This past Tuesday Apple released new Penryn-based MacBooks and MacBook Pros. This upgrade has been anticipated by Mac-enthusiasts for months, and the release has notebook users from all generations wanting to upgrade their notebooks.
I, on the other hand, cannot understand the madness. MacBook Pro owners using only a six-month old MacBook Pro are dumping their “old” notebooks in favor of the new model. For what, minor upgrades? To fully understand my side of the story, I need to first describe my current notebook:
- MacBook Pro 15-inch Santa Rosa
- Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz Processor
- G.Skill 4GB DDR2 667MHz RAM (2×2048)
- Western Digital Scorpio 320GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
Now with that said, I will begin enumerating the stupidity.
Minor Speed Bumps
Everyone always brags about the speed of new machines, but I have started asking myself is it really needed? Processors have become powerful enough for just about any task, so that the normal Mac user will never notice the difference from a 2.0GHz Santa Rosa Core 2 Duo to a 2.6GHz Penryn Core 2 Duo. The only people who will notice the increased speed are video professionals. In that case, is the extra 2 seconds gained rendering a half hour long file really worth the price? I don’t think so.
Multi-touch Technology
Alright, I admit that the new multi-touch capable trackpad is cool, but is it useful? I could see myself occasionally using the trackpad in iPhoto, but beyond that it would have no use. Not to mention, myself and most of the notebook owners I know dock their notebook to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, thus making the trackpad useless in those scenarios.
Increased Storage
Yes, the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros have increased storage capacity, but again, is that a big deal? Nothing has changed in the past few years with magnetic hard drive technology, so even the oldest Intel notebooks can be upgraded to a 320GB hard drive, a size that Apple doesn’t even offer as a BTO option. Oh, and for those who say the MacBook Pro’s hard drive is not upgradable, performing a drive swap is not that difficult.
The New Keyboard
Fair enough. The keyboard function keys have been rearranged for more optimal use. So, people are dropping $2000 on some ink placed in a different spot? I never thought the MacBook Pro’s function keys were that bad. Even if they are, the MacBook Pro has an extra programmable key that can come in handy. By the way, I don’t like the keyboard’s new blue glow, so I think my MacBook Pro’s white glow is superior.
A Decent Package
You got me. The new MacBooks and MacBook Pros are amazing machines and certainly worth the upgrade if you have an older notebook. I just think the upgrades are not substantial enough from the Santa Rosa models for anyone to rush out and purchase a Penryn-based notebook. The Santa Rosa platform has more life left than people think, and we have not even reached the memory caps (64GB) or hard drive caps (infinity) yet. Although, if people want to waste their money that’s fine by me. Just don’t forget to order the now optional Apple Remote for $19, while I enjoy my Santa Rosa MacBook Pro for a few more years.
9 Comments
the peryn mbp is also uses the santa rosa chipset. The difference is your machine has a meron CPU. Apart fron that the chipset is identical
I’m aware the Penryn MacBook Pro also has a Santa Rosa chipset, however, the Apple rumors community seems to now be calling the older generation MacBook Pro the Santa Rosa model and the new model the Penryn model. Therefore, I followed that naming convention in my article.
This article is useless because who exactly is upgrading to a Penryn MBP from a Santa Rosa one? No one I bet. This is refresh is good news for those who waiting like me and wanted more for my money rather than buying technology at a June 2007 price point. The bump in graphics from 128MB to 256 on the standard model is extremely useful for games (this is the biggest difference imo and you missed it) and the 45nm processors produce less heat and use less energy.
The only useful news in your quite shallow review is the link to the hd-exchange guide. So, despite the two minutes wasted in reading your review, thanks for the link.
Hello albert, sorry to hear you did not enjoy my article. Just for the record, I did not intend to write a review of the new MBPs. I wanted to write an opinion article geared toward to the insane Mac fanboism I’ve seen lately. I apologize if the article did not come across as I intended, and I just wanted to remind you, you always have the option of *not* reading something you’re not interested in.
I upgraded as my last Mac was a Powerbook 17@1.5ghz.
The new machine is sweet, and I’ve really come to like the scroll gesture, which allows you to scroll windows with a two fingered swipe. The other gestures are nice in iPhoto, but the scroll gesture translates into the entire system – even in VMWare Fusion windows.
No more moving the pointer to the side scroll bar, or reaching for the scroll keys.
It almost makes me like using a trackpad.
Ronald, I’m in a similar situation as you; I have a MBP very close in spec to your machine. The biggest advantage in the new MBP models was the LED screen technology. Right now, I have my machine tweaked for maximum performance and I still can’t make it last past 3 hours at the library or at a coffee shop. Still, I won’t drop 2 grand just for an extra half hour of battery life. I’d much rather buy a second battery.
Upgraded to a shiny new Penryn-based machine myself (My first MacBook Pro; previously I had a 1.67 PowerBook G4), and I don’t expect to upgrade again for at least the next two years.
Um, a slight correction: the new Penryn-based keyboard don’t have an ‘Enter’ key next to the arrow keys anymore (the key has been changed to another ‘Option’ key), so that Programmable Key magic no longer works.
As the owner of a new Macbook Pro Penryn with the multi-touch trackpad, I am not too happy. My MBP misses keystrokes at random, one in every 10 or 15 keystrokes is missed. The issue is documented on Apple Defects at:
http://appledefects.com/wiki/index.php?title=MacBook_Pro#Faulty_keyboard
More keyboard issues are on
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7023574
It seems Apple released a firmware update for the MBPs recently, but it doesnt apply to the Penryn models. I do hope Apple fixes this glitch soon. Having a new computer malfunction from day one, and then attempt to take it back to applecare and find out that the parts to be replaced are out of stock isnt fun.
One Trackback/Pingback
[...] Kijött az új macbook, macbook pro kollekció. Új Penryn alapú (jelentsen ez bármit is
) core2duo processzorok vannak bennük, s egy picit gyorsabbak lettek. Aha. Ezt a sebességnövekedést (0.2 GHZ) az átlag felhasználó nem hiszem, hogy megérezné. Multitouch touchpad. Aha. Szerintem az emberek nagy része a laptopját külső egérrel használja, tehát abszolut irreleváns a dolog. Új, programozható funkcióbillentyű a mbp-ban. Megvagyok nélküle, köszönöm szépen. 
Az egész történetet nálam jobban összefoglalja Ronald. [...]