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.
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Pirks - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
C'mon man, how else winzealots could defend themselves against such a thorough and lubeless pwning by that famous fruity company? They know they lost it in a fair comparison so they try to squeeze in any old and slow Pentium era junk they can found, just to pretend to not losing a face. Hilarious! You guys keep posting here, keep the show running, gimme some atom or another shittyslow Wintel laptop, I love your lame excuses! :))) So much fun today... ahhhh...BushLin - Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - link
I have no loving affinity to any company... I like to buy good value, high performance parts, hence why I normally overlook Apple.If these rather expensive and well marketed machines could get even close to that kind of battery life under Windows I'd be impressed. Right now I just see some tests under a proprietary OS, a bunch of Fanboys with too much time on their hands who should be where they belong, in Starbucks, posing, rather than on a serious tech site.
Hacp - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
Samsung's new drives with the new controlelsr, the same ones that are in the ocz summit and corsair p256 have a built in cleaning function when the drives are in an idle state. This makes worst case scenario performance a non factor in these drives.iwodo - Sunday, June 14, 2009 - link
If that is true even for the 128Gb SSD that apple offer then it would be a good deal from Apple.misium - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
Each time a Li-ion or polymer battery is charged its capacity decreases. Li-polymer batteries deteriorate even when they are not used - just by lying on the shelf.This explains why older laptops have lower battery time - their batteries are older.
You should test the new laptop in a year or two to make a fair comparison.
Also you could just put fresh batteries into the old laptops.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Sunday, June 14, 2009 - link
All of the laptops here used brand new batteries, with the exception of the 2006 Core Duo based MacBook Pro. I did test the 2006 notebook with a new battery and found an extra ~25 minutes of battery life I believe.Take care,
Anand
peroni - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
The new Acer timeline laptops based on Intel CULV processors claim a battery life of 8 hours, and that's when running vista!I bet with Win7 they could squeeze an extra hour out of it.
The processor is only running at 1.4GHz but on the other hand they're very light (for the screen size)
I'd love to see an Anandtech test on them.
JarredWalton - Monday, June 15, 2009 - link
Already requested. Can't wait to see how it fares in our tests....Johnmcl7 - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
but then again why let niggling little things such as facts get in the way of a nice and tidy Apple marketting piece. What a load of nonsense this is from a supposedly reputable tech site right from the start:"Apple did some clever work on its own here."
Total and utter nonsense, Apple have done no such clever work at all as it's all been done already. Many years ago Ericsson showed how polymer batteries could be used to reduce size in their super slim T28 and Apple are far from the first to do so for laptops. I expect the every day person on the street to get taken in by Apple's marketting but not a site like Anandtech, I'm also surprised that the battery no longer being removeable isn't really criticised as I think that's a really bad loss. Aside from not being able to use a second battery which is very handy for those who want good batterylife and there are single batteries out there that easily exceed these Macbooks but also if you have a failure you can easily swap it out for another.
"There’s no other way to say this. If you care about battery life and portability at all, buy the new MacBook Pro. Go to the Apple store and buy one. While I only tested the 15” model, I’m guessing the 13” model should leave a similar lasting impression."
Well I had to laugh at this point although I guess it's expecting too much by now to expect AT to have any clue about other laptops on the market. I'm currently typing this on a Sony laptop I bought back in 2005 which can last around eight hours on its normal battery and on its extended battery which is currently fitted it's around 12-13 hours putting these Macbooks to shame. As the battery is also removeable both together means the machine can last a long, long time away from the mains. Why someone would want a 15.4 inch Macbook (or even 13.3in) for batterylife and portability when there's other machines that are smaller, lighter and better batterylife I've no idea - the article reads as an advert for Apple and reading the conclusion you'd think AT were on a commission from them. It must be annoying for the likes of Sony though and others who bring genuine innovation to the market, get ignored then when Apple release the same technology a few years down the line they then get all the praise for it.
djuero - Saturday, July 4, 2009 - link
Sure you're able to post links to comparable machines to prove that?