Apple's 2009 MacBook Pro: Battery Life to Die For
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 12, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
SSD: Optional and Non-Intel
My only major complaint about the MacBook Pro is, once again, that it does not come with a SSD standard. I understand, however, to cut costs and do such a thing would be impossible today. For $350 Apple will upgrade your hard drive to the latest 128GB Samsung MLC SSD; for $800 you'll get 256GB. I can't stress how much you shouldn't buy the 256GB drive; prices are dropping too quickly for that to be a good deal. If you can hold out until next year you'll be able to get that capacity at half the price.
My other major complaint is Apple's refusal to offer Intel's X25-M as an option on its MacBook Pro line. The Samsung drive Apple uses is the same drive Corsair is selling right now. It's a decent drive, offers good compatibility and reliability, but in terms of worst case scenario performance I haven't found it nearly as good as the Intel drive.
I'm not saying that Apple should only offer the Intel drive, but it should at least be an option. For a company obviously concerned with the overall package, it seems odd to leave out one of the strongest SSDs on the market. Especially given how close Apple and Intel are already.
A good, standard SSD is the only thing separating this MacBook Pro from perfection.
Update on Build Quality and Trackpad
The build quality of the new MacBook Pro remains unchanged and unparalleled. This thing is solid, and it looks pretty sweet too.
The glass covered trackpad that I had issues with in my original review now works totally fine. I no longer have any problems with clicks not registering under OS X. Within a month of the first unibody MacBook Pro release Apple put out an update designed to address those issues, so I believe this has been fixed for a while.
Thanks to the cool running Penryn core, the MacBook Pro doesn't really get more than warm at its base. The glass covered display is still quite glare happy, but indoors it looks great and in certain situations outdoors it’s acceptable.
I won’t go too much further into the displays or other features of the unibody MacBook Pro, I already did that in our original coverage of the machine.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
113 Comments
View All Comments
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
The 9600M was not present in the MBP I tested. I bought the entry level $1699 one.Take care,
Anand
ImSpartacus - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Yeah, I don't like that Apple doesn't say exactly what kind of processors they offer. It's depressing.Why can't AT tell us what processor the MBP has? Couldn't you just run CPUZ on Windows or something? Is it harder than I think it is?
aeternitas - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Apple isn't made for people that care that much about that stuff. It just doesn't matter. Faster = Faster. Expensive or not, not everyone wants to hax their way to OS X on a built PC either. Its not depressing, its simplistic and works.PlasmaBomb - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
I should have checked wikipedia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro
Processors used in the mid '09 refresh are - 2.26GHz (P8400), 2.53GHz (P8700), 2.66GHz (P8800) Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB on-chip L2 cache or 2.8GHz (P9700) Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB on-chip L2 cache.
There is also an optional to upgrade from the 2.8GHz chip to a 3.06GHz (T9900) with 6MB on-chip L2 cache (costs $300).
JarredWalton - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Worth noting is that the P series CPUs (P8400-P8800) are generally 25W TDP while the T series (T9400-T9900) are 35W TDP. I think that's correct. Anyway, one thing that likely changed with these new MacBooks is that Apple switched to the lower TDP CPUs. Perhaps Anand can confirm?chrone - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
intel atom combined with this unibody batteray will do 24hours rock solid macbook mini. lol :D hope they bring that to netbook.ltcommanderdata - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
The previous Late 2008 Unibody's 2.4GHz processor was also a P series with 25W TDP so it isn't a matter of just using lower TDP processors since it's unchanged.It would be interesting if Anand could do a battery life comparison in Windows under Boot Camp comparing the new MacBook Pro with the previous Late 2008 Unibody. If the margins remain the same between the models, then the optimization is likely in the firmware of the various components or the processor has been undervolted. If the battery life improvement margin falls in Windows, then the optimizations are in OS X.
PlasmaBomb - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Good call :)ltcommanderdata - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Actually, if you look at Apple's publicly listed processor specs for the 2.53GHz model, I'm pretty sure there is only one processor it can be. Apple quotes the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo as having 3MB L2 cache. That makes it a P8700. The older T9400 and P9500 had 6MB L2 cache. Similarly the 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo is the P8800 just released by Intel since it too has 3MB L2 cache.PlasmaBomb - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Thanks, it does indeed state the cache sizes on the site under tech. spec., however the older spec. isn't there any more and you have to look.It is of interest as the '08 macbook ran a T9400 @2.53 GHz (35W), and the early '09 macbook ran a T9559 @ 2.66 GHz (35W).
So there should be a greater improvement in CPU heavy tasks between the early '09 and mid '09 2.66 GHz MBPs (although not covered by this review).