Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro (Early 2010) Reviewed: Shaking the CPU/GPU Balance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 9, 2010 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- Intel
- MacBook Pro
- NVIDIA
Final Words
The 13-inch MacBook Pro continues to be portable Mac of choice for most users. You get a decent performance over the MacBook Air while maintaining a good degree of portability and battery life. It doesn't hurt that it's also by far the most affordable in the Pro lineup.
Apple also keeps delivering with its honest battery life claims. I measured between 3.5 and 9.75 hours of battery life on the new 13-inch MacBook Pro depending on workload. The 13-inch gives you a good combination of netbook-like battery life but with the performance on tap when you need it.
The missing Core i5 is by far the biggest issue in my eyes. It's the only thing that makes the 13-inch MacBook Pro a good portable but not the perfect notebook. While it's fast enough for most tasks the Core i5/i7 are significantly faster in anything that's CPU intensive, and it's a difference that's noticeable. For me personally, it's the faster CPU and higher resolution that make the 15-inch model my choice. While I can appreciate Apple's desire to have a base level of GPU functionality across its entire lineup the fact of the matter is that today, the killer apps for GPUs continue to be 3D games. If you aren't spending a lot of time gaming on your notebook then Apple's CPU/GPU balance isn't optimal.
If you've got last year's 13-inch model you'd get more bang for your buck by upgrading to 4GB of memory and/or buying an SSD. The exception of course being if you play any 3D games.
The GeForce 320M in the 13-inch MacBook Pro is fast enough to play anything Valve has out for OS X today. If you reboot into Windows you can even get over 60fps at the panel's native resolution in Half Life 2 Episode 2. Stick around in OS X and you're looking at the mid-40s. Not bad. This is roughly twice the performance of the GeForce 9400M used in last year's model.
I'm very curious to see what Apple will do going forward. At some point it will have to abandon the Core 2 platform in favor of the new Core i3/5/7 family. Moving back to a 3-chip solution will require a board redesign, which I'd expect out of the next generation MacBook Pro. Apple is very committed to using powerful GPUs in its products, I'm more interested in finding out why. There's got to be a killer app brewing somewhere in there.
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Johnmcl7 - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
"Care to mention a model number? I can only find the 13-inch Vaio VPCZ1190X on Sony's website, which comes with NONE of those features, except for a disclaimed 7.5-hour battery life. If you halved pretty much all of those specs and got rid of the GT330m, that matches the Vaio VPC1190X."
The model in the UK is the VPCZ11Z9E/B (probably a different number in the US) and has the spec I mentioned above:
Core i7-620m @ 2.66Ghz (3.33Ghz maximum)
6GB ram
256GB quad SSD (4 x 64GB)
DVD+-RW (BD-R/RW drive optional)
13.1in 1920x1080 screen
Nvidia GT 330M + Intel integrated graphics
Onboard WWAN
1.4kg carbon fibre chassis
Having read through the article I can't see what innovations this Macbook brings at all, in fact it inherits many of its features from older Vaio machines (although people tend to falsely credit Apple as Sony simply don't market their innovations well enough). The Vaio Z11 on the other has a specification which exceeds even the 17in Macbooks yet remarkably it's smaller and a kilo lighter than the 13in Macbook which has a signficantly lower spec. To be able to produce such a small and lightweight machine in itself is impressive but to be able to pack in features such as discrete graphics cards and quad SSDs is extremely innovative particularly when you compare it to the competition.
John
Tros - Thursday, June 10, 2010 - link
That model is quite different, and far more impressive. To be fair though, Sony UK either has to loan this machine to AT, or AT pays some 2,400 British Pounds (~3,500 USD) out of their own pockets.And yeah, both this article and Sony's UK site doesn't pronounce a lot of the neat things that make either laptop more usable. I think those kinds of reviews come with something completely different though (IE, aluminum unibody, or OS-upgrade), or absurdly better specs compared to everything on the market. They don't fit for a casual review. I mean, Ars Technica covered the changes from OS X 10.5 to 10.6, and that took some 23 pages. And I think that was the "primer" version.
Anyway, that laptop is a beast of a 13-inch machine, but I think it's in a direction Apple's not interested in. IE: A 1080p screen might be too much DPI for some, and the OS would have to implement resolution independence to appease all users (No OS and set of popular applications does so yet). The reduced battery (58 WHR) is also a direction they can't go (the lunatics throw tantrums when a spec goes down in number). I'd also bet the reason for avoiding the strongest processors, is because x86 is not the right architecture to do heavily threaded tasks on. At least, not the kind you'd want a laptop to do (non-server).
I will still hold though that machine is doing something wrong though, because of the diminishing returns after one good SSD. Having four tells me that you have four mediocre ones, and need to compensate with brute force. It kind of defeats the gained battery life by having 1 SSD over a mechanical HDD if you instead use 4x the power. That machine deserves a dissection over a review to see what's so awesome about it.
JPForums - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
I'm no fan of MACs, but I would say this crosses the line from negative comment to not useful.
1) If this review is irrelevant, then how can you use it to come to the conclusion that ASUS or CLEVO is a better option.
2) I'll agree that the notebook in question is underpowered in some respects, but the model is new and similar models are still being sold be ASUS. I wouldn't call that outdated, but rather aging.
3) Expensive, ..., I've got to agree with you there, but it is apparently worth it to many people.
4) "Fruit-themed", "fanboi toy" I don't know about everyone else, but when I hear labels like "Fruit-themed", I get the feeling I'm listening to a PC "fanboi".
This review is relevant for the very reason you think its irrelevant. Comparing reviews of Apples offerings to similar offerings from ASUS and CLEVO tells you exactly why you should get one versus the other. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to get a MAC. However, they don't apply to me. You have to concede that some people value form over function. For these people, MACs are hard to beat. Another example is the professional video industry. For instance, despite the latest and greatest features of Adobe's Master Collection coming to PC first, MAC has the established ecosystem and they have the features that matter. It's the same kind of legacy following that x86 in general has.
What I do get frustrated about is when people buy into the MACs just work mantra. I've seen quite a few problems with MACs (screens with gradients, low quality motherboard builds, etc.) and in some cases the customer service won't even admit there is a problem to fix. However, exempting critical hardware issues, I can say fairly confidently that the biggest difference between a system "that works" and one that doesn't is the end user, not the OS. The end user has to make the decision on the quality and performance of the hardware hardware purchased, what type of software to use, browsing habits, ect. Apple just seems to want to make more and more of those decisions for you. Note what happens when they make the wrong decision.
To be fair, many of Apple's problems exist for some of the largest PC manufacturers as well, however, they don't have massive ad campaigns trying to tell people otherwise.
JesperL - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
I've been a reader af Anandtech for many years now. Ive been coming here since shortly after it started, from what i can quickly figure out it must be more than 10 years. Probably closer to 11.I have never signed up to say anything here, but just now i did.
But im about to leave. If Anand wants to just spend his time on Macs, there is not much reason for me to be here. The guy writes some of the best tech articles around, but the subject does matter. Fact is, this used to be PC, its now turning into Mac. No hard feelings, but i feel obliged to post a note saying this.
Some people dont mind this turn, im sure, but i do.
Ratman6161 - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
For example if you go to the mobile area ( http://www.anandtech.com/tag/mobile ) you have to go a long way down the page to find an article on an Apple product. Lots of stuff on Acer, Asus, HP, gateway, nVidia, Intel etc. before you get to the first Apple article.Personally I can't stand Apple or Mr. Jobs for a variety of reasons I won't go into here. But I don't think it's fair to accuse AnandTech of some kind of pro Apple bias.
Note that even in the Macbook pro article he points out that the machine gets 50% better framerates in games in Windows than it does in OSX.
Ratman6161 - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
Here is another example: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3759/mac-os-x-steam-...It's a whole article on how gaming is slower under OSX than under Windows. Does that seem like a pro-Apple bias to you? The Apple fanboys are probably screaming that it's an anti-apple bias. There is just no way to win with the angry finger pointers on either side of the issue.
bji - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
I've been reading Anandtech for a long time too.I don't own and never have owned a Macintosh computer but I enjoy reading about a variety of technologies so I would have the opposite opinion as JesperL.
Please keep reviewing different technologies regardless of their company of origin.
Tros - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
I for one am grateful for Anand's review, for taking a PC-like scrutiny to something that wasn't quite a PC six years ago. And for Anandtech, for taking that extra step, beyond comparing numbers from synthetic benchmarks, to pay attention to how the machines interface with people. That last step is really why I can't visit TH, with all their ad-crap and mal-scripts, and only visit AT now.Ninjahedge - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
Agreed.PC World is just Fanboi Flamebait Central (on both sides) and rarely has an article that is more than press release or opinion on what is happening in the world of fruits and transistors.
TH lost my vote when they trimmed/amputated the "other" section where tech diehards like myself used to wander freely into the depths of depraved 1st and 2nd generation tech hounds that were tired of reading the same RTFM questions and ill-informed rantings.
As JPF listed, I think the main problem with Apple is not necessarily the product, or even the price they sell it at, but their denial of any problems in their ads (sometimes quite insulting, "I'm an Apple"......)
I think it is good that Apple is starting to use some higher end graphics on its machines as most of us will not be transcripting video, doing large scale PS'ing or complex Finite Element Analysis on a smaller laptop anyway. Laptops this size are meant for general workload, multitasking, and entertainment. The needed attriobutes for that are memory, resolution, battery life and GPU.
Do I think that this makes these Apples into Pie? Nope, but it looks like they are starting to try to merge a bit more into the fold as their sales in this sector move(d) ahead of its compeditors.
Aside: You think that, just maybe, Dell could come out with a line of machines called "Orange"?
I think it would be funny as hell if we could compare Apples to Oranges.
hybrid2d4x4 - Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - link
RE: "for taking a PC-like scrutiny"For the most part, I'd agree with you, but I got the impression that he treated the mac with kid gloves in the gaming section. If you look at a typical laptop review by Jarred, Vivek, et al, they usually include the results for the panel's native res (unless the lower 8x6 result is abysmal). I thought this was seriously lacking in the WoW benchmark. If I got a good framerate at 800x600, I`d step the res up to native and if it wasn`t playable, I'd turn down the shader quality,etc. This is especially true when you're talking about running a res with a different aspect ratio than the display, causing nasty stretch-induced loss of image quality.
Unless the system was too weak to handle it, I'd always run the native res, so I was baffled as to why not a single one of the gaming charts uses 1280x800. Sure, they are still useful to illustrate how it compares to the previous gen and the GT330 in the 15", but I don`t see why the tests weren't ran at the native res. That would seem to be the most practical/relevant demonstration of gaming ability on this laptop.