Apple's 15-inch 2010 MacBook Pro: More Battery Life Tests, High Res Display Evaluated
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 24, 2010 1:57 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Displays
- MacBook Pro
- Arrandale
- Laptops
Outdoor Glare - To Matte or Not to Matte
You’re going to think something is wrong with me, but I actually prefer the glossy display of the MacBook Pro to the optional matte display. I rarely use my machine outdoors and the glossy display just looks nicer to me. The picture just looks punchier and more contrasty.
In Apple stores around the country however is an ultra high end preconfigured option: a 15-inch MacBook Pro with a high resolution, matte display. The higher resolution is something I applauded Apple for offering in the original review. The matte option however is an answer to a question I never personally asked.
Having a chance to use the high res matte display I’m going to have to stick to my original take on it. If you use the machine primarily indoors or outdoors but not in direct sunlight, go for the glossy display. The matte option really only makes sense if you plan on using it a lot outdoors in overwhelmingly sunny conditions.
As expected, glare outside isn’t overwhelming like it has the potential to be with the glossy display. In direct sunlight, it’s still occasionally difficult to read, even given the display’s very high brightness. In the shade, however, it’s very readable.
On the other hand, if your primary use scenario is indoors, there’s relatively little to gain so long as the occasional glare doesn’t distract. In practice, it’s continually changing glare from people moving behind you, or perhaps cars driving by while you work at a cafe, that has the largest potential for frustration with the glossy display. The matte option doesn’t eliminate it entirely, but mitigates most of the distraction.
The high resolution display is nice for productivity. You can fit more or larger windows on your desktop than you can with the default 1440 x 900 display. It’s not a huge increase in desktop resolution but it is nice.
It does make reading a bit more challenging thanks to the higher PPI of the display. For me personally it’s on the borderline. I do appreciate the extra desktop space, but I feel like browsing the web and reading is easier on the standard res screen. Perhaps the right balance is to use this for work and an iPad for leisurely consumption. Just kidding :)
I’d definitely recommend spending some time using the two screens in person before marrying one.
Final Words
For the most part, our conclusions about the 2010 15-inch Macbook Pro remain true. If you’re using an older MacBook Pro, the upgrade is well worth it. You’ll see a sizable performance boost and an increase in battery life as well. It’s only compared to the previous generation unibody MacBook Pro that you’ll find the upgrade tougher to justify. Not to mention the finicky switchable graphics and potentially more power hungry CPU can make real world battery life closer to the 4 - 6 hour range rather than the almost guaranteed 5+ hours you’d see on the previous generation.
If you properly manage when the discrete GPU is running (I smell a widget in the making), you can still see a tangible increase in battery life. It’s when you’re doing a lot of work or miss an application launching that turns on the dGPU that you’ll come away disappointed. Granted we’re still talking about great battery life given the size/performance of the notebook, it’d just be better if we could completely disable the discrete GPU.
As far as the glossy vs. matte, high vs. low res display options go. It depends on how good your eyesight is. Personally I'd opt for the high res, glossy setup. If I spent more time writing outdoors I'd probably go for the matte option. I also find that when my eyes are tired it's more difficult to read/write on the high res panel compared to the standard 1440 x 900 display.
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ltcommanderdata - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
It's kind of disappointing that the Core i7 takes a noticeable battery life hit compared to the Core i5 considering they both in the same 35W TDP target. Could you double check the clock speeds of the GPU in the Core i7 model? The low-end Core i5 model you previously showed a GPU-Z shot of was definitely underclocked, but perhaps that's because it's replacing the previous pure 9400M model, whereas higher model MacBook Pros might have higher clock speeds which could help explain the battery life difference.As well, since you have Windows installed on the MacBook Pros, could you do your round of mid-range laptop gaming comparison benchmarks as was done for the ASUS G73Jh? People don't buy MacBook Pros specifically to game, but people with MacBook Pros no doubt do play games, so I think it'll be useful information. Running it against the Mid-2009 17" MacBook Pro you have would also be good to see the improvement of the GT330M over the 9600M GT.
I'm also curious to see if the limited thermal room of the MacBook Pro limits the effectiveness of Turbo Boost. It might be interesting to chart the CPU frequency of the Core i7 over an hour as it cycles through an intensive benchmark to see if it can hit the top Turbo Boost bin (3 bins for 2 cores) and how long it can sustain that before the heat sinks saturate and the clock drops back down to normal. Of course, without comparison to other laptops with more thermal room, it's hard to tell the "normal" or optimal Turbo Boost behaviour of the Core i7, but it should be something manufacturers should consider to differentiate themselves from others using the same components.
aj28 - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
Anand,Pardon if you've already covered this and I missed it, but have you done any tests comparing the effects on battery life by the use of Flash 10.1 versus Flash 10.0 on any of the Apple/Optimus GPU-switching i5/i7 notebooks? If Flash 10.1 kicks on the dGPU, is there a chance that the i5 might be able to power through it with ease to the point that you could actually get better battery life by not using GPU acceleration?
I know that goes against common wisdom, and I'm sure you would be better off if we were talking about a low-power integrated chip, but it seems to me that the mid-to-high-end dGPU chips are horribly inefficient for this type of thing in cases like these where they can, unlike a desktop, simply be switched off completely in favor of an iGPU which has to be powered all the time anyway, even if in a low-power state.
Thanks for your reply if you get around to it!
flgt - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
I think you've already stated why they won't put much effort in OS X. It's a huge population of STUDENTS. And students don't generate revenue like fat corporate and government accounts.I’m sure the Mathworks don’t want to artificially limit their customer base, but if it is coming down to a decision between OS X or Windows/Linux it’s obvious which one will take priority.
For the vast amount of companies Windows and Linux deliver equivalent or better hardware at much better price points. They also host more of the client applications that drive productivity, which could be argued to be more important than the OS itself.
You could argue it is important to reach students who one day might be paying corporate users, but if a student learns MATLAB on their Mac they can easily be just as productive on a corporate PC. There is no real incentive to make the experience better for a minority of non-paying users.
mbene12 - Sunday, April 25, 2010 - link
I know it is totally off topic, but this is exactly why I left Matlab for python. Their lack of native Mac support. As I transitioned from student to professional I just didnt see a reason to pay $4000 a year for base license and libraries which performed poorly when I could get most of what I needed done in a mix of Python and C for free.erple2 - Monday, April 26, 2010 - link
I think that thinking is a double edged sword. Students (and more importantly, Universities) are a major piece of the Matlab licensing revenue. I know that the Educational discount is pretty decent, but that's still a significant chunk of change. I'd wager that if you looked at the total number of licenses the Mathworks distribute, Education would be an even player with Corporate and Government levels.The other argument (that you can get more hardware for the money) has (almost) always been the case with Apple, however. There were a few notable exceptions (Apple had the first Core2 based desktops and laptops - I can't remember if they were on the forefront with the i7 based desktops, though), plus when DDR3 first came out in a SODIMM format, Apple was curiously reasonably priced.
rawd - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
Hi Anand, Cody Kreiger on Macrumors has already written an app to monitor GPU usage and it resides in the taskbarhttp://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus.app.zip
bitninja - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
Thanks for the mention rawd! Anyone interested in seeing the MacRumors forum thread where it's being discussed and fleshed out can visit it below until I get a formal page up on my website:http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=90152...
Thanks, be sure to leave a comment with your thoughts if you try it out!
Cody
rcocchiararo - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
Is it posible to get a 15 inches macbook pro with a glossy/matte high res display from, lets say.. amazon/bestbuy/newegg/whatever ?or only directly from apple ?
Computer Scooter Joe - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
Thanks for the info, just one more question. Do the fans spin up as a result of the dGPU being on? Or are they generally fairly quiet?I understand that it depends on the application, but im talking about just idiling at desktop or web browsing or working in Word.
maxxl - Saturday, April 24, 2010 - link
I can't post this command here unfortunately, becouse of an error that appears when I try to, so look at this thread for "ioreg -lw0" command:http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?mes...
With the model number you can find manufacturer easily, i.e. here:
http://www.beyondinfinite.com/library.html
Best reards,
Max