“Apple Computer’s switch to Intel processors this year has the potential to bring a number of improvements to customers, but it was obvious from the time of the announcement that the biggest winners would be notebook-buyers whose machines would benefit especially from faster, cooler chips,” Eric Convey writes for The Boston Herald. “The most obvious change is that the MacBook Pro is thinner than its predecessor – 1 inch instead of 1.1 inches. At 5.6 pounds, it’s light enough to carry around all day. Apple has always taken displays seriously and the MacBook Pro’s is the best this reviewer has ever seen on a notebook. The 15.4-inch screen is 0.2 inches bigger, diagonally, than its predcessor’s. More importantly, it’s fabulously bright – 67 percent brighter, said an Apple product manager.”
“Nevertheless, the biggest change brought by the new chips is the processing muscle, and the MacBook Pro brings much more than its predecessor,” Convey writes. “An important factor in whether a program will take advantage of the greater speed opportunities is whether it has been rewritten to work natively on the Intel processor or is using a translator called Rosetta that Apple has built into its Intel machines.”
“The bottom line is that the MacBook Pro is easily a contender for best notebook computer on the market. It’s well designed, extremely pleasant, and comes with a superior operating system,” Convey writes. “If you can live without Microsoft Windows, it’s a very attractive option for the mobile computer-user. And if the prognosticators are correct, someone will soon take advantage of the Intel chip and find a way to run Windows on the Mac for those times when you have no choice.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “pbmac” for the heads up.]
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