AnandTech: Apple's Redesigned MacBook and MacBook Pro: Thoroughly Reviewed

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Apple's Redesigned MacBook and MacBook Pro: Thoroughly Reviewed

Date: October 22nd, 2008
Topic: Mac
Manufacturer: Apple
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi

Buy the Apple MB990LL/A MacBook Pro Notebook

	$1,183.25
	$1,149.00
	$1,179.99

Performance

Outside of gaming performance, there shouldn't be any tangible improvement in system performance from these new notebooks compared to the previous generation. To test that theory I ran some of the same real world tests I did in my last Apple notebook review, comparing the new MacBook and MacBook Pro to the previous generation:

With the exception of the Pages test, the numbers show very little difference between the old and new systems. The new 2.0GHz MacBook is slower than the old 2.4GHz model as you'd expect, and the new 2.4GHz MacBook Pro is in line with the older MacBook Pro performance.

I suspect the Pages test favors the new machines as it is a bit more disk-bound and the newer machines have faster drives. But if you want to know, the new notebooks aren't any faster in normal usage than the old ones. These changes are far more aesthetic.

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65 Comments - Last by MacMatte, 233 days ago

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Final comment by themadmilkman, 475 days ago

Thank you for the honest assessment about whether to buy or wait. You just kept me from blowing $1300 by upgrading too soon.

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RE: Final comment by Ronbo13, 472 days ago

If you're basing this on the reflectivity of the screens, you need to look at them in person. The pictures are misleading, in that the new MBP is positioned to be reflecting a wall in direct daylight, and the one on the left is reflecting a wall in shadows. The new MBP is a pretty glossy screen. I have one, and I used to have a matte MBP. But the screen is, nevertheless, beautiful. Don't make up your mind until you see it in person.

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Backlit keyboard on MacBook 2.4 by acfoltzer, 475 days ago

Hi Anand,

I just want to point out that the keyboard on my 2.4GHz MacBook IS backlit. It seems to be a little-documented difference between the 2.0 and 2.4.

Cheers,
Adam

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RE: Backlit keyboard on MacBook 2.4 by andreschmidt, 474 days ago

Indeed, that was one of the things I noticed in the article as well. The 2.4Ghz MacBook does have the backlit keyboard.

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Battery Life in OS X vs. Windows Vista by jonmcc33, 475 days ago

Maybe you should test the power settings with Vista on Power saver setting? My Latitude D610 lasts over 3 hours with Vista. I wouldn't use Balanced unless it was plugged into the AC adapter.

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RE: Battery Life in OS X vs. Windows Vista by wilkinb, 474 days ago

yeh I agree the diff will be how the OS is set to manage each device etc etc...

On my Sony laptop i get around 2 hours on high performance and a bit over 5 hours on battery saving...

The results they posted dont really tell us much other then a bootcamp vista install isnt as good as an osx install at managing power on apple laptop... amazing right?

I am sure if i dont use the Sony install and tool/drviers etc I will also get less battery life on my laptop. So the question would be do you think apple put more effort into power management on their OSX install then they did for Vista?

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RE: Battery Life in OS X vs. Windows Vista by JarredWalton, 474 days ago

Let me just say that I've tried testing various power saver setting under Vista on several notebooks (see review on Friday) and I just can't get anywhere near 5 hours of battery life. Sure, the CPUs are a bit higher spec on some of the notebooks, but as one example a 12.1" laptop with 55 Whr battery, 320GB 5400RPM HDD, 4GB RAM, LED backlighting, and P8400 pulls an "amazing" 138 minutes of DVD playback and 142 minutes of web surfing... though it does manage 261 minutes when sitting idle at the desktop.

As best I can tell, the CPU and HDD just don't seem to be entering sleep modes much if at all, unless the system is 100% idle. Even then, 261 minutes idle battery life doesn't compare favorably to the MacBook pulling 286 minutes of web surfing.

How big is the Sony battery, if I may ask? (Just for reference, take Voltage * mAhr to get Whr.) What sort of CPU, GPU, HDD, RAM does it use? What we need to see to prove it's possible is a Vista laptop with a 20W TDP CPU, 2GB RAM, 5400 RPM HDD, and 13.3" LED backlit LCD that can still get close to five hours of battery life with a 55 Whr battery. If you think you have one, get the manufacturer to send me one for review! :)

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RE: Battery Life in OS X vs. Windows Vista by Spivonious, 474 days ago

Are you guys turning off the Vista indexer and SuperFetch? Those two things would run the harddrives pretty constantly on a fresh install, which would definitely drag down battery life.

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RE: Battery Life in OS X vs. Windows Vista by JarredWalton, 474 days ago

Do normal users disable SuperFetch? I've disabled indexing as much as I know how, since I don't use it, but SuperFetch is part of Vista. Besides, it shouldn't run on battery power (and neither should indexing).

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RE: Battery Life in OS X vs. Windows Vista by jonmcc33, 473 days ago

No, normal users do not disable SuperFetch. That's just bad tweaking advice, as much as turning Indexing off is as well. Both are amazing features added to Vista.

I tested a Latitude D630 (2.6GHz Core 2 Duo Penryn, 2GB RAM) with Vista Business and a 9-cell 85WHr battery. Life was over 5 hours.

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