Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Portables, Macbook Pro
Reviewing the new MacBook Pro
Blogger Shawn Blanc has written another one of his thorough reviews. This time, it's the new MacBook Pro. The interesting thing is that he's using it to replace his Mac Pro. Most tech professionals have a primary machine (often a desktop) and a secondary (usually a laptop). After living with this setup for some time, Shawn noticed that the laptop had become his main machine:
"I don't need the Mac Pro. The loss in horsepower is negligible for what I do, and the gain in simplicity cannot be expressed with words. I'm selling the tower and going back to being a one-computer consumer, and connoisseur of fine laptops."
The same thing eventually happened to me. My MacBook Pro is the machine I use most often, and my iMac is the machine I use to sync my iPhone, make iTunes purchases and upload photos. Other than that, it pretty much just sits around.
Shawn goes on to describe setup, migration of his older data and (much, much) more. The whole thing is written in Shawn's comprehensive and readable style. Check it out.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mkummer said 12:18PM on 3-12-2008
That is just what I did 2 years ago. I replaced a two machine system (Tower plus MacBook) with a MacBook Pro 17 with the 30 inch Cinema. So I have no problem with sync anymore. For smaller excursions I am done with my iPhone having all the time Internet and Email. I am right now waiting for the delivery of a brand new 17 MBP...
mk
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Richard Lomas said 12:33PM on 3-12-2008
Nope, not me!
I love having a MacPro and just doing my fully IMAP email from my iPhone on the road!
No need for a big bulky laptop, and I love not being "that guy" at security at the airport any more!
Of course, I don't travel for work much, so everyone has a different need I suppose.
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Designr said 12:39PM on 3-12-2008
Been there, done that (about 4 years ago). However, I kept the tower, since replaced with a mini. The mini backs up my MacBook Pro whenever it shows up on the network, serves music (iTunes), serves movies and TV shows to the PS3 (MediaLink), runs the house (X10 & Indigo2) and watches the security cameras (SecuritySpy).
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John said 1:12PM on 3-12-2008
I just picked up a SR Macbook Pro and moved my headless mini to closet where it's serves as an AppleTV/File server, torrent machine, Time Machine backup (via external drives) and for general remote computing. Back to My Mac and LogMeIn (for PCs) access works great. I use a Bookendz dock for my MB Pro and can't wait to upgrade my monitor from 24" to 30".
Arlo said 3:37PM on 3-12-2008
I'm MBP-only as well and have been in the website biz for 7 years now. Towers just don't have the giant advantage they used to-- portables have caught up, and the convenience factor far outweighs the slight wait times in comparison.
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Alan said 2:04PM on 3-12-2008
Wait.. Even if you did use your iMac, it would still just be "sitting around".
I know, I understand what you mean, I just think it was funny that you used those words.
The number one difference I find between the two-core laptop processors and the eight core desktop procs is when you have to export - rendering from maya, after effects, exporting from final cut,premiere, or avid - all of these actions are not only slower on the laptop, but are intrisically better suited to an always-on powerhouse desktop.
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Freezingfire said 2:49PM on 3-12-2008
I agree, I have a quad core mac pro and it is my primary machine, rendering from 3ds Max and After Effects when needed. I do have an old pentium 3 laptop but that isn't worth the time saved to carry it around and should be upgrading it soon. Might be a pc laptop so I still have another reason to use my mac for daily tasks as well.
jkuehn said 2:09PM on 3-12-2008
I have a G5 Dual Processor tower that is sitting gathering dust, simply because it is much easier for me to work anywhere I want to with my Macbook Pro. The downside is the external hard disk farm I am tending (due to the limited hard disk on the Macbook Pro). Yes, I probably need to investigate setting these drives up for wireless access. In the meantime, I am torn between parting with the G5 tower, as I haven't gotten my money's worth out of it, but know it's unlikely it will regain prominence in my daily computing habits.
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Not Korn JonathanD said 2:33PM on 3-12-2008
So what do you use to sync your iTunes,iPhoto, etc between your imac and your MBP?
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Sabon said 4:34PM on 3-12-2008
I'm not the person that wrote the article. But what I do I just sync the first computer to the iPod, move it to second one, sync again, and if needed, do it one more time with the first one. Kind of a pain but it works for any purchased music from iTunes.
The rest I manually sync by using disk mode.
ogvor said 2:40PM on 3-12-2008
Currently I'm doing this, and am happy with my MacBook Pro (it is even a great gaming machine when in Windows). The only problem is I'm worried about what I'd do if it broke. All computers break, but the small, mobile nature of laptops makes them more open to being broken. I hope to get either a Mac Mini or an Eee PC as a reserve computer soon.
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dan g said 3:47PM on 3-12-2008
MBP, turning users into couch potatoes and imacs into paperweights
At least thats how it goes @ my house
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tcbritt said 3:48PM on 3-12-2008
"....my iMac is the machine I use to sync my iPhone, make iTunes purchases and upload photos. Other than that, it pretty much just sits around."
This is what i would like to do ideally, but how do you sync the itunes library on the different systems? If you make the itunes purchase on the iMac, how do you enjoy that music on the road with your Mac Book Pro?
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Sabon said 4:35PM on 3-12-2008
I'll come right out and say it. I'm weird!!!
How am I weird? Instead of buying a laptop I bought a travel bag (http://www.ilugger.com/index.cfm?pid=5&kwd=ilugger&gclid=CJ6B2Km0iJICFQaOggodlkyDDg) for my white Intel Core 2 Duo 24" iMac, bought a collapsable hand trunk and take my 24" iMac back and forth to work or when I travel.
True I have to find a power outlet to run it and no it isn't instant on but I only have to wait about 40 seconds for it to be ready to go and finding outlets hasn't been hard for me. I just sit on the floor with my iMac.
I do have a G4 PowerBook which I used to travel with. But I prefer taking the iMac.
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Netback said 5:07PM on 3-12-2008
I did almost the same thing. Upgraded from my 867ghz 12" to the new 15". I have a dell and an iMac gathering dust in my spare room. man the 15" is an amazing machine.
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Kelmon said 5:02PM on 3-12-2008
Buying a 17" MacBook Pro enabled me to kill 3 computers - an old G4 PowerBook that I used as much as possible, a Dell Latitude that I used when I needed Windows, and a Pentium 4-based gaming PC. The MacBook Pro wiped the floor with all of them for performance and allows me to run Windows when I need it, so no need for the PCs anymore. This is more than enough computer for me, although that 160GB hard drive isn't as big as it once seemed.
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paul merrill said 5:27PM on 3-12-2008
I am a MBP-only person - doing graphic design on it.
If I were a video person, the horsepower of a tower would be handy. But for me, my almost-year-old Core 2 Duo works great.
And yay to Shawn for your rise in publicity!
(mypartofcolorado dot blogspot dot com)
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Luke said 6:43AM on 3-14-2008
Anybody want a free macbook? Go to http://istuff.freepay.com/?r=43394502
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Letty said 1:45AM on 3-15-2008
Need your advice on software.....I just got delivery of a mbp, the 17 hi res screen, 2.6 version with 7200 rpm which may be overkill but I wanted a machine I could grow into. I purchased this machine to replace my PC desktop and am accustomed to Microsoft Office. For the mac os, would you recommend the mac version of Office or the productivity software suite from Apple? I'm a new mac user (bought this machine after loving my iphone) so apologize if this is wrong forum.
Thanks in advance
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Einar Rowan said 2:12AM on 4-23-2008
The new MCP are not worth the upgrade from the previous Santa Rosa model because the touch pad multi touch does not work as well as on the Air and the IPhone. I added 4GB of RAM to my MCP and it works great, I rarely have to wait for anything and I have yet to see Office 2008 for Mac crash.
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