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Sat, Jul 04, 2009 - 11:36 PM EDT — AAPL: 140.02 (-2.81, -1.97%) | NASDAQ: 1796.52 (-49.20, -2.67%)

PC Magazine reviews Apple’s new 15-inch Macbook Pro: ‘Among the best notebooks on the market’

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 06:05 PM EDT

Apple's "latest crop of MacBook Pros benefit from a new manufacturing process and host of performance tweaks that keep them among the best notebooks on the market. The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Dual Graphics, $2,499) is an amazing piece of design engineering," Cisco Cheng reports for PC Magazine.

MacDailyNews Note: Actually, Apple's new MacBook Pro starts at US$1999.

Cheng continues, "Apple has spent years looking for a new way to design laptops. By carving its chassis out a thick piece of aluminum slab to form a uniform enclosure, the company has done just that. Not only have they reduced the number of parts used, but they also claim they have made their systems a lot stronger. After having held it in my own hands, I can tell you, the new MacBook Pro does feel sturdier than its predecessor."

"At 5.5 pounds, the MacBook Pro 15-inch (Dual Graphics) is slightly heavier than the previous MacBook Pro (5.3 lbs)... [But], it's the only 15-inch mainstream laptop that is less than an inch thick (0.95 inches to be exact), shattering the 1-inch record held by the previous MacBook Pro," Cheng reports.

"The new MacBook Pro adopts the non-interconnecting, groove-less keys from the MacBook Air and the new MacBook 13-inch (Aluminum). Typing is an absolute pleasure, not a chore, and the illuminated keyboard is a great asset in darkly lit areas," Cheng reports.

"Evidently, the thought never occurred to anyone that a touchpad and mouse button can be combined into a single entity, thereby creating a larger surface to scroll, click and navigate. Aside from Apple, anyway. The touchpad slopes downward allowing you to click at the bottom, left and right hand sides of it, but not at the top. Apple even figured out the right sensitivity levels to use for the mouse click button," Cheng reports.

"Unfortunately, its feature set is the one place where the new MacBook Pro couldn't deliver. Built-in media card readers are found in almost every laptop on the market—except those with the Apple logo," Cheng reports.

MacDailyNews Take: Sheesh. Cicso's a broken record, so right back at ya: PC Mag and their ilk love card readers more than they loved floppy drives, if that's even possible. An over 2 year old Nikon CoolPix P1 (that we sometimes use when we need a flash) transfers via Wi-Fi (we use iPhone's camera much more often nowadays - it's just too convenient). Welcome to the future, Cisco, 2005 style! It does also come with a USB cable if you prefer old-fashioned methods. We haven't touched an SD card (or a card reader) since we dropped a 1GB'er into the Nikon over two years ago. We expect better from someone named after a router.

Cheng continues, "Design alone is probably enough to have Mac fanatics reaching into their deep pockets once again, but if you're looking for a longer list of features, the HP HDX16t has higher screen resolutions, Blu-Ray drives, HDMI-Out, an E-SATA port, and more USB ports—and its cheaper, too."

MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, and HP's OS-limited, big, fat (1.7" max. thickness and 7.37 lbs!), sticker-festooned slab of fugliness can't run Mac OS X Leopard or iLife or iWork or Final Cut or any of the other often best-in-class Mac-only applications available.

Only Apple Macs are OS-unlimited.

You get what you pay for — and after lugging around something like HP's slab o' crap for a day of travel, you'll also likely be paying a chiropractor more than you thought you "saved," you, short-sighted sticker-price ogler, you. Enough already. Life's too short. Get a Mac.

Full review here.

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Oct 15, 08 - 06:13 pm Comment from: cedreca

I can't wait to get one! My Original Macbook Pro served me well but now is time for a new one!

Oct 15, 08 - 06:35 pm Comment from: whatever

What is it with these idiots and their card readers - I rarely if ever us one - I just plug my camera in and download. If you are using for storage use a USB flash drive.

Oct 15, 08 - 06:45 pm Comment from: erg

As a chiropractor, I hope the HP HDX16t sells quite well. It should pay for my new MBP within a week.

Oct 15, 08 - 06:46 pm Comment from: Romeodawg

I've never used or pined after a card reader.

And I'd rather have one step of plugging a USB card into my camera over opening the camera, popping out a card, popping it into my computer, then ejecting it, and popping it back into my camera.

Oct 15, 08 - 06:47 pm Comment from: Romeodawg

OOPS -CORRECTION:

I've never used or pined after a card reader.

And I'd rather have one step of plugging a USB CORD into my camera over opening the camera, popping out a card, popping it into my computer, then ejecting it, and popping it back into my camera.

Oct 15, 08 - 06:54 pm Comment from: WizeGuy

I still don't get why there are only 2 USB ports on these things.

And now without the firewire 400 port, there are even fewer ways to attach peripherals.

Even adding just one more USB would make a world of difference!

Oct 15, 08 - 07:09 pm Comment from: Nikola

Would it be possible to make a version of this website, sans the MDN takes, say? They are rarely funny, and the never ending besserwisser style is just embarrassing. The language reminds me of an uptight 17yrs old who's watching a quizshow with a shiteload of dictionaries, eagerly awaiting to improve on all of the correct answers.

Oct 15, 08 - 07:11 pm Comment from: Irritable Bastard

WizeGuy,

Wi-Fi, you cord-loving dunce.

---

Nikola,

Go fsck yourself.

Oct 15, 08 - 07:13 pm Comment from: Genealogist

Nikola = Mark Hurd.

Oct 15, 08 - 07:16 pm Comment from: Journo

MDN,

Don't ever change.

Oct 15, 08 - 08:07 pm Comment from: halapeño

Don't know what the deal with the card reader thing is. I have a USB Sandisk card reader for my iMac and I NEVER use it. If I'm off loading some pictures I just plug the USB connector right into my camera. It's SO much easier.

I am glad Apple doesn't put a bunch of extra crap on their computer just to satisfy a couple of geeks.

Oct 15, 08 - 08:23 pm Comment from: edward

well, if you want card reader capable notebook, go with Sony. It is the best. Or don't ever mention damn thing here.

Oct 15, 08 - 08:29 pm Comment from: ragarcia

These writers now act like the old MacBook Pro is a wimpy machine and the new one is so sturdy...

I don't know, but when I pick my MBP it feels pretty sturdy to me...the new one must feel like grabing a slab of steel.

Oct 15, 08 - 09:32 pm Comment from: El Guapo

Okay guys give up on your hate for card readers! I would much rather save my camera battery for taking pictures than using it to transfer pix to my laptop. As for it being such a strike against the MBP for not having a card reader built in, get an external USB reader. You can get one that reads 87 types of cards (exaggeration intended) for around $10.

Give up the hate folks and go with the decaf!

Oct 15, 08 - 09:33 pm Comment from: MikeR

Cheng continues, "Design alone is probably enough to have Mac fanatics reaching into their deep pockets once again...."

That Cheng is one jealous person. Too bad he can't afford a real computer like the MBP.

Oct 15, 08 - 10:46 pm Comment from: Routers are fun!

"Welcome to the future, Cisco, 2005 style! ... We expect better from someone named after a router."

That was so funny I almost downloaded in my pants!

Oct 16, 08 - 12:13 am Comment from: Tim Rosencrans

express card memory card reader $27.99

Oct 16, 08 - 01:05 am Comment from: Jubei

Winzombies will never buy a Mac laptop unless it has six mouse buttons, eight USB ports, removeable CD/DVD, minimum eight LED lights that blink, visually off balanced trackpad, six rubber feet 1/4" thick, levers that do something, switches and sliders to do stuff you can do in the control panels, minimum three notices to log in before Windozes even begins to load, grooves and random lines at the bottom, four to six vent ports and last but not least shiny stickers all over the top case, inside on the palm rest, undeneath the laptop. All for 499.99!

Oct 16, 08 - 02:18 am Comment from: Jacob

Multi-card reader? Really?

Buy one that does what you need (in the case of laptops, it's best to get one that just does the one or two types you need, because they are much smaller) for $5-10 and be done with it.

I've always thought this was a mostly useless feature. But PC manufacturers love to pack in lots of mostly useless features as selling points, because the useful stuff tends to be more expensive.

LED backlit screen? Useful feature. Backlit keyboard? Useful feature. Sturdier case? Useful feature. Multi-card readers, physical wireless switches, lightscribe-capable cd/dvd drives, more RAM than your system can even address under 32-bit Vista? Not so much.

The real reason Apple didn't seem to improve the processor and RAM much is, aside from the fact that the other more subtle improvements soaked up a lot of money, Intel hasn't actually substantially improved what is available for notebook processors lately. I assume there's something else on the horizon, but looking at a list of the existing Core 2 Duo notebook processors reveals that Apple pretty much offered the only options they can. The clock speeds haven't really gone up much... the architecture was updated, faster FSB's and DDR3 RAM... but not much recently. As for the RAM, what they are using is more expensive than what they were... and hey, Apple has always been stingy with RAM, but that's alright because it's cheap & easy to upgrade.

Oct 16, 08 - 02:35 am Comment from: Limited

"Only Apple Macs are OS-unlimited."

Only Mac OS X is hardware limited.

Oct 16, 08 - 05:48 am Comment from: \ln

Nikola,

Well said. I agree.

Oct 16, 08 - 07:25 am Comment from: GV

I appreciate MDN's points, but have grown tired of the sophmoric ways they are delivered. Ruins the otherwise decent collection of Mac news. This was my last article I'll read.

Oct 16, 08 - 09:29 am Comment from: El Guapo

@GV

¡Hasta la vista!

Oct 16, 08 - 10:48 am Comment from: Chano

Most of you seem to need to get a life .... card reader angst! Go out and make friends before you turn into a real dweeb and start ranting for the return of SCSI or floppies.
As for the article ... MBP is the best laptop not merely 'among the best'. Now go collect your 30 pieces from MSFT, HPQ and DELL etc.

Oct 16, 08 - 11:35 am Comment from: NuBus

"Only Mac OS X is hardware limited."

Really?

These fine folks disagree:

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

To GV:

Please let the door smack your overly sensitive ass on your way out.

Oct 16, 08 - 11:44 am Comment from: Monk VanDu

Slab o crap - good one MDN.

Oct 16, 08 - 01:30 pm Comment from: Al

I don't think many professional photographers (a high percentage of whom use Apple computers) ever plug their camera into their laptop unless they're running in tethered mode. When you have 8GB of pictures to shift onto the laptop WiFi or USB just doesn't cut it. Having said that not having a card reader isn't much of a loss, I will stick to my Firewire reader.

One surprising limitation on these new machines is that they only support 4GB when the competition have moved up to an 8GB max. With graphic processing and virtualisation I could do with a bit of future proofing in this department.

I think I'll wait for Snow Leopard and the first revision of this MBP that fixes the inevitable problems before braving that glossy screen. My two year old MBP has some life in it yet.

Oct 16, 08 - 07:04 pm Comment from: thomas

@Nikola
spot on! thanks so much for speakin up. Although i doubt the average church of apple member/mdn sheep would agree

Oct 18, 08 - 10:54 am Comment from: ping

WizeGuy: And now without the firewire 400 port, there are even fewer ways to attach peripherals.

FireWire800 is compatible to FireWire400. On my MBP17" the two sockets use the same interface anyway, so there isn't really any loss.

Al: One surprising limitation on these new machines is that they only support 4GB when the competition have moved up to an 8GB max.

Since it's the same chip set, it's rather likely 8GB would work just as well, Apple just hasn't certified the machine for it yet.

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Sat, Jul 04, 2009 - 11:36 PM EDT — AAPL: 140.02 (-2.81, -1.97%) | NASDAQ: 1796.52 (-49.20, -2.67%)

PC Magazine reviews Apple’s new 15-inch Macbook Pro: ‘Among the best notebooks on the market’

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MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

MacDailyNews Poll

5 Day Most Commented

Opinion Archive

Current Headlines

Sat, Jul 04, 2009 - 11:36 PM EDT — AAPL: 140.02 (-2.81, -1.97%) | NASDAQ: 1796.52 (-49.20, -2.67%)

PC Magazine reviews Apple’s new 15-inch Macbook Pro: ‘Among the best notebooks on the market’

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