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Kdog01 · Jul 5, 2006, 10:04 PM

I am seriously considering upgrading to a new macbookpro, I was just curious as to how the experience was different with the new machine. Barefeats and Xbench can give me benchmarks, but is the machine snappier, do webpages load faster? etc. Also, how does the heat compare?

Much thanks

Marid · Jul 5, 2006, 10:31 PM

I just took the plunge a month ago. I sold my 1.5 GHz G4 PB and bought a 2.16 GHz Mac Book Pro. For many things The Snappy is real. The Finder and Safari are definitely faster. Doom3 and Quake4 look and play much better. However, non-universal Apps are a mixed bag. Word and Excel run well. Entourage is a bit dodgy. Illustrator is slow. Switching to it when it's been in the background for awhile is painful. I guess the important question is, what applications do you need to use the most? If you are using Illustrator (and probably any Adobe app) a lot, wait until Spring '07 when CS3 is supposed to be out.

Kdog01 · Jul 5, 2006, 11:00 PM

How is the heat in comparison? How about in closed mode?

Games are kinda important to me, or else I would just get a macbook. Sounds like you are pretty happy with the game performance.

Did you go with the glossy screen?

Thanks

Marid · Jul 5, 2006, 11:12 PM

I got the matte screen. A friend has the glossy screen MacBook and it does look great, but I prefer the non-glare matte screen.

If games are important to you I wouldn't get a MacBook. The integrated video will irritate you. My friend was really disappointed when he found out that my old Powerbook ran Doom3 at twice the fps as his new MacBook. Apple didn't cut corners on the CPU, but the price was video. I played through Doom3 twice with my PB, but I may play through it again with my MBP. The shadows, lighting effects, and raw performance improvements are really spiffy. Quake4 ran quite well too. It helps to have extra performance in a high pace game. UT2k4 also runs much better. Old games like RTCW seem to run fine, although I didn't play it much beyond the first level.

The MPB does get hot, but so did my PB. If you aren't upset with the heat of a PB, a MBP shouldn't bother you. I haven't noticed the whine that some complain of.

FYI, this is a refurb 2.16 with the 100 GB 7200 RPM drive and one stick of 1 GB RAM. I'm shopping for another 1 GB stick this evening. Rosetta really does eat up RAM.