Apple’s 45nm Refresh: New MacBook & MacBook Pro
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 29, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
The new MacBook and MacBook Pro, much like the MacBook Air before them, are much more functions of Intel's innovation rather than Apple's. In the case of the new MacBook and Pro models, the innovation is almost exclusively limited to what Intel has been able to do with mobile Penryn as Apple made no changes to the exterior of either system.
Regardless of where the innovation comes from, it is still an improvement in technology and mobile Penryn proves to be everything we expected it to be. The biggest improvement by far comes in the battery life department. Just as we had seen earlier, you can expect these new models to outlast their predecessors by a good 7 - 15%.
The performance side of things is more of a mixed bag. There are some situations where Penryn is clearly faster than Merom while others show the two with equal performance. It's for this reason that we say the biggest improvement lies in battery life, not performance.
Apple picked the right CPU partner in Intel, as it seems that every year we get good increases in either performance, battery life or both.
If you're holding out for something more revolutionary you may want to wait for Montevina later this year, or Nehalem sometime next year. Both platforms will give Apple ample opportunity to make more changes to the design and featureset of the MacBook and MacBook Pro, all while improving battery life and performance.
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tayhimself - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
I really like the chicklet keyboards. I like the Vaios that have the chicklets too. Different strokes and all that....LoneWolf15 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Ward...Wash the Beaver's mouth out with soap, would you?mmntech - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
Lol. Only morons need to swear to get their point across. I do partially agree though. I didn't like the MacBooks keyboard compared to my old iBook G4's.Looks like the Penryn offers a small but decent improvement in battery life. When you're on the go, every little increase counts. These are very respectable numbers. With DVD playback, you can actually watch movies like the Godfather and Lord of the Rings on a single charge and still have some to spare. Apple has always been good with battery life, which is the primary reason I bough my iBook. Looks like there are also some small performance increases too. I suppose the iMac line will be receiving an update soon to include these processors. It will be curious to see if the add DDR3 as an option for them.
Phlargo - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
What a horrible thing to say. He is certainly permitted his preference. I think you might be the tool for blankly assuming that his opinion is unjust.A good article, Anand. I'm not a Mac guy, but I know they lead the way in design and feature integration. I really agree with the comment below about it being more of an impression than a review. I always like your articles for that reason!
Kitsune - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
MacBooks have a very limited multitouch capability. They can do some of the tricks that the Pros and Air can do (right-click by putting two fingers on the pad, scroll around by rubbing two fingers in the desired direction, zoom the screen in and out by holding the control key while moving fingers on the pad) and can't do some of the other things (rotate and zoom selected objects). Or if they can, Anand found some trick that I'm not aware of, as I have the new 2.1 gHz MacBook sitting next to me now and can't get it to perform the latter functions.Devo2007 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
That is correct (I was just about to update my comment stating this). I believe the two-finger scroll feature and such aren't new though -- I believe my friend's Merom-based Macbook has that feature as well.tayhimself - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
This is the case yes.Devo2007 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
You caught the one later in the article, but currently page 3 still shows this:2) Multi-touch Track Pads: Both the MacBook and MacBook Pro now get the same multi-touch functionality as the MacBook Air.
Gary Key - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
That is corrected now.Devo2007 - Friday, February 29, 2008 - link
On Page 3, you indicate that both the Macbook and Macbook Pro have the multi-touch trackpad. Isn't it just the Pro model that has multi-touch? (all the news articles I read about the launch of these portables indicated it was just the Pro model).