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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ananduser - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
MBP's combination is good but not the best. Some traits could be better. Across the board it is a reasonable machine, no one denies that. And it better be considering the asking price. But that still does not make it the best combination as people are subjective and your best combination might be different from another one's best combination.KoolAidMan1 - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Absolutely, if you want a better GPU then it means a larger laptop with less battery life. Laptops should be evaluated based on their usage.That said, many people want light laptops with lots of battery life. The fact that such a light laptop has enough horsepower to run most games I play (SC2, TF2, DOTA2, LoL) perfectly is great.
Outside of balance, there are very few with displays and trackpads as good, and that's something I really wish more PC laptops would tackle in a meaningful way. Most outside of some custom Lenovos and $$$ Elitebooks don't come anywhere close.
One of the Asus gaming laptops with a better screen and better multitouch trackpad would be AMAZING.
Beenthere - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
It turns out that this Mac Air was suppose to have an AMD APU but GloFo let AMD and Apple customers down. I would have definitely considered a Mac Air with an AMD APU.http://semiaccurate.com/2011/11/17/apple-macbook-a...
dave_the_nerd - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Considering that the Air got an i7 instead... I'm glad the deal fell through.MOAR CPU POWERZ!!!
MacTheSpoon - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Any chance of adding speaker tests to your Mac laptop (and every laptop) reviews? I am leery of getting a new Mac laptop ever since dealing with my 2007 MBP and it would be nice to know how the maximum volume compares to other laptops now--whether they've improved at all. My particular model is so quiet that many people had to buy Audio Hijack Pro in order to boost their applications' volumes to acceptable levels--a workaround that sadly now fails with most browsers, as the browsers changed their architecture with current versions (some sort of sandboxing thing, I think).iSayuSay - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
I don't know what's wrong with Mac review, there will always fanboys fighting over them.On one side, people called Apple fanboys defend it so rigorously and blindly.
On the other side, Apple hater .. or actually PC FANBOYS bash Apple and making fun of it.
Moral of the story: One way or another, we're all just a bunch of fanboys. Why feeling so right about yourself?
What's wrong with: "My money, my business!" thing?
I have PC, I have iMac, I have Macbook Air .. so what's the point here?
You're not willing to spend money to buy a Mac?Fine
You're too poor to shell out cash for a Mac? Fine
I'm a Mac user, and when necessary .. I don't want to be nitpicky and compromise with quality. I love Mac quality, it's like buying a built up sports car, looks nice and fast too
I like Pc too .. just like buying a modded out Japanese car and of course it could be faster than Mac, if you know how to do it. But it aint exactly cheaper too. It could be in fact, more expensive than Mac itself for the same performance AND quality. Not all 6990 cards created equally either.
So, I think it's just between people who care about performance, quality and appearance (the one who can appreciate Mac and also hi end PC for what it is) .. and people who only care about number, spec sheet and considering a PC just a tool (Strong apple hater, and since you don't care about appearance, Hyundai will get you in place just like Aston Martin, it's just a tool, remember?)
ananduser - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Reasonable words, only that it would be an insult for Aston Martin to associate it with a mainstream MBP. If you were talking about the superlative VaioZ, that would be more like it.KoolAidMan1 - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
You'd think that people can be reasonable. I also use both PCs and Macs, and the fanboys are ridiculous. None are as shrill as the PC fanboys at the moment though, they've gotten really bad over the last two years.ananduser - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Historically speaking it is the other way around. The PC fanbois appeared as a reaction to constant naggin' on the early interwebs by the Apple fanbois. Now that Apple is much more mainstream, and in light of iphone's stellar success, Apple fanbois are even more open and brazen in their flaming. The fact that Apple gear ownership is pretty much a cultural thing in the States certainly "helps" them.KoolAidMan1 - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
I completely disagree. Go so any gaming forum, the moment someone playing TF2 or SC2 asking for help lets out that they play it on an iMac gets responses like "lol get a real computer". I play on a PC but I also know that the response is obnoxious.Garry of Garry's Mod put it best: http://kotaku.com/5676077/meet-garry-the-guy-who-r...
"Garry's Mod launched on the Mac last month. Mac users are creating stuff as well, though Garry isn't spotting any differences between Mac and Windows users' creativity. "If there's someone in the server on a Mac they're indistinguishable from PC players," he says. "Which is the way it's got to stay since PC gamers are assholes to Mac gamers for some reason.""
Perhaps the Mac userbase used to be more obnoxious. That hasn't been the case for two or three years now, the anti-fanboys are way more annoying these days.