Rocking the i7-chipped MacBook Pro

Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro. Photo / Supplied

My 2007 MacBook Pro, which I was so proud of three years ago, looks decidedly dated beside the new i7 version, with its slightly lower profile with the lid's closed, its more rounded corners, and its slick, shiny screen surrounded by the black bezel.

The other major change, aesthetically, is black plastic buttons on the keyboard, whereas the older MBP has aluminium-surfaced buttons.

Of course, this look is the one that debuted last year, when Apple launched the new slimmer, lighter and more rigid aluminium enclosures rolled and etched from one piece of aluminium in a process it had to engineer and design for the task.

You can watch a video on this manufacturing process if you're super-keen.


In fact, everything about the new MacBook Pro is slimmer - even the box and packaging it comes in. A definite plus is that you can never angle the older MacBook Pro's screen back enough - the new one, since the new case design, angles back much for comfortably, particularly if you actually use it on your lap.

Running at 2.66GHz with 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive, this version of MacBook Pro is the very latest 15-inch, with an Intel dual-core 'Core i7' processor.

For $3799, you get up to a 50 per cent performance boost over the previous model's Core 2 Duo, which the 13-inch version still uses; the i7 (like the i5) uses Intel's newer 32-nanometer technology.

If you're using processor-intensive applications like Apple's own Aperture 3 or Final Cut Pro, a feature called Turbo Boost increases the speed of one or both cores, taking the 2.66GHz CPU up to 3.33GHz.

Apart from the latest CPU the big news is the NVIDIA graphics card, a GeForce GT330M with 512MB onboard video.

The other two current versions of the 15-inchers have Intel i5 CPUs instead of the i7, running at either 2.4GHz with a 320GB HD or at 2.53GHz with a 500GB HD, but both of these 'only' have 256MB video cards.

When Apple released these, a little controversy was stirred as to what video-switching technology was used. Everybody assumed it was Intel's but it's actually Apple's, which Intel admitted.

The controller switches video tasks between the NVIDIA and a built-in (and lesser) Intel HD graphics controller, presumably when it's running on battery and/or non graphics-intensive tasks. This is partly why the new batteries are supposed to last up to nine hours - I'm lucky to get two-and-a-half hours with my 2007 version.

Note that, if you want to control or see which card is used, download the free little utility - called gfxCardStatus - which loads into a right-side menu. Use it to either see which card the MacBook Pro is using, or to switch manually between them.

Speeds

A large and complex Numbers document launched in 3.9 seconds on a 2007 Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, and in 2.8 seconds on the i7. (Both these figures included launching the Apple iWork 'Numbers' spreadsheet application and opening the document.) That's 1.39 times faster on the i7.

In 64-bit mode I got an overall Geekbench score of 6379 for the i7.

My Core 2 Duo 2007 MacBook Pro 15 runs at 2.2GHz - the overall Geekbench score, also in 64-bit, is 3396. That's 1.88 times faster for the new model, for about the same money I shelled out three years ago (I had my '07 shipped with a bigger, faster hard drive than standard).

A new 2.67GHz i5 iMac, with four cores not two, clocked 7615 (thanks to Jamie Lunn for benchmarking his for me).

Speaking of options, you're probably aware you don't get that many when you buy Macs. You can get cheaper i5 versions of this 15-inch for $3099 and $3499. You can double the RAM before your MacBook Pro ships for another $720.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro comes with a 1440-by-900-pixel LED-backlit glossy display as standard, as per the test model, but you can choose a higher-resolution, 1680-by-1050 glossy display with 36 per cent more pixels for another $160. Photographers might prefer the anti-glare display; it's also the higher resolution, and costs $270 more.

The anti-glare display has a silver frame (border) around it instead of black, by the way.

There was a lot of comment about these MacBook Pro shiny glass screens. As with many minor niggles people perceive with Macs, they're gleefully blown out of all proportion.

A friend of mine, photographer Sean Craig, ordered an i7 MacBook Pro as soon as they were available, but forgot to specify the anti-glare screen. Soon after he got it, he emailed me: "I have to say I actually like the glossy screen! Didn't think I would. Need to try it outdoors, I guess, but so far I do like it. And let's face it - for important work like colour correction, I'll be indoors anyway."

You also get several hard drive options: a faster 7200rpm 500GB hard drive (add $90), a 128GB solid state drive instead (add $360), a 256GB SSD (add $1170) or go the whole hog, for a total of $6859, and get the 8GB RAM version with a 512GB SSD (add $2340 for the biggest SSD). This would be a really high price for a laptop that, like my 2007 model, would feel pretty dated in three years time, but I guess it comes down to what you need and how much money you have, doesn't it?

Actually, does anyone have a MacBook with an SSD? I would imagine an SSD uses less power and is way faster, but since I never hear people saying these things, either no one gets their MacBook Pros specced with SSDs or it's simply not much of a difference for less space - premium price versus viability. Comments welcome ...

There are several other options, too, including video adapters for connecting non-Apple displays, for software etcetera.

Still, if I was to buy one of these for myself - which is, needless to say, a real temptation for the power, the better enclosure and the lovely screen - I would definitely spring for the 500GB 7200rpm HD version. And I'd probably then get my own third-party Apple-compatible RAM to put in.

It's easy to do, after all.

- Mark Webster mac-nz.com