The MacBook Pro Review (13 & 15-inch): 2011 Brings Sandy Bridge
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on March 10, 2011 4:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Mac
- Apple
- Intel
- MacBook Pro
- Sandy Bridge
FaceTime HD Cameras
One of the more subtle changes between the 2010 and 2011 MBPs (and other MacBooks) is the departure from strictly VGA "iSight" cameras. The new FaceTime HD cameras are 1280x720, though Photo Booth oddly still only captures at just VGA.
A quick run to the command line and use of isightcapture enables true native resolution capture at 1280x720 until Photo Booth gets updated (if ever). I propped a 2011, 2010, and 2006 MBP up inside my lightbox and setup the scene I usually use for smartphones, and tossed in a GMB color checker card. I took photos from the command line at full resolution with no compression with both tons of light from a huge CCFL, and again with very little light. You can immediately see how things have changed if you check out the gallery with those uncompressed photos at native resolution.
The 2011 MBP's optical system achieves almost the exact same magnification (eg the height of the test objects remains the same if you scale vertical resolution) as the 2010 model. You just get a wider image at higher resolution. It isn't perfect, and even with gobs of light there's noise visible, but the quality is dramatically better. White balance is changed, with the old 2010 model having a slightly reddish cast. The difference is easily discernible in the color checker card. The old model also had less than perfect exposure (the light part at the right of the cup is completely saturated) compared to the new. Dark performance is also slightly better, again with a different color cast.
Visually, I was hard pressed to notice anything different between the two cameras on the outside. The older 2010 MBP seems to have a larger aperture, subjectively, which seems the opposite of how I'd expect things to go.
Left: 2010 MBP, Right: 2011 MBP
The other part of the story is of course FaceTime HD itself, which ups the quality of FaceTime sent from the 2011 MBP from 320x240 to 720P. While the new MacBook Pros ship with FaceTime preinstalled, older Macs need to purchase it from the App Store for $0.99. FaceTime HD leverages Sandy Bridge's Quick Sync for encoding 720P, although as we pointed out earlier—CPU utilization is still quite high. While only 2011 MBPs can send HD FaceTime, there are also restrictions on what Macs have enough processing power to decode it.
FaceTime HD works pretty well. The application starts in a small portrait window but is both scalable and viewable in landscape as well.
There's no support for text communication during a FaceTime HD chat, just video. The video quality scales dynamically with available bandwidth. FaceTime HD worked over a 512Kbps upstream connection but had reduced quality compared to transmitting over a 2Mbps connection.
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jb510 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
It would seem to me their is one currently shipping Thunderbolt periphral... A 2011 MBP in target disk mode. Maybe you could drop an SSD in one and do some preliminary testing?jb510 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
damn... wish i could edit that comment originally typed on my iphone... but their doesn't appear to be any way... (misspelling repeated for comedic effect)deadshort - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Thanks for the genuinely informative review. Running both low-load and high-load battery tests is especially helpful to developers, etc.One question. You chose the 2.3Ghz/8MB cache system. Was that just 'cuz you swing that way, or do you expect significant performance benefits for some workload you care about? For these machines is it a 10% price goldplate, or a reasonable increment to keep these CPUs fed? I am seriously interested....
Brian Klug - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I can speak for myself at least, but part of the reason for the 2.3/8 MB system choice was that it's the only preconfigured (Apple Store available) configuration that comes with the anti-glare display.Essentially, if you're a customer walking into the apple store and don't want the glossy/glare display, you're immediately forced into buying the highest-specced (and most expensive) MacBook Pro. It's frustrating because the only way to get lower specced systems is BTO online.
Obviously we got these systems on launch date to immediately start working, and that was the reason for the 2.3 choice.
-Brian
synaesthetic - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
You know, I don't get this thin crap. I really don't.I mean, I can understand it. From a purely aesthetic point of view. Sort of, anyway.
I'm sick of "thin" gadgets with weak performance and fragile builds. Thick gadgets means more tech fits inside. My HTC Glacier is quite thin, and you know what? I wish it was thicker. It'd be easier to hold onto, and HTC could have put a bigger battery in it!
Stop making things so stupidly thin. Instead of driving the miniaturization of components on "thin," why not take that same miniaturization power and make things a bit thicker... with more power/cooling/battery inside?
Thin may be sexy, but powerful is even sexier!
Then again, Apple's never really cared to broadcast the specs of their devices, hoping instead to gloss over it to such a degree that nobody questions paying ridiculously inflated prices...
Marc B - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I am finally buying my first MacBook this year, and I am 70/30 leaning toward the 15" MBP. The 17" version has the high res screen and express port, but the 15" MBP is lighter/smaller and has the SDXC reader. Will the Thunderbolt port will provide enough throughput to allow simultaneous in/out?I am using this to log HD video on location, and was wondering if the express port is no longer necessary to use with a small ESATA array now that you can have high speed storage in and out using the Thunderbolt port.
Belard - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
If Apple is pushing their notebooks to be more and more Desktop replacements...Where is a docking bay to handle all the connectors? How hard for a single connector to handle everything?
Lenovo sells about 3 different Docking units $130~300 for their regular Thinkpad line (ie: NOT Edge or L/SL series).
We have a few users who use them. Comes to the office, drop the notebook into the dock and turn it on, not a single cable to be attached. They include 4 USB ports (or more), PS/2 ports, HDMI and DVI ports, Ethernet and of course charge up the battery.
So one user would have to plug in 7 cables everyday if he didn't have a dock... like his keyboard, wireless desktop mouse, 21" display, various printers and devices, etc.
name99 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
" I still haven't figured out how to actually grab SINR out on here, all I can see for the moment is just RSSI. "Apple's Airport Utility does give you part of what you want.
If you open it, go to "Manual Setup", see the summary page, and click on where it says "Wireless Clients: 2" (or 3 or whatever) you will be given a page that, for each connection, shows their signal and noise levels (along with a graph).
Of course this doesn't exactly have any bearing on what we are discussing, because the numbers that are presented are the intermediate term SINR values, relevant to shadowing but not to fading. The numbers that are relevant to fading (and thus to MIMO tricks) change on a millisecond time scale, and so what one really wants is an indication of their standard deviation, along with other info like the connection diversity. This is all way more geeky than Apple (or any other consumer company) is going to provide.
humunculus - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Any chance you could run a few of the tests on the 2.0 and 2.2 GHz models. I am interested in how much performance difference there is between the 2.2 and 2.3 GHz 15 inch Macbook Pro models. It is hard to assess if the 10% cost increase is warranted. ThanksBelard - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
The $400 price difference is for the extra 200mhz (Apple values that at $250 - these are notebook CPUs, so pricing from intel is a factor)And then $150 to sometimes double the performance of the GPU for games.
Oh, and an extra 250GB of HD space (which is about $5 in the real world).