Apple MacBook Pro (15.4-inch 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) Laptop

I have upgraded to leopard and love iChat. In all I like mostly everything except for sound quality! Compared to every other laptop besides macs, the sound isnt loud at all. My friends HP is very loud for sound. It makes me mad cuz when im in public and theres a noisy background I cant hear my computer at all. I wonder you can upgrade the sound card? would that make it louder maybe? Also a Windows Live Messenger with all features (webcam, winks, nudges etc.) would be very nice. The qulity of the built-in isight is very good.

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The MacBook Pro is Apple's latest notebook and their first with Intel's new attempt at notebook dominance, the Core Duo. It represents the near peak of current notebook technology in terms of power, making only a few compromises for the sake of a slim profile and a better battery life. I am a college student who has been lusting over notebooks for the past two years, but with so many choices and every promising notebook seemingly always lacking in an essential area I was paralyzed by indecision (and a lack of funds). I will be attending Law School next fall and the time has finally come when owning a notebook is no longer an option. Luckily, notebook technology is better than ever, and I finally had some notebooks to choose from that represent nearly everything I have wanted since I first got the idea in my head that I needed one. I have simple needs: gaming capable graphics card, near desktop power, low weight, bright screen, decent battery life, and sweet looks (you know, the basics).

Once I saw the Core Duo I knew the day had arrived and that any laptop I bought was going to have it. I have to have a laptop before August so that took out waiting for the 64bit Core Duo sequel that is coming out sometime later this year or early next year (Merom).

The notebooks I considered getting were the W3J, the Acer 8204, and the new MacBook Pro from Apple, all top of the line machines which had the Radeon X1600 and the new Core Duo. The Apple wasn't really an option because the Law School I am attending requires a Windows machine. The Acer just had too many complaints of a poor screen and other problems, although I know people who are enjoying the machine just fine. I actually ordered the W3J last week but was dismayed to discover that my preorder wasn't made quite soon enough and I was going to have to wait even longer if I wanted that option. My preorder was cancelled about 4 days after the announcement of Boot Camp, which was not just a hack, but the promise of an (in the future) officially supported dual boot program. I'm no fool, and I wasn't going to spit the notebook gods in the face. I had been given a sign, and 24 hours later I picked up my (educationally discounted at $2,299) brand new MacBook Pro. This is my first Apple ever, but with the safety net of Boot Camp, I figured the time to dive in was now.

Specifications of the MacBook Pro reviewed

* 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo
* 667MHz frontside bus and main memory
* PCI Express architecture
* 100GB 5400 Serial ATA hard drive
* ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB memory on 16-lane PCI Express
* ExpressCard/34 slot
* Dual-link DVI, VGA adapter included
* One FireWire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports
* Optical digital and analogue audio I/O, built-in microphone and stereo speakers
* Slot-loading SuperDrive
* Illuminated keyboard, scrolling TrackPad
* Built-in AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, and Gigabit Ethernet
* Mac OS X Tiger with iLife '06, featuring iWeb

Design and Build

The design and build of the MacBook Pro is top notch. For someone who has used and handled (although admittedly never owned) several Dells, HPs, and Compaqs (dang their University contracts) the step up in quality was very much appreciated.

Several compromises were made to slim the MacBook Pro into a 1" package. The first was to ditch the dual layer 8x dvd burner in favor of a (3mm slimmer) 4x single layer burner. A bummer, but I do must of my burning on my PC, and I haven't burned a DL disc in my life.

The thin but strong aluminum chassis inspires confidence and there are extra features for the paranoid like the motion sensor, which is used to lock up the hard drive in the event of any sudden movement detected. Someone even made a program called iAlert, which you can use to protect your computer from theft. When alarmed (with the included remote used for Front Row), the laptop will start screeching and flash the screen if someone were to pick it up. It is quite funny and yet, amazingly useful for someone like me who might be tempted to leave my notebook at a table in the school library to take a quick leak. As for the screen, it has very minimal flex when torque is applied to it. Overall, you get the feeling that this laptop is the refinement of previous versions in many ways (much like the current iPod compared to the then amazing 1st Gen iPod).

Benchmarks (All run in Windows XP using Boot Camp Beta with default drivers provided by Apple)

The effort put in by the MacBook Pro shows that that it is not as fast as one might expect from a 2.0GHz Core Duo, but it is amazing that you can even run it under Windows without a hiccup. Given that the CPU is identical to the one found in the Dell Inspiron, which posts a score 8 seconds lower, it is clear that Apple has some room to optimize. The score obviously smokes the Pentium M.

Some Thoughts About Performance

My main reason for gaming on a laptop was a little piece of crack I like to call World of Warcraft. I was a little saddened by the reduced clock of the X1600, but this baby plays WoW like a fiddle. With plenty of system and video memory, even torturous Ironforge (or Orgrimmar) visits are doable with everything turned up to maximum. Gameplay is about the same as the X800 PRO on my desktop and so it wasn't hard to make the switch. I haven't yet purchased Oblivion, so I can't tell you how that runs, but Half-Life 2 plays smoothly.

Having never been an Apple user, I can't tell you if it is that much faster than a PowerPC Apple. From what I can tell, everything seems lightening fast. I was a little worried when it took ten seconds to launch Firefox for the first time, but the very next day they released a patch that sped that up to about two seconds. Navigating the web on a fast connection is quick and snappy. I'm writing this review on the 30 day Microsoft Word:Mac trial that comes preinstalled and so far things are smooth with that as well. Extracting a 700MB divx file seemed quicker than on my AMD 3000XP+ desktop. All in all I am pleased with the performance of the MacBook and I feel like it is plenty adequate for my power hungry needs.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is very nice with great travel for the keys and very useful function keys along the top for changing the volume and brightness. It also includes keys for Apple's famous backlit keyboard, which is set by default to use the ambient light sensor to come on when it gets dark. The trackpad is enormous and nice, although as a windows user I lament the loss of a right click (ctrl-click is slowly becoming habit). One cool feature is the two-finger scroll. As soon as you put too fingers on the trackpad any movement you do will scroll up and down or side to side. It is actually very natural and way better than using that little strip on the side of your trackpad like other laptops have. I also miss dedicated home and end keys, which are integrated into the four-way directional keys in the lower right. Considering that smaller notebooks have managed that (like the W3J), I'm a little disappointed. I'll get used to it I imagine.

Ports

I don't know why S-Video had to go, but Apple is more than willing to sell you a DVI to S-Video cable if you want one.
Screen



The Apple engineers made a tough choice to shave 60 precious vertical pixels off an already widescreen aspect in order to integrate the high quality iSight cam. It still isn't as wide as the 16:9 movies I like to watch so it doesn't bother me at all that this was done. I'm one of those crazies who actually uses the web cam so I consider it a fair trade. The resolution is way better than the one found on the W3J, which was one of the things that bummed me about that notebook (1440x900 vs 1280x768)

The horizontal viewing angle on this thing is insane. It's practically 180 degrees, although it is kind of hard to see anything on the screen at that point. The vertical angle is not quite as good. It has about a 15 degree sweet spot with the picture losing brightness and inverting white and black too far beyond that.

I took a look at this screen in my school's computer store before I bought this notebook and it is definitely one of the things I really liked about this laptop. With claims of being 67% brighter than the already bright PowerBook it replaces, this screen is a testament that you don't have to go and fight glossy to get colors that sing and contrast that pops. As far as I am concerned this is the best notebook screen I have ever seen. There is absolutely no ghosting in any game I have tried and HD encoded trailers from Apple's own website look amazing. Solid colors on the screen do have a kind of textured look that some people have commented on, but I actually kind of like it. It is not very noticeable and it kind of gives everything an "organic" look. Try before you buy, but I give it a 9.5 out of 10 (gotta leave room for improvement).

Battery Life

Battery life is good but not great. I get about 3 hours and 15 min with half brightness (more than adequate) when I am using my laptop to type stuff up and browse the web. I haven't tried to play WoW on the battery, but I never plan to so I am pretty pleased with it. It is pretty good juice for such a slim notebook.

Wireless

Wireless works great and has decent range as far as I know. My apartment is pretty small so the "Airport Extreme" has no problems dropping out of strong signal strength. It does seem to have better pickup than my wife's IBM T40. I do appreciate that in OS X it automatically connects to the strongest available wireless network.

Sound

The speakers dominate the left and right side of the keyboard. Bass is obviously not great, but it is pretty decent sound for a laptop if you ask me. The placement of the speakers helps to project the audio so you don't have to worry about your belly blocking the sound (like front mounted speakers found on the HP line). Volume is fine for the movies (divx) I've seen and the audio output with headphones is great.

Heat and Noise

The notebook is surprisingly cool when it runs off the battery. Everything throttles down to extend battery life and things are only slightly warm. When the notebook is plugged in and everything throttles up this sucker gets very hot. The aluminum chassis acts like a big heatsink soaking up the heat and radiating it out. The strip along the back on the bottom gets especially hot. On top, the back of the left speaker grill gets very hot as well, which is understandable as this is right where the X1600 sits. It is no wonder they clocked the graphics back. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to get any hotter when I have an intense gaming session going. I'm not sure if that is because it is not throttling back at all when no gaming is going on or what, but I am going to investigate this some more. This is the price you have to pay for putting top of the line components inside a 5.5 pound, 1" thick case. In any case (haha), I wouldn't put the MacBook on your laptop when it is plugged in unless you are wearing jeans, or are not planning on having any children in the future.

Noise is another story altogether. Perhaps related to the heat issue, this thing is completely silent. In a totally silent room, with my ear hovering above the keyboard, I can hear the faint sound of what I assume is the X1600 fan going. Any more sound in the room, like my own breathing, and I cannot hear anything. The DVD drive likes to makes some noise, especially when you install something, but it is not too bad.

Boot Camp

We've already seen what this puppy can do with some Windows based gaming and benchmarks, but I feel I should tell you some other stuff about it as well. A smooth dual boot experience is an absolute must for me, as I have to have a Windows machine for Law School. I am pleased to report that for all intents and purposes, it works great. There are some niggles in Windows XP that I'm sure will be worked out with subsequent releases. These include:

* No function keys...the "F" keys work the way they do in windows which means they don't change the volume, the screen brightness, etc...
* The audio isn't muted when you plug the headphones in...
* The iSight camera does not work

As you can see, these are hardware related and will just require some better drivers from Apple to fix. The "Windows" key is mapped to the "Apple" key and the eject button on the laptop still works.

Other than these little things, I had absolutely no problems running any Windows software that I tried. Things will only get smoother from here.

Random Thoughts and Conclusion

This laptop is extremely cool. For someone like me that means warm fuzzies and no buyers remorse. It is kind of crazy that last week I was a lifelong user and builder of PC computers and now I own my first notebook and also my first Mac. So far, I have no regrets. I will always own a PC, but OS X has impressed me a lot. My first pang of "uh oh" hit when I ran 3DMark05, but I still feel like the computer has enough juice to play games for the next couple of years. More importantly, it's smaller and quieter than the other options I looked at which I feel more than makes up for it. Perhaps this notebook is more expensive than other options out there, but none of them are quite this small, quite this cool, and still pack quite this much punch. In my opinion, the Acer 8204 is the only thing that comes close (right now anyway) and it is priced very similarly. Considering how much the first Apple Titanium's cost, this thing is practically a basement bargain. I'm always sad to see money go, but in this case, I wouldn't ask for it back. In the end, isn't that all that matters?

This has to be the best purchase I could have made. In the past people would tell me the only reason to buy a Mac was if I wanted to go into computer graphics. Granted, I chose to minor in CG, but I still use my MacBook Pro for just about everything I would use a pc for. Internet browsing is simple, especially if you choose to download Firefox, the iChat program is great, and the webcam is awesome to use when talking with friends. My only complaint is that only a few of my games will work with it. To anyone looking for a new computer I highly recommend looking into getting a Mac. I looked all over for a new PC and couldn't find any that fit what I was looking for. MacBook Pro was a great find.

I purchased a 2.33 ghz mac book pro refurbished.I recieved it in only 4 days. After waiting 6 weeks for a dell inspirion 1520. Its the best computer and best decision I ever made to switch to apple. Awesome machine all around. Once you get the hang on everything you'll wonder why you ever had anything else. Highly RECOMENDED!!!!!

I was afraid of the high price, but you get what you pay for with this Macbook Pro. I was a first time mac user when I purchased this notebook and made the move from Windows to OS X.

The GUI on the Mac is unbeatable. Even after working with PCs for well over 20 years, I found it very easy to move to the Mac platform. It's ideal for my photography, videography, webcam, audio... Love it!

This is most certainly the best laptop that I have ever owned, regardless of what computer manufacturer made it. I have used quite a few. This computer, along with an extremely stable OS X operating system make it very difficult to beat. I highly recommended this computer.

I was pretty nervous about making the switch from PC to Mac. I'd been raised on DOS and Windows and had only had brief encounters with Apples in school and college. After seeing the quality of multimedia and its ease of creation at a conference, I decided to take the jump.

I love my MacBook Pro. Lightning-fast boot-up and shut down floors my PC friends--my die-hard PC father is even now considering making the next computer a Mac. Despite the very different file navigation, I was able to feel comfortable on my laptop within a day or two. As you'd expect if you've ever used an iPod or iTunes, I found almost everything very intuitive.

Apple is famous for its little touches and attention to detail, and you can tell. Some very nice (and frivilous, I'll admit) extras like the built-in iSight camera, media remote control, Stickies, widgets, etc. make computing much more enjoyable. And being able to transfer files via Bluetooth or IR is awesome (although I suspect that these feature are probably available on most notebooks these days).

Despite having to shell out extra cash for Parallels so I can run my video & illustration software, I love my MacBook Pro!

I'm a full-time software developer who spends hours on computers each day. I've grown up using only Windows but quickly became an Apple fan after owning my first iPod (gen 3). After recently purchasing a 15.4-inch 2.33GHz MBP, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, I am convinced that most computer users should be using Macs. My upgraded machine cost nearly $2,750, but this machine packs the added amenities that a luxury car would offer, and that is why it's worth the extra money.

I consider the MBP to be the best laptop computer available today. It offers practically the best home-computing power available (and in portable form), while still maintaining an extremely stylish appearance. The standard hardware offered is perfect for the professional user. With its added price it also offers a back-lit keyboard and screen that automatically adjust to surrounding light. The screen (I got glossy) is beautiful and large, with an impeccable resolution.

As a seasoned Windows user with very little knowledge of OS X, I still found that switching was incredibly easy. OS X has been the leading provider of cutting-edge features, and true to what they say, everything just works. Having Unix under the hood is greatly helpful, and with the switch to Intel processors, Apple has provided users the easy ability to run Windows on the Mac. Of course there is the occasional problem expected with any computing device, but the ease of use surpasses that of Windows by an incredible amount. With OS X there is no more worrying about virus protection, messy hard drives, and having to reformat the computer every year. Every average computer user should be using OS X, especially after OS X Leopard is released later this year.

To sum up my opinion, Apple's current line of commercials portraying personified versions of a PC and Mac perfectly describe why PC's are inferior. Now I know that many people still need Windows in the business world (I still use two PC's at work), but everybody else should be switching, and the MBP is the ideal reason why.

its my best computer i have ever had. I agree with those who say it is the BMW of computers. If you are doing things that require good performance this thing can handle it. However i do not suggest that you do those things while its on your lap or it might get too hot on the bottom.

I don't actually own this machine but yesterday night I did play a bit with one of the four MacBook Pros my company bought a couple of weeks ago. Here are some reflections.

The beast is indeed very thin, reasonably light, neatly put up together, and pleasant to handle. I did not notice any extraordinary heat emission with it; it ran a bit hot after a while but this is I believe fairly typical with "thinner" machines. Also, I found the positioning of the keyboard to be fine with me; actually it was even more convenient typing with it than those located in the very midst of the body.

To see how it would fare, I opened a moderately-sized TIFF with Photoshop. It took MBP a while to do that, which I thought was fairly strange, given the plenty of memory and, in general, the great deal of computing power it packs under the hood. I then applied several filters to the image, did the white point correction and some other stuff, basically at random. Yes, MBP did the tasks fast, but there were no jawdroppers here, either. Just for curiosity, I repeated all of the operations with my four years old Toshiba. MBP was of course faster but not by far and large. That was even stranger: a brand new powerhouse being unable to soundly outperform a older machine, which was grossly inferior to it in all of the specs and, besides, cost a $1000 less when I bought it new. My first thought was it got the non-native version of Photoshop, but no --- it was labeled "universal." Beats me then.

Overall, I found MBP to be unimpressive performance-wise. Even its undoubtedly native applications, like Safari, felt lifeless. A question comes up naturally: did I take a look at the comparative performance test results on the CNET page. Yes, I did and I could not care less about this geeky numerology. The tests meant nothing to me; in my world, if a piece of machinery does things fast, I call it fast. If it's slow, then I call it slow. And that's that.

This morning I asked around about the purpose of these new MBPs. IT folks told me that these would used to present projects to our clients, kind of impresses them. Well, what can I say? Probably this is indeed the only good use for MBP --- to impress someone. I'd doubt one can work with some serious graphics on it; a workstation would be a much better fit for the job. On the other hand, buying it just for fun at home... some may find it affordable, me not.

Speaking of looks, I admit there is certain aesthetic appeal in the austere design of MBP. On the other hand, it looks a bit bland and faceless to my taste, somehow reminiscent of a clinic. Another thing is this is Apple's second major design of MacBook in a decade, the one that appeared in the early 2000s and has barely changed since then. Don't you think this cool look is becoming a little dated?

Concluding: I give MBP the rating of "5. Average." It has the performance of an average modern machine. There are many comparable laptops out there that are slower; yet many I'm sure will outperform MPB. It definitely looks nicer than the average, but this "nicer" costs a lot of green. So stuff still adds up to "Average."

I love my 2.33ghz macbook pro. Now an Apple convert.

This is the greatest comp i have ever owned. The start uptime is under a minuet and i only have one gb of RAM. All the programs are great for multi media purposes and such. Itunes works flawlessly on the mac (dosent slow down your comp like it did on windows) The one flaw to me is that gamming is not best for this comp. Wile you can play Blizzard games those truly are the only games good for mac.
So everall it is worth any pricetag placed on it and it is worth your while

I had an IBM ThinkPad 42 for less than 2 years and ALWAYS had problems with it - wireless connection problems, operating system issues, both USB ports blew out, the sound stopped working for no reason, etc. After my 5th trip (and writing yet another check) to my computer tech guy, I decided to investigate Mac (which I used to use about 10 years ago). After reading reviews on this site and talking with some MacBook Pro users, I went to my local Apple store & bought my awesome MacBook Pro 15.4" screen w/ 2.33GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB MHz. It is ripping fast, easy to use, and - most importantly for me and my line of work - I can run Parallels which allows me to use the Windows XP operating system simultaneously with the Mac OS X without compromise in computer performance. MacBook Pro is 100% worth the money because this computer WORKS. Without hassle. The guys at the Apple store transferred all of my data from my PC to my new Mac in about 40 minutes. They are so helpful and truly underpromise & overdeliver.

The screen is amazing, computer itself is thin & light, keyboard is really nice (and my IBM Thinkpad was nice, but my Mac is better), super-easy wireless connections anywhere there is wireless. One morning I started playing with the iWeb program (it comes w/ the computer) and in less than 2 hours I had a beautiful, professional-looking site for our new condo development. You don't get all the trial crap software you get on new PC's that you immediately have to do a clean install to get rid of.

For whatever it's worth, I never saw myself going back to Mac; I'm a conservative, type-A professional, workaholic woman (I'm more like the "PC" guy in the Mac commercials than I am like the "Mac" guy); most people would be surprised to see someone like me toting around a Mac. I'm not that artsy & creative. However, the most important thing to me for anything I buy is that IT NEEDS TO WORK LIKE IT IS SUPPOSED TO. Mac has accomplished this and gone far above and beyond just "working"; it truly makes my life easier and much more productive.

I compared PC computers of similar specs and this MacBook Pro is very comparable. The tech support is priceless.

As many people already said, so I don't really need to say much about it.

I think the heating problem isn't an issue anymore on this new Core 2 Duo.

iSight should tilt down a little bit and with a wider lens. But the color is perfect, even better than my Logitech Sephere and Logitech Notebook Pro.

This is a great laptop to have for people planning on switching over to Macs. I haven't tried out boot camp yet, but i am currently running windows in Parallels. Gotta love front row and all of its multimedia capabilities. The only negative that i have to say about this is that the laptop will become hot to the touch if left in a poorly ventilated area. Beware for those who plan to set it on their laps!

I love this thing it's the best laptop i've ever bought. no problems at all.