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
Final Words
For as little attention as the 2011 MacBook Pro launch was given by Apple, there sure is a lot to talk about.
The advantages are numerous. With the 13-inch MacBook Pro, under OS X at least, there simply aren't any downsides. You get much better CPU performance over the previous generation. In fact, the new 13 can outperform last year's 15 thanks to Sandy Bridge. The new 13 is quite possibly the best balance of portability and performance. It's the single largest upgrade you'll find in the lineup. If you own a previous generation 13-inch MBP, the upgrade is 100% worth it. Graphics performance is solid under OS X however questionable under Windows. For some reason we actually saw a step back in GPU performance vs. last year's 13-inch MBP when running games in Windows 7.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro is a beast. Although it comes in the same chassis as last year's model, it delivers much more performance. The move to quad-core Sandy Bridge makes the 15-inch MacBook Pro's performance formidable. Whereas I couldn't use the 2010 15 as my primary work machine, with an SSD the 2011 15-inch MBP does just fine.
Displays haven't really changed, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, Apple's MacBook Pros have always used good quality panels. On the other hand I'd like to see a higher res option for the 13-inch display—1280 x 800 is a big turnoff for me with the 13-inch model.
Thunderbolt is a nice addition however I expect that it'll be grossly underused for a while. We'll see some nice Thunderbolt enabled external storage solutions this Spring (helping perpetuate the mobile desktop usage model), but it'll be a while before we get the single-cable carrying USB, Ethernet, FireWire and DisplayPort to a display.
The WiFi improvements are welcome, although surprisingly absent from Apple's marketing collateral. The front facing 720p camera is also a nice touch.
It's not all rosy however. Apple fails to really take advantage of one of Sandy Bridge's biggest features: Quick Sync. The hardware encoder is used in FaceTime HD but you still get some very high CPU usage (at least of a single core). There's no support in QuickTime or iMovie 2011 for Quick Sync as of now, which is a major disappointment.
I mentioned that the 15-inch MacBook Pro is easily a desktop replacement, however you do have to deal with a loud fan under heavier CPU loads. Something a well designed desktop won't bother you with.
SSD support is still problematic. There are far too many reports of drives that don't work properly in the 2011 MacBook Pro, and Apple refuses to validate/ship anything but fairly mainstream SSD solutions. To make matters worse, although TRIM is finally enabled under OS X—it only works on Apple branded SSDs. I can understand Apple's desire to want to avoid dealing with the pitfalls of early SSDs with questionable firmware maturity, but I also believe it's Apple's duty to support as much hardware that's out there in the market today. If Apple offered something with SandForce SF-2200 class performance I'd have less of a bone to pick, but presently it doesn't.
Then there are the concerns about battery life. Under light usage there's a clear improvement over last year's models. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is good for anywhere between 7—9 hours of light usage. That is assuming you don't have the dGPU running of course, at which point you should start talking about numbers below 5 hours. Even without the discrete GPU enabled, in the hands of a multitasker the new 15-inch MacBook Pro can easily burn through its 77Whr battery quicker than last year's model. While our worst case numbers don't look much lower than the 2010 model, the chances of you getting less than 2.5 hours out of the new 15 are much higher than they were last year.
The new 13-inch model is less of a concern when it comes to battery life. It's still got a 35W TDP dual-core CPU and no discrete GPU to sap power. It's the move to four cores and the additional GPU that really hurt the 15-inch MacBook Pro under heavy usage.
Overall the new lineup is a significant step forward. As I mentioned earlier, if you're in the market for a 13-inch system the 2011 Sandy Bridge MacBook Pro is likely the one to get. The 15 is just as easy to recommend, provided you're ok with the downsides (higher temperatures, louder fans, shorter battery life under load). If you aren't ok with the downsides, just wait another year and get the Ivy Bridge based successor.
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ImSpartacus - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Apple doesn't do something unless they can do it 100%.They won't default to SSDs until they are on the logic board like the MBA. We'll probably see the disk drive go at the same time.
Maybe Apple will continue to use hard drives for storage? That might be the reason we are still seeing 5400rpm drives. Apple doesn't want to upgrade everyone to 7200rpm drives only to have 5400rpm drives the next year, even only for storage.
But who knows?
Tros - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I imagine they'd go for the MBA-SSD and the larger platter-based storage, and just partition. But to do that smoothly, they need a better partitioning system (to keep it user friendly); ZFS.Nentor - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Apple doesn't do something unless they can do it grand (or make it seem grand).Why put in SSD standard if they are still a luxury? As long as the average pc user is not fully aware of what SSD are and what are the great benefits you can still demand premium for them as an upgrade for people that do want one.
Just watch, when SSD are becoming the standard Apple will put put them in and market the hell out of it and make it fit the whole Apple image.
dsumanik - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Dude, if your hdd is integrated into your mobo... Not only do have the disadvantage of not being able to upgrade to faster/larger capacity drives...If the disk fails you need to replace the whole board - $$$
If something on the board fails, you lose all your data - facepalm
Apple dictates the price of of the hdd, even when it's a yer old - $$$
A simple, 2 screw user replaceable hdd is the elegant solution and always will be.
Wake up peeps...
They aren't supporting other drives because they want to sell you outdated technology at a higher price.... End of story.
JasperJanssen - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
Dude, do you even have a vague clue what you are talking about?The MBA doesn't have an SSD soldered onto the mainboard, it has it on a standardised daughter card. And by standardised I don't mean standardised by Apple, although to be fair Apple is the main supplier of machines using it at the moment. It's a card not unlike minipci(e), and entirely swappable from one machine to a replacement. Also, Apple isn't the only one supplying these drives.
It's entirely possible that other thing&light manufacturers will start using them, as it's a very useful form factor.
KoolAidMan1 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
There is no dedicated GPU in the 13" MBP because there isn't room for it. Look at other notebooks in the same size and price class such as the Lenovo x220. Same situation, integrated GPU only. An dedicated GPU means bigger motherboard, which defeats the purpose of notebooks that are so small.Wieland - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Sandy Bridge laptops haven't been on the market very long. It's way too early to make a conclusion about what is and isn't possible in terms of size. That said, the Sony Vaio S is basically the exact same size, lower weight, lower price, and offers almost as much battery life, and it is configurable with two different versions of AMD Radeon Graphics (6470M, 6630M). The new Vaio Z will probably be even more impressive in this regard.ltcommanderdata - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
The 13" MacBook Pro is a constant 0.95" thickness. The Vaio S ranges from 1.08" - 1.24" thick, a 14% to 31% difference. So the 13" MacBook Pro has significantly decreased internal volume which will definitely constrain how you lay out internal components and the thermal room on the machine impacting whether it's worthwhile to put in a discrete GPU.claytontullos - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Have you dealt with HP's tech support? It's like pulling teeth to get anything done.My ram in my Dv4 was bad, it would randomly cause windows to crash both in Vista and Windows 7. My ram failed memtest86 with over 4 million errors after a few minutes of testing... however my ram would pass HP's 5 second ram test with flying colors.
HP's support first insisted I revert my laptop back to Vista and in any event would not service my laptop because the ram passed their "test."
I will never buy another HP product.
quiksilvr - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I won't judge a race based on the actions of few. At the same time, I won't judge a company just because one of their products didn't work that well for me. That's like saying I bought a 4 pack of Duracells and one of the batteries weren't working so now I buy Energizer.And to be fair, it isn't like HP made the RAM. If you were getting random crashes, you obviously didn't do anything and are clearly under warranty. Simply say "I turned it on and it keeps crashing" and they'll say "Okay here send it back" and 9/10 they will pay for shipping (depending on where you got it from).
Now I'm not an HP fanboy (far from it, I own a Lenovo), but prior to that I owned a zd8000 for about 5 years with no problems. Does that mean that HP is utterly flawless and no one makes a product like them? No. But I know quality when I see one and I stand by what I said: The Envy 14 is probably one of the best laptops you can get. Hell, it's only $999 and it blows the MBP out of the park.