| MacBook Mid-2006 [after upgrades] | MacBook Pro Early 2008 |
|---|---|
| 1.83 GHz Core Duo (32-bit) | 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo (64-bit) |
| 2 MB L2 cache | 3 MB L2 cache |
| 667 MHz FSB | 800 MHz FSB |
| 512 MB RAM [2 GB RAM] | 4 GB RAM (OWC) |
| 80 GB disk (5400 rpm) [120 GB disk (5400 rpm)] | 250 GB disk (5400 rpm) |
| Combo drive | 8x SuperDrive |
| Intel GMA 950 (siphoning 64 MB RAM) | NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (256 MB GDDR3 RAM) |
| 13.3″ glossy display 1280 x 800 | 15.4″ anti-glare display 1440 x 900 |
| iSight | iSight |
| FireWire 400 | FireWire 400 + 800 |
| 2 x USB 2.0 | 2 x USB 2.0 |
| Optical digital/analog audio in/out | Optical digital/analog audio in/out |
| Gigabit Ethernet | Gigabit Ethernet |
| 802.11g Wi-Fi | 802.11n Wi-Fi |
| Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR | Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR |
| Mini-DVI | DVI + DVI-VGA adapter |
| - | ExpressCard/34 slot |
| Kensington lock slot | Kensington lock slot |
| Trackpad with two-finger scrolling | Trackpad with multi-touch |
| Keyboard | Backlit keyboard |
| Sudden motion sensor | Sudden motion sensor |
| - | Ambient light sensor |
| 2.36 kg | 2.45 kg |
What do you think? Worth the extra 90 grams?
(With minor apologies to Erik.)
I’d say the conveniently omitted price tag is quite high for the privilege of using 4GB of RAM. A new MacBook would come much cheaper for that. So unless you need to run 30 inch displays, probably not worth it.
Even more so as the MBP is an eyesore.
By http://earthlingsoft.net/ssp/openid/ · 2008.02.26 23:27
Only complete fools play full price, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.
The MacBook Pro, like the PowerBook family before it, offers more, but not mind-boggingly more, than its little sibling. Since MacBooks suck less than iBooks used to do, the gap has narrowed even more.
The MacBook Pro is more affordable than the PowerBook ever was.On the whole, the MacBook Pro brings more bang for the buck than the PowerBook ever did.The MacBook’s limitations aren’t ones that have me gouging my eyes out, but they do add up. Apple has decided to expand the maximum amount of RAM to 4 GB on the MacBook too, so if this was the only “privilege” I was after, I could have went for a MacBook now. Part of it is the tiny things that do obviously differentiate the MacBook Pro from the MacBook, like the pleasure of having a GPU not manufactured by Intel and having its own RAM; matte displays; topcases that won’t so obviously tint… ;) Part of it is that a MacBook Pro simply, in general, gets you farther on the road to a nice computer in any measurement than a MacBook does. And part of it is gut feeling. Not everything is rationally explained.
I take exception with the MBP being called an eye sore. I will perhaps miss the magnetic latch and the chiclet keyboard; we shall see shortly.
By Jesper · 2008.02.26 23:59
My word. There really is no accounting for taste.
By pauldwaite · 2008.02.27 08:17
isn’t that 900 grams?
By http://jonhohle.myopenid.com/ · 2008.02.27 19:58
isn’t that 900 grams?
whoa, i screwed up. sorry for introducing bad math into your comments. so will be my legacy.
By http://jonhohle.myopenid.com/ · 2008.02.27 20:01
I’m going backwards from 1.83GHz MBP to 2.4GHz MB. Not enough differentiation in the MBP (for someone who doesn’t play games or work with graphics) to justify the extra expense.
By http://openid.aol.com/beamso@mac.com · 2008.02.28 06:21
Just over a year ago I went with a white MacBook rather than the MacBook Pro. It was my first Mac, and the difference in specs didn’t really seem to warrant an extra $1000.
Since then the “low-end” MBP has increased in power (as have the MacBooks, of course) and I’ve found that the laptop that I purchased to have something portable to take to conferences that maybe I’d also do some “mac-y” things on has become my primary computer. At home, I hook it up to a bank of external hard drives, a keyboard, BT mouse, and an external monitor.
I’m finding that since upgrading to Leopard I’m seeing the beach ball (spinning pizza of death?) more often, and that things like iPhoto and Photoshop CS3 (which wasn’t out yet when I bought my MB) are pretty deadly slow.
I’m going to be upgrading to the MBP and hopefully the dedicated video card and extra RAM will make my photo editing less painful (about 25% of the time I spend using my computer is spent working with photos in some way).
Not to mention that Macworld noted a 23% increase in Photoshop performance between last Fall’s MBP bump and this February’s, which in and of itself sounds fantastic, but when moving from a MB to a MBP should be even more dramatic.
I will miss the magnetic latch and keyboard on the MB, though. Actually, I’m one of those weirdos who loves the look and feel of the plastic MB better than the aluminum of the MBP.
Call me crazy.
By http://jough.com/ · 2008.03.15 16:01
I definitely miss the magnetic latch, but I’m warming to the aluminum keyboard again. I still think the white look is kind of neat, but I don’t miss the handrest areas.
Photoshop is devilishly fast on MBP but was also certainly bearable on my MB (launching within about 40 seconds even with lots of stuff going on, and working snappily from there on out). Try going into the extensions folder and prefix the name of every plugin you don’t need with a ~ to suppress loading — that really helps.
Also, disabling unneeded fonts and moving files from the desktop (where they’ll use up each a window which is heavy for the window server and constantly request Quick Look thumbnails) is the new Rebuild Desktop.
As I noted above, I didn’t pay full price for this machine, and after including the upgrades I performed on the MacBook (2 GB memory, two distinct hard disk upgrades and an external hard disk which I count as an upgrade because it houses my backups), the difference between the two is small enough that the upgrade is a no-brainer. I’ve thought of precisely one possible upgrade which was to up the memory, something I performed even before the first boot, so I don’t really expect sinking much more money into this, and I felt like I could have kept going with the upgrades to the MacBook, including things I wanted to upgrade but couldn’t. (GPU, RAM.)
By Jesper · 2008.03.15 16:21