considering 13" MBP & selling old 15", also looking @ SSD

Hey folks,

So I'm realizing that when I bought my 15" Macbook Pro last year, I was partly thinking about necessity (had some video editing jobs to do), but also out of want of a laptop with a discrete videocard for gaming. Nowadays, i really mainly use my desktop for heavy gaming, and thus find my 15" sitting on my desk, underused and underappreciated.

I know it's a laptop and meant to be portable, but I tend not to carry it anywhere now. I'm finding that the weight it adds to my bag, in which i typically also carry my DSLR and a lens or two, is too much for prolonged carrying. I also find that since it takes up the entire sleeve of my laptop bag that I have less room for other stuff. And I usually carry my power adapter as well since I worry more about losing battery power if I'm away from home too long.

Soooo, I'm curious bout a few things that you knowledgeable folks might know.

First off, I do plan to occasionally game, but mostly all I'd play on it that would require more horsepower would be Left 4 Dead, but I'm not sure how well that would run. Not expecting to run anything on high settings, but medium would be nice

Second, how annoying is the glossy screen? I typically hate them and am considering the services of TechRestore's matte screen replacement, if I do get a 13"

Thirdly, how does it fare for photo & video editing? Photo editing, i don't plan on going too crazy with as I'm still an amateur, but I've got my external monitor that I'd use as well. For video editing, I'm going to be setting up my desktop for that, but also would love to be able to do some minor editing on the 13". Not so much effects stuff as just assembly. HD content is typical for me to work with.

Lastly, I'm very much considering the SSD option, but wondering what type it is, or how it fares compared to the similarly priced (compared to upgrade price) OCZ SATA II Vertex 120GB drive? Is there even maybe a higher capacity drive that's not too much more expensive but has similar performance?

Sorry for the ramblings folks, but I've been highly considering this since I can probably get a little money out of it selling the netbook and 15" MBP and getting the 13".

Cheers!

 

I can't answer most of your questions as I currently don't have one, but:

I would just add that I would recommend you don't even consider a non-SSD drive in a laptop . I personally will never buy another laptop unless it has or I can put an SSD in it, ever since I bought my X300 with one of the original 64GB Samsung SSDs - it's amazing, well worth the compromise in size. The speed is incredibly fast (makes my desktop gaming computer feel sluggish in comparison when loading apps), and unlike spinning hard drives where data location and organization can effect speed, it stays just as fast no matter how much data is on it or how long you've been using it. Another big thing for me is you don't have to worry about ruining your hard drive (and all of it's data) if you impact it or set it down on a table too harshly, because SSDs can withstand more Gs than the laptop itself could.

 

Games:

I haven't gamed on mine, but the 9400m is decent, its 3D marks are in the thousands whereas integrated intel is like 700. Coupled with a lower res on a 13" you'd probably get away with games from valve or blizzard cause they normally have low requirements.

Photo/Video:

Sounds like you aren't heavy into editing and with Core 2's now a days, it shouldn't be much of a problem. Video is more intensive than photos, but it seems you have a desktop for that.

Portability:

omg, its a small laptop. The footprint and thickness is really small, but 4.5 lbs is a little heavier than say an ultra portable.

Screen:

I'm biased and I actually like the glossy. So I can't say much here other than the LED is super bright which helps with the reflections. I have not used it outside though.

SSD:

Only look at OCZ vertex/summit and the intels. No other SSD can compete, thats why they are more expensive. I have not used an SSD myself, but because of cost I'm still holding off on them.

 

^what he said.

 

Thanks man, i really appreciate that. I've been thinking if I do go ahead with this, I'm definitely going to go for SSD. Just seems a smarter idea to me

Now my only quandry is whether or not to go with the one Apple offers, or to get my own (Like the OCZ Vertex series...). Chances are I'll go with an OCZ, but that just means I'll have another regular drive sitting around collecting dust, lol

 

you can always make it into an external hdd. I'm planning on buying a vertex or intel drive and making the oem drive into an external one.

or you could make it into a paperweight.

 

Thanks a lot for your thoughts!

I'm definitely impressed with the size and have generally noticed the weight especially on Macs seems to be oddly lesser than any windows laptops I've owned. I think with the SSD that could drop it a slight bit, and the possibility of doing the matte screen swapout would help it too. Hell, the EEE 1000HE I have right now is 3.5 lbs, and that's not too shabby for carrying. doesn't seem like a large difference than the 5.5 lbs of my current MBP, but it is noticeable.

As for SSD, i have definitely been interested in the OCZ. I actually picked up a 60GB one for the EEE i bought, but I'm going to return that and get the 120GB version and pick up the 13" MBP.

 

LOL, I already have a 1TB paperweight (waiting to upgrade my desktop setup before putting that in)

Very true, but I've got too many external drives right now!
2x 750GBs and a nice 7200 RPM 200GB that I use as a portable drive for capturing footage in the field, and my 500GB Time Capsule. I may even consider another 128GB SSD for replacing the 200GB external...

 

On the 9400m you should expect to play on low-med low settings if you want native resolution. If you want higher FPS you could run it at a lower resolution that also stretches the picture. When you're just walking around the FPS will be good, but if the horde comes and attacks you the frames will drop considerably.

 

Actually Apple's 15" and 17" MBP's were for quite a few years (and probably still are) unbeatable IMO in terms of weight, battery life, and thinness for their size class and have always been fairly fast. However the 13" MacBook was grossly overweight for quite some time at 5.0 pounds.

The unibody / MacBook Pro 13" is an improvement and is finally just acceptable to me, but it's not the best. The Sony SZ (I have one) has been around for quite a few years and weighs 4.0 pounds, and was (at the time) much faster than the MacBook.

But things have changed quite a bit in the past few years, from my view anyway, and Apple's laptop line, while not perfect, is definitely pulling ahead of the competition with their aluminum unibody, integrated GeForce chips, and now amazing battery technology.

The 13" MBP is one of the fastest 13" laptops you can get, and on top of that has an incredible battery life, and is one of the most solidly build laptops available. This combination makes it almost perfect if it wasn't for the weight and screen resolution (which should have been 1440x900 IMO), which are compromises compared to some PC laptops, but acceptable I think given the advantages.

 

yeah, the battery life was the main reason I got the EEE 1000HE as a nice portable laptop, since that thing has cleared a good 7hrs at least for me one most occasions I've been using it.

I think 13" might be the happy midway size for me. 15" just feels too big for me to carry at times, and even though I was getting slightly used to the 10" screen on the netbook, I unfortunately still had to hit F11 to comfortably browse full-screen.

And honesty, while at home, my 15" is always plugged into my 22" LCD, and i never actually use the MBP's screen during that time, other than for the dock or for the mini itunes window. I think the resolution of the 13" screen will work just fine for me

I'm now also pondering between getting the 2.26GHZ or the 2.53GHZ cpu... the difference here in Canada is $350 between the two models, and I'm not sure how much of a difference i'd notice between the two. I would encode stuff, but if we're talking 20 seconds to maybe a minute to encode like a 10 minute clip, that's not a big deal to me. RAM upgrade I can do myself and the SSD I'd get is currently $369 after instant rebate (before tax)

 

I would not do the cpu upgrade for $350 for a few reasons.

You're paying for cpu, ram, and hdd upgrades in that $350. Since you are fine with upgrading your own ram and buying an ssd, you are only benefiting from one component if you step up to 2.53, the cpu.

Theres a thread somewhere about 2.26 vs 2.53. But personally I don't think you would notice the difference. Before when the 13" was 2.0ghz, to me that would be a downgrade and I held out buying a 13" until they upped the power.

 

While I do agree with this statement, as I would never buy another notebook without SSD either, I wouldn't completely rule out on an HDD. I think this forum has gotten a little ahead of itself and the tech industry. Now we're calling hard drives "non-SSD's" as if SSD has been the defacto standard? Remember, SSD's are not affordable for many as of yet and the write speeds nor the capacities rival HDD's yet, so, while it's a great idea to go for SSD in your next notebook purchase it's just not the best choice for many people based on the things I mentioned.

 

According to this review:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4954

The 320GB Western Digital 7200RPM Scorpio Black (one of the fastest "non-SSD" hard drives I know of) seems to top out at about 85 MB/sec in both read and write speed. On the same page it shows an SSD which beats it easily in both read and write speeds, and if you compare a modern SSD:

Compare the 85MB/sec read/write of a 7200RPM HDD with something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227395
(250MB/sec read, 180MB/sec write - 100MB/sec sustained write), and HDDs don't stand a chance.

Cost and capacity are the only disadvantages unless I'm misinterpreting these values, but I think it won't be too bad in a few years. Cost is going down already, and capacities are growing considerably.

 

I can tell you, I have no intention of installing Vista on it... Either XP or win 7 for me. Chances are Win 7 though.

I'm pretty much set on the idea of getting the OCZ 120GB Vertex line of SSD. I definitely would live the boost in speed and especially the low heat. I can also imagine the bump to battery life would be nice.

And thanks for the CPU advice as well. I agree that I would likely not notice the difference between the 2.26 and 2.53.