“When Apple redesigned its laptops earlier this month, most of the attention, including mine, was focused on the entry-level MacBook. That was because of its popularity, and because Apple managed to make over the machine in a way that added some oomph and lots of style while actually making it thinner and lighter and preserving battery life. But what about the MacBook’s big brother, the 15 inch MacBook Pro, a powerful, if pricey, laptop favored by many power users? My verdict on the Pro’s makeover isn’t nearly as favorable, because there were more tradeoffs,” Walter S. Mossberg reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“The new MacBook Pro costs the same, high, $1999 price as the old one, and Apple (AAPL) does give you more for your money — a faster discrete graphics processor; the same radical new button-free trackpad that’s in the MacBook; bigger hard disks. It’s also a tad thinner,” Mossberg reports. “[But] the new MacBook Pro is actually a downgrade from the old model in a few areas. For one, it has grown slightly larger and heavier, with a 4% bigger footprint and a bit more weight (5.5 pounds versus 5.4 pounds for the old one.)”
Mossberg is concerned about battery life being less when using the new MacBook Pro’s more powerful graphics chip (users have a choice of using it or not) and Apple decision to not offer the option for a matte screen:
Mossberg writes, “The new MacBook Pro is that it still provides a satisfying upgrade for power users willing to spend the money to move up from the MacBook or from a less powerful, or similarly powerful, Windows machine running the inferior Vista or XP operating systems. But, for owners of the most recent prior MacBook Pro, the new model’s tradeoffs make an upgrade an iffy choice.”
Full review here.
MacDailyNews Note: Last week, we asked in an online poll of our readers, “Should Apple offer customers a matte screen option for MacBook, MacBook Pro?” The results:
• Yes – 57%
• No – 36%
• Unsure – 7%
Total votes: 1667