News for Monday, 27 October 2008

We call on Steev' who tells us about his new MacBook Pro. His impressions diverge sometimes from ours; you will have several stories such as this.

As a daily reader of Macbidouille, I am happy to share information with others about the new range of MacBooks…
I am the happy purchaser an Apple MacBook Pro Aluminum, 15" Rev 2.4Ghz
I hope that you want to hear my general impressions on this machine.
1st impressions:
Mechanics : the aluminium & the unibody are splendid, more solid, rounder, sexier, however the aluminum colour is much lighter than that of the previous generation: maybe this is a simple impression, but the gray is quite clear… it is luminous.
The screen: black contour gives the effect that increases the size of the screen. It appears more luminous & richer, the colors are stronger also, The image is identical to a current iMac, I find that very agreable, in artificial light or natural, in spite of some reflections
….
Touchpad: it is beautiful, however the finger does not slip well and sometimes sticks, perhaps it is an effect of being new and should improve after a few hours use…
Having no button makes it difficult to adapt to even for an iPhone user during the 1st hour…
Keyboard: the back lit keys are splendid, and the touch has an incredible fluidity, it is soft, rapid, and intuitive, I find the keyboard the big attraction for Macbook Black 1st generation, and the keyboard was my big disappointment at the time my switch MacBook > MacBook Pro (old rev).
It is really thin, the fans are really quiet, reading CD/DVD also.
Battery: 2:00 of use, a reinstalment system (+30min)… battery level is at 70%…. I have the impression it holds well these promises of long battery life…

The almost world-wide availability of the iPhone and especially the fact that it is available at a good price without subscription decreased the interest of désimlockage, However the DevTeam did not cease working.
They have just put on line at their site a video attesting of their capacity to penetrate Baseband of the telephone what is a very important step to désimlock the device;
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/56396333/sunday-is-a-funday
The tools for desimlocking are not very far off.

In the words of Joël:

I allow myself to tell everyone not to install Flash 10. If you do then it is no longer possible to upload photographs to the MobileME galleries. After some search of Apple forums and some googling, it would seem that implementation of the command 'curl' has been a bit "screwed up".

We advise you to wait before installing Flash 10, at least if you use this service of MobileMe.

A report posted on Macrumors forum brings some information about the RAM management of the new MacBook Pro. The user indicates to have installed 2 DDR3 RAM modules of 4 GB each in a new MacBook Pro. After the installation, the notebook becomes unstable, and the system does not manage more than 4 GB of RAM.
However, according to the technical specifications, the hardware should support 8 GB of RAM without any problem, so it might indicate that Mac OS X is not set to manage more than 4 GB RAM for the moment. A similar problem was spotted with Mac Pro, and it disappeared from one day to another after an update. In addition, the same memory bug is present with the previous Penryn-MacBook Pro model if you install 2 DDR2 modules of 4 GB each.
We currently think that Apple did not implement support for 4GB RAM module as so far such modules were either not available or so highly priced that no one would install such modules in a MacBook Pro. Now with the current crisis on the RAM market, such RAM are no outrageously expensive anymore, so Apple will have to quickly implement such support as it becomes now required. Last but not least, if you install 6 GB of RAM in a MacBook Pro everything will work fine…

We want to reming our readers who are elligible to the Back To School offer that they can only benefit from it till the end of the week. It allows student to get up to 125 € cash back for the purchase simulatenous purchase of an iPod and a MacBook/MacBook Pro/iMac.
More information directly from your local Apple Store Education.

Hereafter are details and information we noticed after having tested the MacBook Pro for several days
- Heat release and fans
In standard usage, meaning no 3D request or tasks requiring CPU/GPU to be fully loaded for a long period, the MacBook Pro enclosure remains "cold", even if you are charging your battery. The bottom part of the new enclosure does not have the tendency to heat up as with the previous model, this is linked to the new design.
When launching CPU-demanding application (PowerFractal for 10 minutes), the temperature of the CPU quickly increases (test performed with the 2.8 GHZ Core 2 Duo model) and Hardware monitor indicates something interesting regarding the CPU cooling procedure: Fans keep spinning at 2000 rpm, till the CPU temperature reaches 105°C, then their speed increases gradually till 3600 rpm, one can hardly hear them. Then the speed is adjusted in order to maintain the CPU temperature just below 100°C. In such conditions, do not think of having your notebook on your knees, the enclosure is really hot.
Despite this high CPU temperature, we have used the notebook for more than 1 hour without any problem.
In summary, in normal usage, the new MacBook Pro is quieter and colder than the previous models.
- Trackpad
Its usage is just dead-easy and should not disturb you at all. In addition, if you were used to let one of you finger on the click button, with the new trackpad, the managing system takes it into account and does not react, except you press the glass pad for a real click.
The multi finger gesture is quickly acquired and you become addicted to this new function. When clicking, you will hear a sound much louder than with the previous model.
However, the thin space below the trackpad has rather sharp edges and one can scratch (without any damage) its palm or hands.
- Keyboard
We find it more comfortable than the one from the previous MBP model, even though many users liked the all-Alu feeling brought by the previous keyboard.
Concerning the keyboard backlighting, its management is not very precise, and it is turned on in lighting conditions which will not required it. It might be due to the sensor not properly calibrated or to its location (near the iSight) which decrease its sensitivity.
- GPU
In standard usage, the GeForce 9400M is more than enough power, and there is no noticeable slow down when using iApps. Except if you want to play recent or Open GL-demanding games, you will not really need to switch to the GeForce 9600M GT.
-Sound
It is overall much better than in the previous MacBook Pro, more powerful and with improved bass-rendering with its new sub-woofer. However, despite its higher quality, it comes from a notebook, so it can not be compared to any dedicated sound system.
- display
We will not discuss further the mirror-effect and its brightness as we already did it. But the image provided by this display is simply gorgeous, and makes color jumping out of the screen. The visible angle is also excellent and colors remain identical depending on your location when looking at the screen.
- Manufacturing The new MacBook Pro simply looks gorgeous, on all sides, the “finish” of the notebook is simply beautiful, perfectly well designed and executed. As we already mentioned it before, the only negative point is this thin space below the trackpad with rather sharp edge. Beside this point, the overall notebook looks solid, rigid, built to last. The display part is more rigid than in the past.
-Battery lifetime
The battery is now a 4600 mAh unit instead of a 5500 mAh with the previous MBP model. When using the new MBP for a standard usage on the GF 9400M, the battery will last more than 4 hours, especially if you slightly decrease the brightness of the display 3-4 levels below the max. It will add 20 minutes battery lifetime without altering the quality of the display rendering.
We will keep you posted with our comments in the coming days to better share with you our feelings about this new MacBook Pro.

According to several sources, new MacBook models seem to fly out of shelves, and especially the entry-level one. The large stocks initially provided by Apple to support the official launch of the product melted as ice-cream in the sun. As an example, one could not find a MacBook on Saturday in Paris among all resellers we called.
So, for many users the lack of FireWire does not seem to have been a real "must have" factor for defining which model to purchase. Shipping info on the Apple Store remains identical, and all MacBook models are available.

We performed a test of both GPUs present in the MacBook Pro with the specific application GL View 3.1. If there is no amazing graphics being displayed during the procedure, this application is reliable and free.
We have tested both GPUs with a default definition setting of 1440x900:

In such conditions, the GF 9600M GT is 4x faster than the GF 9400M. GL View 3.1 seems to have problems to properly handle Open GL 2.1.
We then pushed graphic specification one step further by selecting FSAA 4x:

As expected the performance gap between both GPUs increases further, and the GF 9600M GT is 4x faster than the GF 9400M. The difference would then be even more important if you plug an external display featuring higher definition. Last but not least, keep in mind that a GMA-powered MacBook would have been left in the dust.