Three days ago the FedEx man dropped off what I thought was way too small a box to contain my new laptop. I bought a 17” MacBook Pro to replace my late 2007 model (also a 17” MBP). Most reviewers write off the big Mac portable as impractical, but I’ve loved mine since I got it nearly two years ago and have always been happy to trade a little portability to get all the features offered by the 17, not least of which is its big, beautiful, high-res (1920 X 1200) display. At this year’s WWDC we learned Apple was removing the ExpressCard slot on all MBP models except the 17”. For me, that was the clincher. I use the expansion for eSATA, 1394b (FireWire 800) and a multi-card reader and wanted my new portable to retain those capabilities. This model may be the last to do so, but its not like I need much of an excuse to get a new Mac. This just happened to be a good one. Here’s what I bought:
17” MacBook Pro
3.06 MHz Core 2 Duo
4 GB DDR3 RAM
256 GB SSD
First impressions:
Apple’s “unibody” manufacturing technique for all MacBook Pro models yields a laptop that, when closed feels as solid as an axe blade. Additionally, the fit and finish of this portable is more precise with tighter tolerances than any laptop I’ve ever seen. Its < 1” thick body is amazingly rigid (both open and closed) given its larger proportions. The non-user-replaceable battery came fully charged according to the LED indicators along the left edge so I immediately powered up as soon as I got the protective mylar off. After going through the OS X setup I applied 150 megs of software updates from Apple and powered down. After moving to another office and attaching the magsafe I was anxious to see how the SSD would affect boot speed so, using my iPhone as a stopwatch, I pressed the power button. 32 seconds later OS X was running and the disk access was zero! In the thirty years I’ve been in this business I’ve never seen any computer boot so quickly.
Benchmarks I’ve seen for Apple’s SSD performance were far from stellar when compared to others, but this initial experience put a big smile on my face nonetheless. It happened again the first time I launched Safari. I clicked its dock icon and Safari appeared instantly. It’s almost as if it were running already and I just unhid it. Next, I opened Mail. Same thing. The app launched almost before I got my finger off the mouse. After two days use and migrating all my apps, settings and data from my old MBP, the boot time has increased to a whopping 44 seconds. My advice: If you can afford an SSD for your laptop, buy it! No other upgrade will increase the overall speed of your computer a fraction of what a good SSD will.
After three days:
This is by far the fastest laptop I’ve ever used. Apps open in a blink and file saves happen so quickly I rarely see a progress bar. The NVidia graphics do an excellent job rendering 3D and I’m sure the upgraded GPUs have a lot to do with the machine’s overall “snappy” feel. On more than one occasion I’ve caught myself unnecessarily waiting for something that had already happened while I wasn’t looking.
The LED-backlit display is quite an upgrade from my late ’07 model. First, when the display is off, the black bezel and the screen become one, a nice look. Wake the machine and the high-res, glossy display instantly comes to life. This is quite different from my previous machine with its fluorescent backlighting. It normally took 5 – 10 seconds for the screen to reach its normal brightness and color accuracy. This new Mac display is not only more responsive, colors look quite a bit more accurate also. Side by side, the older Mac’s screen looks almost dull by comparison.
I used the Migration Assistant utility to copy everything from my old Mac via a FireWire 800 cable. It was very simple and took about an hour and a half to copy my settings, apps and data totaling 110 GB. After a restart, I was almost sad. My new Mac looked exactly like my previous one. It took some of the “new” feeling away. Other than that, the tool worked amazingly well. Everything “Apple” transferred without a hitch. iTunes was complete, recognizing my iPhone and Touch, iPhoto, Aperture and their libraries are intact and the new Mac now knows all my network settings for three different networks and multiple hotspots. Maybe I’m still a bit of a noob, but when something works so wonderfully I appreciate it. I haven’t become jaded by Apple’s thoroughness just yet. All I’ve had to do since migrating is re-authorize a number of applications. Some were much more difficult than others, but I’ll save that rant for another day.
Contrasts:
I’m preparing my old Mac for my daughter as I write this. Starting that task after not using the computer for a couple of days throws the differences of the two machines into sharp relief.
Booting the older MBP seemed painfully slow even though it only took about 90 seconds.
Also, I immediately noticed the audible difference. The older Mac’s hard disk does make a little noise. It isn’t much, but after using the SSD for a couple of days, even the relatively light chatter of the 320 GB disk is noticeable.
The older display is less bright and the white balance appears shaded slightly yellow by comparison.
The keyboard difference is noticeable although I use an external keyboard and mouse most of the time. I use this box as a desktop replacement for the most part and the new keyboard feels almost exactly like the latest desktop keyboards from Apple.
The new buttonless trackpad is a much bigger improvement than I imagined. I spent some time setting it up and adjusting my preferences where I also discovered the new gestures make the new trackpad the control device of choice when manipulating graphics and also for navigating Spaces and Expose´.
Speed. This new MacBook Pro is damn quick. It runs every bit as good as my iMac (purchased in April). It should, the specs are almost identical and the SSD is definitely faster than the iMac’s 640 GB hard disk.
If you couldn’t tell, I’m completely pleased with this new machine. Am I $3400 pleased? Probably not, but machine envy is nothing I’ll have to worry about for a few months and my techno-itch has been scratched.
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Joseph Kelley Apple Minutiae, Commentary
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