The MacBook Pro Review (13 & 15-inch): 2011 Brings Sandy Bridge
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on March 10, 2011 4:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Mac
- Apple
- Intel
- MacBook Pro
- Sandy Bridge
Last year at the iPad introduction Steve Jobs announced that Apple is a mobile device company. Just last week Steve returned to introduce the iPad 2 and point out that the majority of Apple's revenue now comes from products that run iOS. The breakdown is as follows:
| AAPL Revenue Sources—Q1 2011 | |||||||||
| iPad | iPhone | iPod | Mac | iTunes Store | Software/Services | Peripherals | |||
| Percentage | 17.2% | 39.1% | 12.8% | 20.3% | 5.4% | 2.9% | 2.2% | ||
Just looking at iPad and iPhone, that's 56% of Apple's sales. All Macs put together? Only 20%. Granted 20% of $26.7 billion in sales is still $5.3 billion, but the iOS crew gets most of the attention these days.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that when Apple launched its 2011 MacBook Pro lineup last week that it did so with little fanfare. There was no special press event and no video of an unusually charismatic man on a white background describing the latest features of the systems. All we got two weeks ago were a few pages describing the high level features of the lineup, a short outage on the Mac Store and five new configurations available for sale.
Apple tends to not mix architecture updates and chassis changes. The 2011 MacBook Pro lineup is no different. These models fundamentally implement the same updated unibody shell that was introduced in 2009. The term unibody comes from the fact that the base of the chassis is machined out of a single block of aluminum. There's no way to gain access to the MacBook Pro's internals from above, you have to go in from below. As a result there's absolutely no chassis flex or squeaking while you pound on the keyboard, use the trackpad or just interact with the part of the machine that you're most likely to be touching. Apple has been shipping unibody MacBook Pros since 2008 and from my experience the design has held up pretty well.
From top to bottom: 13-inch MBP (2011), 15-inch MBP (2011), 15-inch MBP (2010)
The biggest letdown in the design has been the hinge connecting the display to the rest of the chassis. I haven't had it fail completely but I've had it become frustratingly loose. Even brand new, out of the box, the 15-inch MacBook Pro will have its display move by a not insignificant amount if you tilt the machine 90 degrees so that the display is parallel to the ground. A number of readers have written me over the years asking if Apple has improved the locking ability of the hinge in each new version of the MacBook Pro. It doesn't seem to be any better with the 2011 model—sorry guys.
Other than screen size, ports and internals, there's nothing that separates the 13-, 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros from one another. They all feature the same excellent backlit keyboard (keyboard size is constant across all models) and a variant of the same high quality display. All of them have the same front facing 720p camera and the same large glass-covered trackpad.
Battery capacity hasn't changed compared to last year, although power consumption on some models has gone up (more on this later).
| 2011 MacBook Pro Lineup | |||||||
| 13-inch (low end) | 13-inch (high end) | 15-inch (low end) | 15-inch (high end) | 17-inch | |||
| Dimensions |
0.95 H x 12.78 W x 8.94 D
|
0.95 H x 14.35 W x 9.82 D
|
0.98 H x 15.47 W x 10.51 D
|
||||
| Weight |
4.5 lbs (2.04 kg)
|
5.6 lbs (2.54 kg)
|
6.6 lbs (2.99 kg)
|
||||
| CPU |
2.3 GHz dual-core Core i5
|
2.7 GHz dual-core Core i7
|
2.0 GHz quad-core Core i7
|
2.2 GHz quad-core Core i7
|
2.2 GHz quad-core Core i7
|
||
| GPU |
Intel HD 3000 Graphics
|
Intel HD 3000 + AMD Radeon HD 6490M (256MB)
|
Intel HD 3000 + AMD Radeon HD 6750M (1GB)
|
Intel HD 3000 + AMD Radeon HD 6750M (1GB)
|
|||
| RAM |
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 (8GB max)
|
||||||
| HDD |
320GB 5400 RPM
|
500GB 5400 RPM
|
500GB 5400 RPM
|
750GB 5400 RPM
|
750GB 5400 RPM
|
||
| Display Resolution |
1280x800
|
1440x900 (1680x1050 optional)
|
1920x1200
|
||||
| Ports |
Gigabit LAN, Firewire 800, Thunderbolt, 2x USB 2.0, SDHC slot, combined audio in/out jack
|
Gigabit LAN, Firewire 800, Thunderbolt, 2x USB 2.0, SDHC slot, separate audio in/out jacks
|
Gigabit LAN, Firewire 800, Thunderbolt, 3x USB 2.0, separate audio in/out jacks, ExpressCard 34 slot
|
||||
| Battery Capacity |
63.5Wh
|
77.5Wh
|
95Wh
|
||||
| Price | $1,199 | $1,499 | $1,799 | $2,199 | $2,499 | ||
The new MacBook Pros are still equipped with DVD drives and thus Apple still distributes OS X and the application preload on a pair of DVDs. I was hoping Apple would go to an all-USB distribution starting with the MBA but it looks like we'll have to wait for another generation of Pro systems before we see that.
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zappb - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Give me a mac book pro with windows 7 as a base install, and id be all over it.Mac OS sucks ass, don't know how anyone can make any money using it. Windows or ill stick to lenovo, would rather send my hard earned dollars to apple but as it stands, not a chance.
bymi - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Hi,thanks for the great review of the new MacBooks!
I googled a lot, but was not able to find a working copy of the MSR Tools used in his article.
Sorry if this hat been discussed before, but i didn't find anything using the search funtionality here.
So where can i get these MSR Tools?
Thank you everybody for a link.
Best
bymi
Ryan Smith - Sunday, March 13, 2011 - link
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtop...Note that it only works with Snow Leopard booted up in to 32bit mode, as the driver needed to read the MSRs is 32bit.
philipus - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
Does anyone know the approximate battery life when using Photoshop (I have CS5) with the dGPU enabled vs disabled?What is the approximate performance drop in Photoshop when not using the dGPU?
These are my main questions before deciding to get the 15" MBP.
Thanks for any insight.
/p
http://philipus.com
fcarnival - Sunday, March 13, 2011 - link
Hello Anandtech, thanks for the Apple's revenue breakdown. Could you also post the profit breakdown of Apple's products? I would like to know which device brings the most profit to Apple. Thanks!macfanpro - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
I am very curious about this as well - with the tablet market supposedly tripling this year, I want to know what the ramifications are for earnings.Apple has a very nice page with related data (http://www.apple.com/investor/), but alas, I don't think they provide earnings breakdown by product (it's not in their detailed 70+ page annual report)...
amanrai - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
could you confirm, definitively, whether or not the thunderbolt port will be able to support a discrete pci e based graphics card with or without a HDMI combination?thank you for all of your reviews. they are incredibly detailed and very helpful.
macfanpro - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
Thanks so much for such an insightful review! I'm trying to rationalize buying a MBP, and I have two questions:Question about power draw) The MBP comes with a 85W adapter, but its maximum power draw is 93.2W. Could this lead to throttling/maximum performance not being achieved even when one is on the adapter?
Question about turbo boost) Some people have reported the turbo boost (for the i7 MBP 13) not working in Boot Camp. (Link: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/03/10/apple-macb... Do you have any more news on this front?
anaboo - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
Strong article - appreciate the in depth of benchmarks and insight.I'm hoping you guys can run the same set of in-depth Windows gaming benchmarks on the 15-inch MBP (particularly for the radeon gfx card). Curious to whether there is sub-optimal performance against a similar set of comparables (2010 MBPs, the Mac versions of these games, etc.).
Thanks!
davidglennbailey - Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - link
Best article on the internet on the new Macbook Pros. I'm ordering a 17" Macbook Pro on Friday. Here are my issues.1. Just take the cheap SATA hard drive now and upgrade to a fast SSD in the future when the prices fall a little farther? I will probably void a warranty? How difficult is the process to change one of those out and my chances of screwing something up? How do they even connect inside the machine and how reliable is it?
2. I can understand increased functionality spread out over the life of a product, but even at 3+ years is the .1ghz for 250$ ever worth it? Maybe for the increased cache or any other features?
3. Upgrading the memory was a breeze last time and shouldn't be an issue. Would there be any point or would it be even possible to go above 1333mhz or 8 gigs?
Just to add my 2 cents into the debate. I've had this Macbook Pro for about 5 years. I've put it through hell and back. Sometimes, you just wind up getting what you pay for. Great time to buy if you've been waiting for the quad cores for a while.