Apple's 2009 MacBook Pro: Battery Life to Die For
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 12, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
There’s no other way to say this. If you care about battery life and portability at all, buy the new MacBook Pro. Go to the Apple store and buy one. While I only tested the 15” model, I’m guessing the 13” model should leave a similar lasting impression.
Ever since I first looked at the power consumption specs of Nehalem I thought it didn’t make any sense to buy a new, expensive notebook before Arrandale’s launch in Q4 2009/Q1 2010. While performance will definitely increase considerably with Arrandale, Apple just threw a huge wrench in my recommendation. The new MacBook Pro is near perfect today. If you need a new laptop now, thanks to its incredible battery life, I have no qualms recommending the new MBP.
The only thing you have to come to terms with is knowing that if the roadmaps still hold, that in 6 - 9 months there will be a much faster version of your notebook on the market; most likely at the same price. Combine the performance and power efficiency of Arrandale with the battery advancements in this new MacBook Pro and you’ll have one beast of a notebook.
Today I am more than comfortable saying that this is the best Apple notebook I’ve ever laid my hands on. The build quality is excellent, the base specs are solid and of course, the battery life. There’s no doubt that it could be better; toss in an SSD or drop the price even further, but as it stands the new MBP is an excellent choice if you’re looking for a Mac laptop.
Obviously, you can attain the same battery life with a cheaper notebook and one or two spare batteries. But there’s something to be said for increasing battery life by at least 50% without increasing the bulk or weight of the system.
I’m not sure there’s much else I can add other than Good Job, Apple.
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ltcommanderdata - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
When Anand breaks out the results in the table for a head-to-head comparison he is comparing the new model against the Late 2008 Unibody which uses a 2.4GHz P8600 processor with a 25W TDP. So the TDP is unchanged.I believe the 2008 MacBook Pro (non-Late) in the charts with a 2.5GHz processor is a 800MHz Penryn, the T9300. I don't believe he uses this as his direct comparison since that MacBook Pro is 2 generations back.
PlasmaBomb - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Sorry the processor question was only a musing on my part, since on page 3 it states the cache of the current MBP but doesn't for the early '09. I merely wondered if the early 09 was a 35W TDP piece, now being changed to a 25W TDP piece.I don't have a mac and am purely interested in the tech :)
The main question was really supposed to be "Could the absence of the Nvidia 9600 GT be partly responsible for the increased battery life?"
Another question would be why didn't they update the dedicated graphics to the 55nm Nvidia GT 130M (basically a higher clocked 9600GT). Although I think Anand really answered that with - not many people use the graphics, so it might be an unjustifiable expense to apple :(
PlasmaBomb - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Sorry typing too quickly the processor number should be T9550 :(