Apple’s 45nm Refresh: New MacBook & MacBook Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 29, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
The new MacBook and MacBook Pro, much like the MacBook Air before them, are much more functions of Intel's innovation rather than Apple's. In the case of the new MacBook and Pro models, the innovation is almost exclusively limited to what Intel has been able to do with mobile Penryn as Apple made no changes to the exterior of either system.
Regardless of where the innovation comes from, it is still an improvement in technology and mobile Penryn proves to be everything we expected it to be. The biggest improvement by far comes in the battery life department. Just as we had seen earlier, you can expect these new models to outlast their predecessors by a good 7 - 15%.
The performance side of things is more of a mixed bag. There are some situations where Penryn is clearly faster than Merom while others show the two with equal performance. It's for this reason that we say the biggest improvement lies in battery life, not performance.
Apple picked the right CPU partner in Intel, as it seems that every year we get good increases in either performance, battery life or both.
If you're holding out for something more revolutionary you may want to wait for Montevina later this year, or Nehalem sometime next year. Both platforms will give Apple ample opportunity to make more changes to the design and featureset of the MacBook and MacBook Pro, all while improving battery life and performance.
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tayhimself - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
You also called the 2299 version 2199Doormat - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
A quick question - the yonah Core Duos had really really poor battery life in the review. Were those performed recently with new batteries? The MB itself is nearly 2 years old.Still, 4 hours is amazing on the DVD tests. I could stop watching movies on my iPhone and use my laptop on the entire transcon flight... though I think I'll wait for the Montevina platform. Hopefully the SFF chips, 25W CPUs and additional graphics horsepower will be worth the upgrade.
alpaye - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Well it seems that these upgrades you call "tick upgrades" are mostly to keep up with the technology. They don't seem to be a must upgrade for people like me, as I own the last "tock version" of MBP. Nice review, good points.The Unofficial Mac (http://www.unofficialmac.com)">http://www.unofficialmac.com)
TestKing123 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
A comparison with non-Apple notebooks would be nice as well.AMDJunkie - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
This is what I miss! Horribly cornball sex jokes (no point in calling it innuendo), genuine reporting of personal experience (shock at a kernel panic; admitting your exhausted because you've written a review at some godawful morning hour, for example), and snark (iWork is for converting your work into Office). And yet there's a half-decent review in there! It's like reading a blog, but with content!PlasmaBomb - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Tocks happen every two years not once a year...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
woops, that's what I meant :)Yearly tocks and I'm pretty sure we'd be well on our way to skynet by now :-P
Take care,
Anand
InternetGeek - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Apple will introduce a new 'revolutionary' Macbook in every tock, and some improved models on every tick. I wonder if Intel might be interested in having Apple use the 'Intel inside' logo? That'll be interesting.It'll be interesting to see how these MacBooks perform once some PC games are also ported to the Mac (Unreal and so)...
joey2264 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
The Macbook has an absolutely horrible keyboard. You can't possibly, rationally, reasonably, believe that this is not the case, especially with all your experience reviewing computers. The absolute crap Dell keyboards that they used to use in their notebooks are far better.I hope you mention somewhere in your review the ridiculousness of Apple releasing a 5.3 pound notebook with a 13.3 inch screen and integrated graphics.
Dennis Travis - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
I have been using computers and almost every keyboard known to man from the Commodore 64 too todays keyboards find the keyboard on the Macbook and their external keyboard that is like the one in the Macbook two of the best I have ever typed on. I can fly on either of them.Keyboards are more of a personal thing as people are very different, but the Macbook has an excellent keyboard. Sorry I agree with Anand.