Done for 2009: The Holiday MacBook Pro Roundup
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 10, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Swap the Pro Out for Some Flavor
The 17-inch MacBook Pro is a workhorse. You get FireWire 800, an ExpressCard/34 slot and discrete graphics if you choose to use it. Apple figures someone who wants such a big machine will probably have some fast external storage to connect to it, some peripherals to slide in it, and some GPU intensive applications to run.
From left to right: 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro
The 13-inch and 15-inch are much more consumer focused, despite their Pro branding. You lose the features mentioned above (although the 9600M is optional on the 15-inch), but gain a built in SD card reader. With most professional DSLRs using Compact Flash, the SD card reader seems to imply that Apple's entry level Pro users are shooting with point-and-shoot cameras instead.
13-inch MacBook Pro
15-inch MacBook Pro
Mini DisplayPort is still standard, and you still don't get any adapters in the box. The number of USB ports is cut down to two and processor speeds drop accordingly.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro. Compact but with a great keyboard.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo by default. Still a 45nm chip, it only has 3MB of L2 cache to share between the cores. The base 13-inch model only comes with 2GB of memory, Apple's biggest fault, presumably to maintain profit margins even at the lowest end of the spectrum.
Moving to the $1499 version you can get the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, keeping the 3MB L2 cache. 4GB is also standard with the more expensive 13-inch model.
Hard drive speed remains at 5400RPM across all MacBook Pros, which is fine because if you really want speed you want an SSD anyway.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro. Same keyboard, more screen.
The 15-inch picks up where the 13-inch leaves off. You can get a 2.53GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.80GHz or 3.06GHz chip - the latter is only available in built-to-order configurations. It's the most flexible of all of the options, but its default configuration isn't bad at all. 4GB of RAM is standard on the 15-inch.
| Apple's 2009 Lineup | 13-inch MacBook Pro | 15-inch MacBook Pro | 17-inch MacBook Pro |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz |
| Memory | 2GB DDR3-1066 | 4GB DDR3-1066 | 4GB DDR3-1066 |
| HDD | 160GB 5400RPM | 250GB 5400RPM | 500GB 5400RPM |
| Video | NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (integrated) | NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (integrated) | NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (integrated) + NVIDIA GeForce 9600M 512MB (discrete) |
| Optical Drive | 8X Slot Load DL DVD +/-R | 8X Slot Load DL DVD +/-R | 8X Slot Load DL DVD +/-R |
| Screen Resolution | 1280 x 800 | 1440 x 900 | 1920 x 1200 |
| USB | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| SD Card Reader | Yes | Yes | No |
| FireWire 800 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| ExpressCard/34 | No | No | Yes |
| Battery | 60Whr | 73Whr | 95Whr |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 12.78" x 8.94" x 0.95" | 14.35" x 9.82" x 0.95" | 15.47" x 10.51" x 0.98" |
| Weight | 4.5 lbs | 5.5 lbs | 6.6 lbs |
| Price | $1199 | $1699 | $2499 |
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Drakino - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
I'd be curious to know what battery life is like playing back H.264 content, since it should be accelerated by the GPU. Would help to know if it's worth the effort to encode to it over any other format.Ram21 - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
You could do another benchmark on the Mac systems with Blender 3d. It would give you a comparison to the PCs with similar specs.Great Article, thank you.
drew952 - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Could somebody clear up my confusion please...The article states "Both machines start at 7 lbs and don't offer higher than 1080p resolutions." However, in the specifications for said computers, the resolution is 1600 x 900.Isn't that comparable and/or better then 1080p?
slashbinslashbash - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
1080p is 1920x1080. So it is substantially higher resolution than 1600x900. (2.07 million pixels vs. 1.44 million pixels)FYI, 720p is 1280x720, so even the 13" MBP with the 1280x800 screen resolution handles 720p.
The0ne - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Just wondering if you guys have a Droid 2 review coming for 2009? Would like you guys to do this so we can have the Pre, Droid and Iphone for comparison. Thanks.crimson117 - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
"Jarred has seen similar results. One of his battery life tests involves leaving the laptop idle at the Windows desktop until it shuts off."That sounds like Anand caught Jarred napping at his workstation, and Jarred was like "no, really I'm, uh, testing battery life! See? It's my custom made Idle Windows Desktop Battery Life Test."
I'm going to start testing my software designs by observing to make sure they don't alter themselves if left untouched on my computer for 6 hours ;)
DCstewieG - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
Anand, you say you want a more forward looking test for watching videos and then you use XviD? Surely you know how to use Handbrake. Then you could show battery life watching H.264 videos in QuickTime with GPU acceleration.Otherwise great article! You first Mac article way back when got me first seriously looking at Macs and now I've been a happy MBP owner for 2 years. Thanks!
Pneumothorax - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
It's about time somebody from the press brings up the cursed SSD Macbook Pro issue. Even some of the 15" MBP 2009 models with the 1.7 Sata II patch are still having random freezes with Intel 160gb G2 SSD's. It drove me so crazy that I returned a 2009 MBP and got a refub 2.53 MBP 2008 with the removable battery. Now my G2 runs flawlessly. Whenever there's a hardware issue, Apple likes to give us the silent treatment (which is MUCH WORSE than the spokesholes remarks that pc makers will at least give you) Shame on you Apple!The0ne - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
You'll like their terminology of their latest patch for the OS then :)http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Releases+OS+X+1062+...">http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Releases+OS+X+1062+...
SmCaudata - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - link
I have an early 2008 MBP. I'll not buy an apple machine again. Their updates are so infrequent that when there is a problem like the terrible batter life or wireless issues with Snow Leopard you have to wait for a year for it to be fixed. Instead they spend time "fixing" iTunes to make it not work with the Palm Pre (I don't own a Pre...I just think them repeatedly disabling it is getting old).With new windows7 laptops like that 14" Acer Anand reviewed a few weeks ago, I expect Apple is going to have to stop being so closed off. What's more I could buy a new PC laptop every year for the same out of pocket cost to get a MacBook every 3 years. I still need boot camp on my MPB for some programs and there is nothing on my MacOS that I cannot have on Win7.
So long Apple... Fool me once....