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paul w · Feb 22, 2006, 06:31 PM

So my mother just recived her 2.0 ghz MacBook and I'm taking it for a spin, side by side with my 1ghz tibook (1gb ram and 5400 rpm hd).

What bugs me the most, more than any concerns with Photoshop and Illustrator (both CS 1 work fine actually) is the heat and battery life. Both are much wrose than my tibook. It's no contest. This thing gets hot IMMEDIATELY. And the battery life - when I unplugged it, the reading was 2:27. It's creeping up towards 3 hours, but back in the day even my new, hot, fans-a-roaring tibook got 3 hours, easy.

The left side of thing is almost unconfortably hot after less than an hour. And battery life looks to be the worst of any of the recent powerbooks.

Kenstee · Feb 22, 2006, 06:41 PM

So, did you first callibrate the battery as per the instructions in the manual?

If not, do it then report back. If you already have, then I guess you have a legit complaint.

iobuffa · Feb 22, 2006, 07:06 PM

Please calibrate the battery first before making judgements about the battery life. Those numbers around the battery life tend to fluctuate. Mine was as high as 4:04 and as low as 2:15 on a full charge. About the heat, it took a few hours of heavy usage for mine to get hot.

d0GGii · Feb 22, 2006, 07:38 PM

im still waiting to buy a MacBook Pro

but the heat issue is quite annoying since the heat on ibook 12'' is killing me already

paul w · Feb 22, 2006, 07:51 PM

You're all right of course. What got my goat more was the heat - this thing got hot veeerry quickly.

Battery being calibrated.

moodymonster · Feb 22, 2006, 08:13 PM

how hot is hot though?

All PBs/iBooks got hot when pushed hard, but in normal usage (sofar) tend to be 'just' warm.

yticolev · Feb 22, 2006, 10:43 PM

The Tibook has far better battery life than any recent model. As far as getting hot, you definitely maxed out the MPB. Photoshop has to use Rosetta to run. Even so, it was probably faster than the Tibook running natively. Also, the Aluminum form factor is hotter than the Tibook, even in the G4 versions - I've owned both.

iobuffa · Feb 22, 2006, 11:24 PM

Originally Posted by yticolev

The Tibook has far better battery life than any recent model. As far as getting hot, you definitely maxed out the MPB. Photoshop has to use Rosetta to run. Even so, it was probably faster than the Tibook running natively. Also, the Aluminum form factor is hotter than the Tibook, even in the G4 versions - I've owned both.

I still have Photoshop 7 and you are exactly right! Photoshop under Rosetta emulation is snappier than it was running natively on my old TiBook.

iobuffa · Feb 22, 2006, 11:25 PM

Originally Posted by moodymonster

how hot is hot though?

All PBs/iBooks got hot when pushed hard, but in normal usage (sofar) tend to be 'just' warm.

Well I measure heat by how long it takes me to pull my hand away when touching the unit. And now, after 2-3 hours of usage, installing and patching WoW, I can't keep my bare hand on the bottom for more than 3 seconds....

PiñaGrande · Feb 22, 2006, 11:29 PM

I have been using my MBP all day and it is just barely warm to the touch. Something is wrong with it.

iobuffa · Feb 22, 2006, 11:35 PM

Originally Posted by PiñaGrande

I have been using my MBP all day and it is just barely warm to the touch. Something is wrong with it.

How cold is it there in the Rocky Mountains?

paul w · Feb 22, 2006, 11:44 PM

I really haven't pushed it that hard. It's hot on the left hand side - and I don't mean warm, I mean hot. The Tibook never got so hot on the top. But it IS quiet compared to the tibook - maybe the fans aren't pulling their weight.

I ran the MacBook side by side with my tibook. Doing the same things in various apps to see how they responded. The MacBook was HOT before the tibook even got warm.

Hornet · Feb 23, 2006, 12:05 AM

What energy saver performance do you all have your MBP's on?

Try setting it on highest, then using the laptop on your lap doing demanding stuff for an hour. Or run a couple of instances of handbrake in the background while surfing the web casually - that should keep it busy enough. I challenge any of you to report the MBPs are only warm after that. My 1.67 gets damn hot when I push it, and it annoys the hell out of me how hot apples pro laptops get (finally though they actually perform quickly while hot, vs slow and hot, but what the hey).

Still dreaming of a 13" mbp all redesigned to be slimmer and cooler. They addressed the noise issues with G4s in the G5, maybe they'll address the (entire alu line - G4 and core duo) heat issues in the powerbooks/mbp's at some point...

iobuffa · Feb 23, 2006, 12:09 AM

Originally Posted by Hornet

What energy saver performance do you all have your MBP's on?

Currently set to "Normal"

aristotles · Feb 23, 2006, 12:25 AM

Ok, the Aluminum laptop as expected to get hot on the outside. It uses the external shell for cooling. Take a look at this fanless PC case. The Aluminum in that case is used to draw heat from the heat pipes to the external surface of the case.

Consider how thin these macbooks are and how much power is packed in it. Your Tibook has slower GPU and only one core. All things considered, they are pretty damn cool all things considered.

mrmister · Feb 23, 2006, 03:22 AM

That may be true, but they are still very hot. I think it is an unfortunate trend in laptop design.

Hornet · Feb 23, 2006, 04:34 AM

Yeah, so hence dreaming for apple to make a COOL laptop in the near future

core duo ultra low voltage perhaps..

analogika · Feb 23, 2006, 05:59 AM

I'd MUCH rather have hot and quiet over cool and loud.

It was a sad, sad day when the 10.3.2 update changed the threshold temperature for the fan on my 12" Powerbook from 65 to 55 degrees C.

Made a HUGE difference to me.

darcybaston · Feb 23, 2006, 12:53 PM

Macworld had this to say about battery life of MBP:

But I can report the result of our first battery test, in which we played a DVD on a 15-inch PowerBook G4 and a MacBook Pro until their respective batteries died, with Energy Saver preferences turned off. The end result: the MacBook Pro died after two hours and three minutes, and the PowerBook died four minutes later. So at least in our first test, the battery life of the MacBook Pro seems in line with the battery life on the last-generation PowerBook G4.

danonamac · Feb 23, 2006, 12:59 PM

You guys must not be used to PC Laptops. This Macbook does get hot, but it's nothing compared to some Dells and Sonys. As for fans - again, nothing compared to the PCs.

The battery, I've seend the same, ful charge can show 3.5 and 2.5 within minutes of each other. Overall, battery life is identical to my G4 Powerbook. Not bad given the faster processor, graphics and high res screen.

pete · Feb 23, 2006, 02:01 PM

Originally Posted by danonamac

You guys must not be used to PC Laptops. This Macbook does get hot, but it's nothing compared to some Dells and Sonys. As for fans - again, nothing compared to the PCs.

The battery, I've seend the same, ful charge can show 3.5 and 2.5 within minutes of each other. Overall, battery life is identical to my G4 Powerbook. Not bad given the faster processor, graphics and high res screen.

I don't know, but the Thinkpad T40 I used for several months last year with a centrino processor had great battery life, felt very speedy and was never hotter than lukewarm underneath and always cool on top. My powerbook G4 1.67ghz is MUCH hotter.

gperks · Feb 23, 2006, 04:58 PM

I'm with Pete. My Dell 2GHz Latitude is much cooler than my 1.25GHz AlBook.

The Dell is however, louder (you can always hear fans) and the screen gives off a constant high pitched whine, which peaks up and down every few seconds. The Dell (a fairly high-end model, the D600) is also uglier (much) and the keyboard feel is worse than the Macs.

I just returned from the Austin Apple Store where I felt the bottom of a 2GHz Macbook that was sitting there idle. HOT! I wouldn't like that heat sat on my legs. Power settings were normal except for spinning down the HDs. The adjacent 1.67 AlBooks were about as hot though. The RAM cover on my AlBook gets very hot. The Macbook's heat seemed highest near the hinge slightly left of middle.

The Macs are noticeably hotter than competing (plastic, louder-fanned) models. Pros and cons, pros and cons.

I am curious if the 1.83GHz Macbook runs noticeably cooler than the 2GHz model.

iobuffa · Feb 23, 2006, 05:56 PM

Originally Posted by pete

I don't know, but the Thinkpad T40 I used for several months last year with a centrino processor had great battery life, felt very speedy and was never hotter than lukewarm underneath and always cool on top. My powerbook G4 1.67ghz is MUCH hotter.

I agree with this. I've used my Thinkpad T41 for many many many hours at a time with nowhere near the heat of the MBP. I'll still use the MBP over the T41 though

Super Mario · Feb 23, 2006, 05:59 PM

Why are some of you comparing a dual core's heat to a single core?

John123 · Feb 23, 2006, 06:06 PM

I felt the bottom of a couple 2 Ghz MBPs yesterday, and they didn't feel abnormally warm to me. The left grill was warmer than my PB, but nothing to get in a tizzy about.

SiliconAddict · Feb 23, 2006, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by pete

I don't know, but the Thinkpad T40 I used for several months last year with a centrino processor had great battery life, felt very speedy and was never hotter than lukewarm underneath and always cool on top. My powerbook G4 1.67ghz is MUCH hotter.

It also

- Didn't have a 667Mhz bus...+1 for heat.
- Didn't have a dual core CPU...+1 for heat.
- Didn't have a metal shell (Which conducts heat better then plastic.) +1 for heat.
- Didn't have faster DDR RAM +1 for heat.
- Didn't have the GPU that is in this puppy. (+2 for heat. IBM nas never shipped any of their T series with anything remotely powerful for a GPU.)

IMHO I would rather know that heat is being radiated OUT of a system then having it stay inside and slowly dissipate through a plastic shell.
I can say this about the MBP. MBP + a laptop cooler pad = one cool laptop. I was ripping movies all night long last night and with the pad I purchased that also has a metal surface. It stayed warm to the touch at most. There is simply NO way of getting around the fact that if you hit the system hard you are going to generate heat. Its simple physics.

mduell · Feb 23, 2006, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by Super Mario

Why are some of you comparing a dual core's heat to a single core?

Why not? The dual core chip only uses 4W (13%) more than the old single core chips used at maximum, and about the same amount of power at idle.

Originally Posted by SiliconAddict

- Didn't have the GPU that is in this puppy. (+2 for heat. IBM nas never shipped any of their T series with anything remotely powerful for a GPU.)

Oh yea, those FireGL's in the T4xP are so not powerful.

(yea, I was having a hard time maintaining proper english and conveying the sarcasm)

Hornet · Feb 23, 2006, 11:13 PM

Its obvious that cool-to-touch core duo laptops will be easy to obtain shortly; the likes of IBM and such. The aluminium design has always been extremely hot compared to what *can* be done - with a G4 it was way hotter than a centrino, and with a core duo chip (whcih only makes a fraction more heat/power draw more) than a single core chip. Yes the aluminium lets the heat dissipate out so that it doesn't cook itself (ie good), but it stands to reason that apple could design it a lot *better* with a stronger focus on cooling that didnt require the entire exterior to turn into an oven. IBM has been able to do it for some time, and hopefully with this vaio engineers apple picked up from sony, we may see an all new enclosure, complete with a dual core chip but also a better thought out cooling system.

John123 · Feb 23, 2006, 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by Hornet

we may see an all new enclosure, complete with a dual core chip but also a better thought out cooling system.

I don't necessarily disagree with this. As a friend of mine and I both noted when the MBPs first came out, they reek of a product that tried to throw something a little new into an old framework, more or less.

However, I think looking back on history bears some lessons. When the PowerBook G4/400 and G4/500 were introduced, they sported a G4 and a new enclosure (which held a bigger screen), but inside, the guts were remarkably similar to the wonderful G3 that preceded it. Users who have been with Apple for a long time will recall that these early laptops, too, were criticized for their heat dissipation. That problem actually lasted through the next revision -- the 550/667 -- with some users complaining they were "too hot" and others feeling they were fine. It wasn't until the 667/800 and the 867/1Ghz that they really began to be a polished product.

Is an overall exterior design change coming? Maybe. Are there internal architectural changes that can probably help in lieu of that? You betcha.

This all comes down to whether people want to be early adopters or not. I personally decided this was for me. I don't mind the heat (no pun intended) because I get pissed watching my CPU monitor hover around 60-80% just web browsing and not being able to do much else. For some other users, the choice may be different.

JKT · Feb 24, 2006, 09:40 AM

It seems to me that Apple have intentionally kept these model Intel Macs looking as similar as possible to their older versions for the simple reason that it signals "nothing's changed - it may have an Intel chip in it, but it is still the same Mac that you had before... so nothing to worry about."

It's psychology - don't panic the buyers or shareholders with radical changes that make the monumental technological shift to an entirely different CPU architecture feel alien to them. Will the next revision keep the same look once its become clear that the transition has been an overwhelming success - I doubt it?

Kenstee · Feb 24, 2006, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

It seems to me that Apple have intentionally kept these model Intel Macs looking as similar as possible to their older versions for the simple reason that it signals "nothing's changed - it may have an Intel chip in it, but it is still the same Mac that you had before... so nothing to worry about."

It's psychology - don't panic the buyers or shareholders with radical changes that make the monumental technological shift to an entirely different CPU architecture feel alien to them.

I couldn't disagree more. If Apple had come out with a new drop-dead new look I don't think Wall Street and the public would have perceived it as a negative at all. I wish they had.

paul w · Feb 24, 2006, 10:22 AM

By the way, once calibrated the MacBook battery got me just under 3 hours of light work (some browsing, some editing in bbedit, opened a file in photoshop and resized it, etc).

I guess that's ok, but I was kinda hoping for a little more. However I can't compare it to the albooks as I never owned one.

analogika · Feb 24, 2006, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by Kenstee

I couldn't disagree more. If Apple had come out with a new drop-dead new look I don't think Wall Street and the public would have perceived it as a negative at all. I wish they had.

I work in retail, and from what I saw, there was/is a lot of trepidation from Mac users for a variety of reasons - partly FUD about Intel, partly nervousness about software compatibility, partly insecurity about Apple's future course in hardware design.

It was extremely important for Apple to signal that *nothing* is changing wrt to user experience, and keeping virtually identical cases in the first generation of Intel Macs was a conscious and necessary decision to make.

gmsmith · Feb 25, 2006, 12:58 PM

And you guys were concerned and complaining about battery life....

Me thinks there might be a small problem in the code that displays battery life....I had the laptop plugged in overnight...unplugged it and had this for about 5 minutes before it reset to 3 hours and change.

moodymonster · Feb 25, 2006, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by gmsmith

And you guys were concerned and complaining about battery life....

Me thinks there might be a small problem in the code that displays battery life....I had the laptop plugged in overnight...unplugged it and had this for about 5 minutes before it reset to 3 hours and change.

I'm not getting one until it's 340 hours

btw - some thread on ars was talking about how apple didn't seem to using intel's power saving stuff:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/grou...8005087731/p/5

so future system updates may see battery life improvements.

mduell · Feb 25, 2006, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by moodymonster

btw - some thread on ars was talking about how apple didn't seem to using intel's power saving stuff:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/grou...8005087731/p/5

so future system updates may see battery life improvements.

All I see in that thread is that Apple doesn't allow you to set the CPU voltages yourself. Short of a bug like Microsoft's USB async scheduler, I'd expect the MBP/OSX to support everything through C4.

Liquidity X · Feb 25, 2006, 11:54 PM

just my observations, I get about 3.5 hours of battery on Normal usage. As far as heat goes mine gets warm up but the charger when charging, and gets hot in the middle, far end of the bottom (by the hindge) and on the hindge, but only when playing wow or other high load applications.

CyberPet · Feb 26, 2006, 03:09 PM

I won't trust the indicator on the computer anyway, it is always wrong (usually to my advantage - it always seem to show less time than the factual time I get out of my 3+ year old batteries - now about 2 hours each).

amazing · Feb 26, 2006, 04:57 PM

according the review at MacWorld mag, the battery life and heat are similar to the previous 15".

However, just like when the 12" rev A first came out, people found wild variation in temps between individual laptops without any real explanations as to how that could happen. So you'd have people writing about how hot it was while other people with the same rev A model would write in about how normal theirs was. They'd be getting mad at each other, when in reality the 12" rev A did run hot, but some individual models ran hotter than others. That rev almost got the nickname "Firebook." I personally confirmed this at the time, 'cause I went around to various shops feeling the 12". Some were blazing hot on the bottom and on the left palmrest, others weren't so bad.

Keep in mind that some reviewers are working in A/C and we haven't hit any really hot summer room temps yet (maybe in Florida?) The room temp makes a huge difference.

Mainly, we're all just waiting for some consensus to form out of all the reviews and the opionions. Once the initial flurries settle, then the real picture begins to emerge.