This MacBook Pro 15 inch is my first Mac and I’m totally loving every single bit of it. In this review, I’ll be talking about the Design, Display, Performance, Battery Life, Software, Downsides, and the Conclusion.
Design:
First off, this is probably the best built laptop I’ve ever held and used. The reason why it’s so well built is because it has this thing called the Unibody enclosure. A unibody enclosure is basically a single block of aluminum and a machine basically carves all the ports and the speaker grills. With the Unibody enclosure, you’ll get a laptop that’s solid, thin and light. In the PC market, you can’t find something that is well built, thin, and light. Some might say that ThinkPads are also well built, but they are not as thin and light. Some might compare the ThinkPad X301 which is well built and actually thinner than the MacBook Pro. Well, typical thin and light PC’s like the X301 uses ULV processors because of the chassis design. So, you’re basically sacrificing performance for the thin and light form factor in the PC world.
Display:
I think the MacBook Pro’s 15 inch 1440×900 screen deserves it’s own section because the screen is simply amazing. This screen has a 60% color gamut, which provides extremely rich and vibrant colors.
Performance:
This MacBook Pro 15 inch has an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 Processor running at 2.53GHz, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 250GB 5400 RPM HardDrive, Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics with 256MB of shared memory, and a 8X SuperDrive. With this MacBook Pro, I get extremely fast performance. Everything just loads quick and fluently. For example, iTunes loads in 5 seconds, Safari loads almost instant, and iMovie loads in an impressive time of 8 seconds. Also, boot up takes 28 seconds and shutdown takes 3 seconds. The NVIDIA 9400M is quite impressive for being integrated graphics. The 9400M handles high resolution pictures quickly and iMovie editing is smooth. There is one complaint with the 9400M and I think this problem applies to all integrated graphics. The problem is that it uses some of my RAM. I believe this is normal for all integrated graphics, but it kind of bugs me since I always use a lot of RAM. *cough* Flash *cough*
Battery Life:
Apple claims that the MacBook Pro gets around 7 hours. Based on my web surfing test, I get around 6-7 hours with the display brightness half way and heavy YouTube usage. Now, I expected less than 6 hours because of the bigger screen, but I was wrong. Simply, this is truly amazing battery life.
Software:
The version of OSX that came with my Mac was 10.6.2 but upgraded to 10.6.3. OSX might be the best OS I’ve ever used. The reason why I think it’s the best is because it just works. OSX is quick and extremely stable. In OSX, I’ve never gotten a crash or any type of slowdown what so ever. However, OSX might need getting used to. For example, you’ll have to get used to the Window Management and especially the Finder. For me, the Finder took me a while to get used to it. The MacBook Pro comes with iLife 09 Suite which includes iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, and iWeb. iMovie might be the best piece of software that comes with a computer. iMovie is simple and extremely powerful. This is 1000x better than Windows Live Movie Maker.
Downsides:
Ok, on to the downsides. The first one downside is that the MacBook Pro only has 2 USB’s. Now, first off, I think this is unexceptable for being a 15 inch laptop and having a price tag of $1699. But, I think Apple had could not fit an extra USB port due to the design. My last downside is a big one. The biggest downside is the glossy screen and let me tell you, it’s extremely glossy. This gets really annoying when the sun is facing you and fingerprints shows up easily.
Conclusion:
Overall, the MacBook Pro might be the best computer that I’ve ever owned. Simply because of the quality that Apple puts in their products. I’ve never seen a company put so much care and effort in the design of their products. From now on, I will never switch back to a PC and will be trying to use a Mac full time.
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