about it and buyers and owners will just have to learn to appreciate it.

 

The screen quality and optical drive, it seems.

The MacBook Pro 13 is sort of silly, though... They should just call it a MacBook. Why? Because it has a dual core processor and no discrete graphics card.

Pro models should be called that because they have quad core processors, high quality screens, and discrete graphics. Just my opinion, though...

 

That's actually not the case. First, Apple has done away with the white MacBook. Second, even the baseline 13" MBP is all around more powerful than ALL of last year's MBP models including the higher end dual-core Core i7 17" model. Lastly, the white MacBook that was discontinued has a Core 2 Duo processor and the SB Core i5 in the baseline 13" is much, much better than that. So you are getting an all around more powerful system than any notebook Apple released last year with the baseline 13" MBP, that is more than just an aluminum body, SD card reader, and screen brightness. There was a time when the baseline 13" MBP had what you listed over the standard MacBook but that is not the case anymore with the 2011 models.

 

all around? no thats not true. In GPU performance that previous year 17" will stomp all over the current 13" MBP... its not even close, and not even half the speed.

 

That is why I said all around. I didn't say it was better at everything. Sure, the GPU in last year's higher end MBP models beats the HD 3000 but the processor, RAM performance, and pretty much everything else in the baseline 13" i5 MBP give it all around higher benchmarking scores (i.e. an average).

 

Anyone else think that Apple should implement some things attractive to business users, like having a more discrete black or darker body instead of flashy aluminum with a satin finish, and having matte screens available on every model, eventually having traditional-style keyboards instead of island style?
I wouldn't mind transitioning from a PC to a Mac, the OS would be a rather small hassle, since I'm used to jumping between different versions of Windows and Linux, although Mac OS X has some elements I think aren't the most adequate. My biggest problem would be the keyboard lacking many functions I use all the time, and having to learn new keyboard shortcuts.

 

for an average benchmarking score... ok. Thats not what "all around" means to me, but I see what you are saying... but it all really depends what the person is doing with the machine other than running benchmarks.

 

I don't know about darker bodies and getting rid of chicklet keyboards--I've typed all the way through a seven-day trial with my MBP's chicklet keyboard and I had no complaints about either the keyboard or the aluminum case (which I would call classy-but-understated, not flashy. Alienware is flashy).

But I agree Apple should do SOMETHING to put some more "Pro" back in MacBook Pros, because the line has a bit of an identity crisis right now. I like the idea some have floated about making the MacBook Air line go all the way up to 17" for mobility-oriented or style-oriented folks who aren't taxing the full mechanicals of the machine, and then beefing up the "Pro" line with more substantial cooling, more GPU options, maybe a third bay on the 17" that can hold either a second battery, an HDD, or an SSD. I definitely think that the Pro line should maintain the option of an internal optical drive--we use CD-ROMs instead of flash drives at work to exchange document discovery because then you don't have to try to get a flash drive back from opposing counsel. But it should be a bay you can configure upon purchase (battery, hard drive, or optical drive), since not all industries use CD-ROMs like litigators do. I think the 15" MBP should have two such configurable bays and the 17" should have three.

 

First off, you don't need an optical drive if you're a lawyer. The Federal courts switched to paperless, all-electronic filings years ago. If all Federal court filings are "in the cloud," then it's time to update discovery practices - and yes, I know that discovery isn't filed with the courts. If you receive an optical disk from another law firm, the contents should be uploaded to your server. Heck, I know of plenty of paperless businesses that scan all paper correspondence and upload it all to a server. The IT department at your law firm needs to get with the times.

The days of notebook optical drives are numbered. Apple is with the curve, not ahead of it, when it comes to abandoning internal optical drives.

 

Thank you for telling me what you think the practice of law should be like. I'm telling you what it is like, and optical discs are used continually for document discovery purposes.

By the way, (1) just because something works well for the dozens or hundreds of pages you file, it doesn't mean it would work well for the thousands or tens of thousands of pages you exchange, and (2) most litigation isn't done through the federal courts.

If Apple is "with the curve, not ahead of it," tell me another manufacturer who is eliminating even the OPTION of having internal optical drives on laptops bigger than ultraportables, or on desktop machines.

 

besides the Mac mini... Apple hasn't even done that...

 

You don't think that the Mac Mini and the rumored removal of optical drives from all Apple laptops are a preview of what's to come when the iMac is refreshed?

 

You're welcome. It's tough job but someone has to do it.

That's a not the best practice, as I explained. If the data is already digitized, there's no reason why you can't simply upload it to a server. Again, this is a matter for you take up with the IT department at your lawfirm.

With digital files, it doesn't matter if you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of tens of thousands of pages. In any case, it doesn't impact the content if you copy the files from an optical disk to a server.

Yes, and many state courts are still in the dark ages, with archaic paper filling systems.

We saw a lot of subnotebooks in the same category as the Macbook Air without optical drives back in 2009, although almost every subnotebook failed except for the Macbook Air.

 

The iMac has been refreshed?

 

The iMac and Mac Mini don't carry the "Pro" moniker. And anyone can make up rumors of what Apple might do. I think optical drives will remain in some of their laptops for a while longer because of Blu-Ray movies and games.

Besides, having the best hardware in the world doesn't get you into the corporate market. You need the sales, service, and support infrastructure to go along with it. Dell and HP have that. IBM had that, and Lenovo let it wither but are still trying. Sony and Apple gave up.

 

Blu-Ray discs don't play on Macs and games on optical discs are minimal especially with the expansion of Steam on Macs.

 

Actually, you can play Blu-Rays on Macs. I've been doing it. You do have to rip to the hard drive first though, because there's no commercial software program to play back direct from disk. You can even swap a Blu-Ray burner into a MBP and burn Blu-Ray disks through Finder. I think it's just a matter of time before Apple relents and officially supports it because Blu-Rays are quite popular and DVDs are on the way out.

Online distribution is the future, but we're years away from getting rid of optical discs for media distribution. Not everybody can or wants to deal with downloading a 15GB game or 30GB movie. I'm on wireless broadband right now, for example.

 

I think Apple will get rid of optical drives, so no more BluRay complaining

 

really...?

what about this one?

The First and Best Mac Bluray Player, movie/DVD/video player software

 

Thanks! I didn't catch that when it came out.

 

ripping blu-ray discs to the hard drive still takes up too much space IMO.

Downloading a Blu-ray movie just takes too much time. the 700MB DVD still works for me personally.

 

The DVD that you are obtaining really isn't a DVD, it is a lossy-to-lossy transcode of a DVD squeezed down to 700MB. If it were an actual DVD release, it would take up around 6GB. A true Blu-ray movie would take up around 30-45GB as well. Even then, a ripped and re-encoded Blu-ray movie still takes up around the same space as a dual-layer DVD while providing much higher video quality (even if it is a lossy-to-lossy transcode, the source material is much better than that of DVDs).

 

I don't keep full Blu-Ray rips on my laptop. I keep them on my HP home server/NAS box for archival purposes, but also transcode to a H.264 MP4 in the 5GB range to throw on my laptop when traveling. The HP automatically transcodes anything I rip in the background. But I have twice done the rip, watch, delete exercise on my laptop after impulse buying a Blu-Ray while away from home.

 

it is a pro because it was an aluminium clad machine versus polycarbonate clad machine (although MB did have 13 inch Aluminium model that proceeded MBP 13)... but now that differences sort of disappeared with the elimination of the polycarbonate Macbook.

MBA and MBP is more along the CPU, GPU, CD drive and screen sizes.

 

regarding the question in the title (in comparison to an air)


12 GB of ram

 

who got 12 gb to work? my Samsung 8 GB SODIMMS cant be seen by my 17"

 

To answer the thread question:
The brilliant apple marketing

 

OWC did. 16gb in fact (the 12 gb was the difference between a mba 4gb and a mbp 16gb capable ram).

OWC Announces Industry?s First 16GB RAM Upgrade For Latest Apple MacBook Pro Models | Other World Computing Blog

OWC 1333DDR3S16P 16.0GB (8GBx2) PC3-10600 DDR3... in stock at OWC

check the speed and latency etc on your samsung compared to what OWC is offering and check the compatibility with your model

 

thanks for finding that, I may order a set to try, they are the Samsung 8's ( you can tell by the markings on the SMD chips) but are slower timings, both are 1333


says my 8,3 is supported, now if I could get it up to 32 I would be really happy

 

What will you do with so much RAM? RAM is redundant after a limit as HDD becomes the bottleneck, unless you have an SSD but still still 16, 32 gb is an overkill.

 

broadcast video editing, CAD renders and prepress design. 8 GB dont cut it and 16 is pushing your luck most days. for me a 600GB data file is a small one and why I pretty much need 32GB in portable workstations

see sig, I run SSD's and external drives on all my laptops

 

The one SSD equipped notebook I have can't be upgraded from 4gb because the RAM is fully buffered. I am not touching the macbook until the warranty runs out, though a 500 gb SSD drive is quite expensive.

 

A blu-ray rip of a movie (just the movie) is usually about 15-20 GB.