The update to the 15-inch
MacBook Pro in February 2011 was significant. Indeed, significant is an understatement. Quick thanks to Amazon and Apple Stores for having these immediately available at launch.
The primary upgrade to this revision? The processor! Intel has a brand new architecture called Sandy Bridge, and these
MacBook Pros are the first Macs to feature this technology. Some have called it some of the most significant changes to Intel architecture since Pentium 4 was introduced. These 15-inch MacBook Pros as well as its big brother, the 17-inch, not only take advantage of Sandy Bridge, but the Quad Core i7 Variant.
Quad Core processor in a notebook Mac! Wow.
I actually chose the 13-inch model for my personal use (only Dual Core on the 13-inch), but this 15-inch is replacing an aging
iMac at the office to save space and leap over its performance. These Quad Core Chips are amazing. Early benchmarks are showing this entry-level 15-inch, 50 percent faster than the upper end i7 15-inch MacBook pro from a year ago. A dramatic improvement. Furthermore, if you're still on a Core 2 Duo machine such as the iMac I am replacing, the performance is as much as 2.5 times faster. At least in terms of the processor. This is most beneficial in processor intensive applications, for consumers such applications are
iMovie and Garageband. Professionals will see the new processors beneficial in any professional photo editing, video, or music work.
One downside is that due to cost, the machine still comes with a spinning hard drive standard. In this case, the standard drive is a 5400 RPM 500 GB drive. That offers plenty of storage, but is slightly slower than a desktop 7200RPM drive and much slower than a new, solid state drive. You do have options. You can special order the machine from Apple with a 7200RPM drive, or
Solid State Drive. However, what I have decided to do, is simply, when I'm ready, swap out the drive myself. Other World Computing sells solid state drives compatible. It might not be easy for every user, but for those with some computer experience, it is a fairly easy swap. Then I can install a faster solid state drive, when the more acceptable capacity drives come down a bit in price. You might also choose to do the swap yourself because you can then put the hard drive that was originally in the machine, into an external enclosure, and use it as an external drive for backup. Of course, any damage you cause to the machine would not be covered under warranty. Therefore, if you have any concern, you might want to see if you can special order from Apple online, or in many situations, you will find the standard hard drive to be acceptable.
After the processor advancement, Thunderbolt is the other great new technology included in this revision to the MacBook Pro. Thunderbolt looks like the Mini Displayport that was already included on the MacBook Pros. Indeed, it will still function perfectly as a Mini Displayport, for connecting an external display. However, Thunderbolt is more importantly a new interface to connect external devices in the future, such as, external hard drives, HD camcorders, and perhaps even iPads,
iPods, or iPhones someday. Data would then transfer many times faster to and from these devices than it does currently. These devices were not available at the time of the MacBook Pro's launch, but we have already heard that external drives should be available later this year with Thunderbolt connectivity.
iSight camera has been upgraded to HD resolution and Face Time pre-installed on the computer. This gives you the ability to video chat, easily, with other Macs and notably, iPhone 4s and the newest iPod Touch with front facing camera.
The consumer software you expect to be included by Apple is once again here. The latest version of
Mac OS X Snow Leopard (operating system),
iLIfe 11 including iPhoto, Garageband, iMovie, iDVD, and iWeb is all here. OS X always includes Safari web browser, iTunes, and Mail applications too. The average user would be good to go out of the box. You might pick up Microsoft Office for your office document needs, or simply purchase Apple's iWork applications (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) from new Mac App Store on your computer.
The new MacBooK Pros, thanks to Sandy Bridge technology are fast. They will save you time, when using processor intensive applications. Time in business, saves people money and frustration. The average consumer might see less gains with this update as physically the MacBook Pro has retained it identical appearance, size, and weight. Nevertheless, under the unibody, improvements have certainly occurred which result in a much faster notebook. The fact that these 15-inch and 17-inch models now include Quad Core Processors standard is really extraordinary. This is putting recent top of the line desktop performance, into a sleek and attractive Mac Notebook. A breakthrough. Recommended Product!
