Apple 15-inch MacBook Pro (Late 2011) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 17, 2011 5:10 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- Intel
- MacBook Pro
- Sandy Bridge
- Laptops
Final Words
While I had a hard time recommending the base 15-inch MacBook Pro to users earlier this year, with the GPU upgrade I'm pretty happy with the $1799 configuration. It is pricey for sure, but if you can only have one Mac in your life and you like performance, it is probably the one to get.
The MacBook Air is nice but for demanding workloads it's not enough. The iMac is fast, but I'm not a fan of lugging around a 27-inch display with me wherever I go. The 15-inch MacBook Pro is honestly the best of both worlds. Obviously there are cheaper PC alternatives if you just need affordable compute, I'm speaking only to those users who have their sights set on something running OS X.
The only changes I'd make to the system are an upgrade in display resolution and the addition of an SSD. Both are options that Apple offers, and with the latter you can always handle that upgrade on your own.
At some point Apple will have to outfit these things with SSDs standard, similar to the MacBook Air. There's such a huge difference in user experience that it only makes sense to, the question is when?
For a while now we've heard rumors of a thinner, redesigned MacBook Pro without an optical drive. Removing the optical drive alone isn't enough to significantly decrease the thickness of the machine, Apple would have to move away from the 2.5" HDD form factor as well. Given that there are no reasonable performing HDDs in a smaller form factor, one would assume that if and when Apple removes the optical drive from the MacBook Pro, it will also remove the hard drive.
Ivy Bridge would be an interesting time to make such a drastic move, as Intel's 22nm process should be able to significantly reduce power consumption. Although the time may be right from a processor perspective, I wonder whether the MacBook Pro audience would be fine with only 128GB or 256GB of storage.
There is of course another option: expand the MacBook Air line with a larger (thicker?) 15-inch model. The trick here would be cramming a 35W quad-core chip into the system, otherwise it just becomes a 13-inch MBA with a bigger screen. That's where the thicker comment comes into play. Currently the MacBook Air only has to worry about dissipating 17W from the CPU, which includes the GPU. The 15-inch MacBook Pro however has a 45W quad-core CPU and a discrete GPU. Ivy Bridge will significantly increase integrated graphics performance, but not enough to truly eliminate the need for a discrete GPU. I suspect for Apple to do the ultra thin 15-inch MacBook Pro the right way it would have to wait until Haswell, where integrated graphics performance is supposed to be much better.
Of course all of this is speculating out loud, anything (or nothing) could happen. If you need a system today, the upgraded MacBook Pro line makes an an already great system a better value. If you can wait, Ivy Bridge will likely be very good for notebook users in about 6 - 8 months.
That's the downside to Intel's tick-tock cadence. When the ticks and tocks are major, there's almost never a good time to buy. Ivy Bridge will significantly reduce power consumption and improve GPU performance and then there's Haswell...
The next two years aren't going to be easy on anyone's wallet.
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Omid.M - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Is 22W TDP? I thought I saw 35W or the same as current platform, at least on some chart a few months back.And wouldn't the power/heat savings of a 22W TDP be negated by going to a slimmer design, if that's the next move for the rumored model update in Summer 2012?
Anand,
Good thoughts about the optical drive not being the sole factor in making the chassis thinner.
Correction (?)
Given that there are no reasonable performing HDDs in a smaller form factor, one would assume that if and when Apple removes the optical drive from the MacBook Pro, it will also remove the hard drive.
--it will also move way from the 2.5" form factor HDDs
Right?
@moids
Omid.M - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
What do you recommend for photo work?Quad core MBP 15 + ACD or iMac 27 (quad core) ?
@moids
KoolAidMan1 - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Here is a benchmark with recent machines, but unfortunately they are only video apps: http://barefeats.com/macs11_01.htmlHere are Aperture benchmarks from August, so tweaks your expectations accordingly: http://barefeats.com/aper313.html
Performance is excellent both ways, so ask yourself what your usage is. Does your powerhouse workstation need to be portable? Do you need a laptop? If so, get the MBP+TB display. Otherwise save your money and get an iMac instead, much much cheaper than the laptop+TB display.
spamcops - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
I just registered because of this article suggesting Intel SSD 510 disk with this macbook pro model. Actually I was testing this disk with Macbook Pro 13' early 2011 and its horrible. There are lockups in IO intensive reads (for example spotlight indexing, lock lasting like 30s - basicaly you sea only beachball). Result are messages about corrupted filesystem in system.log. Probably its same issue with late 2011 model. EFI firmware update 2.3 didnt helped.It looks like there is issue with sata cable or something with macbook pro and all 6gbit SSD disks (not only intel).
Then I tested Intel SSD 320 model and it was fine - very good performance without problems, even if negotiated speed was only 3Gbit (SATA2).
Cheers
Daniel
MadMacMan - Thursday, November 24, 2011 - link
Are you talking about the optical drive bay or the main HDD bay? SATA III 6Gbps works just fine in the main hard drive bay and on 13" MBP's (as opposed to 15" and 17" models, both Early and Late 2011), you can even RAID 2 SATA III SSD's for sequential speeds north of 900MB/s. I'm not sure why you have the experience that you do, but that's not the case on a widespread basis. I've tried this on one Early-2011 15" MBP and two Late-2011 17" MBP's.CalaverasGrande - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
still maxes at 8gb! I know that may seem like plenty of ram, but those of us using VM's can easily exploit all of the ram that is available. Not to mention that many Mac users will hang on to their Macs for 4-5 years. I am confident 16gb will be the new 4gb by then!MadMacMan - Saturday, December 10, 2011 - link
Agreed. I have 8GB in my Late-2011 MBP and I'm using it all and it's just about the perfect amount for Safari and Chrome and 40+ tabs open at the same time between the two. So it'll happen that I have Flash plug-in's running on both and Netflix uses Silverlight, and while I do realize that I could cut that in half with a little bit of discipline, I simply don't care to. I didn't buy a Quad Core i7 system to save on...anything really. I'm still peeved that the optical drive bay won't work well with my 2nd of two SATA III SSD's in RAID mode, as I had my previous Mac configured.Having said that, there are 8GB modules available from OWC for quite a steep fee, but it's technically not correct that the MacBook Pro is limited to 8GB of RAM. If you get two of those babies, you'll have a full 16GB, which I had at one time but in an iMac, so it was 4x4GB and tons cheaper, of course. With that setup, I was able to run a VM with Windows 7 in it, so dedicating 8GB to the VM and having both OS X and Windows running on all cylinders and totally stably was not a problem.
UPDATE: Wait a minute. Prices have plummeted to "only" $395 for the full 16GB! Wow! So if you have 2x4GB, you can get one 8GB chip for $200, sell the one 4GB stick to offset the cost and you'll end up with 12GB for the difference. Hmmm....lol
flomt - Saturday, December 24, 2011 - link
Does Apple ship you a product to test, knowing who you are, or do you go to a store and buy one?I have a macbook pro 13 mid 2010 and out of the box only got half the battery life you seen to have.
After visiting with Apple about my "poor" battery life, they said I was normal.
Visiting with some friends, nobody came come close to your battery times.
Why the big differences?
bob33 - Saturday, March 24, 2012 - link
So, as gradjoh mentioned, in layman's terms is the "early 2011" 2.3 GHz 4Gb RAM model better than the "late 2011" 2.4 GHz 4Gb RAM model, in terms of speed/performance, etc.?Thanks
MiddletonBanks - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 - link
If you are looking for a macbook to run memory hungry games or to do a lot of photo editing and won't be looking to carry it about everyday then the macbook pro 15 is the one for you. You can buy it here http://www.middletonbanks.com/acatalog/Apple_MacBo... for only £1,240 including VAT and delivery.