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Engadget reviews MacBook Pro 2011 edition

by Michael Rose Mar 4th 2011 at 10:15PM

If you're hungering for more hands-on detail on Apple's newest laptops, head over to our sister site Engadget where Nilay Patel and Joanna Stern have put the 15" model through its paces in a full review. Not to keep you in suspense: "the new MacBook Pro is the fastest laptop we've ever tested, hands-down." Nice.

While the review gives high marks for performance, it does ding Apple for not revving up the connectivity specs of the laptop or the industrial design (an extra USB port would be nice, as would a standard offer of the higher-resolution display). That said, a machine that is twice as fast as the model it replaces while keeping to the same price points is definitely a good buy.

I had the opportunity to see an SSD-equipped version of the new 15" MBP in action this evening, and it booted to the login screen from a cold start in what seemed to be less than five seconds -- so fast I almost didn't see it happen. The proud owner of the new laptop fired up Xcode and went on to compile a 35MB commercial Mac application in about 67 seconds, when the previous MBP crunched through the same job in about four and a half minutes. Not too shabby.



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If you're hungering for more hands-on detail on Apple's newest laptops, head over to our sister site Engadget where Nilay Patel and...
 

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14 Comments

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PooPsTech

Can anyone tell me where I can find this desktop background Picture that Apple uses on their MacBook Pro? The picture of the Surfer. thanx

March 05 2011 at 11:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gilbert Palau

This just ruined my day. I want one now... :( My aging MacBook Pro 1st Intel Gen will be officially obsolete when OSX Lion comes out after the summer.

March 05 2011 at 11:09 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Brian

What the? Pure uncontrolled visual vomit. Sorry had to be said.

March 05 2011 at 11:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David

So, do these not overheat every minute like my previous two macbook pros do? The one I currently have is at 160 degrees and the fans are going at 3000rpm when its doing almost nothing.

March 05 2011 at 10:47 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to David's comment
tdowling

160 Celsius?? If you're talking Fahrenheit, then that isn't all that bad, although you might want to check Activity Monitor to see what's hitting the CPU while you're idling.

March 05 2011 at 9:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
james.husted

David Said:
"So, do these not overheat every minute like my previous two macbook pros do? The one I currently have is at 160 degrees and the fans are going at 3000rpm when its doing almost nothing."

Something is wrong with your MacBook. I have a i7 MBP 17" with the full 8gigs of ram in it and the ONLY time I ever hear the fans go on is when I play World of Warcraft (which does it every time). I don't play many other games but do watch videos often. The unit does get pretty warm I must admit, but the fans seldom com on.

March 05 2011 at 9:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
PooPsTech

It's totally amazing to see that you are talking about Macs, once more. Be still my foolish heart! TUAW talking about Macintosh and OS X matters. I also expected that you perform a review of the MacBook Pro 2011 and not quote Engadget.

March 05 2011 at 7:47 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to PooPsTech's comment
Michael Rose

Engadget got sent one by Apple. We didn't. :(

March 05 2011 at 7:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael

So, how do you guys feel about ssd vs conventional harddrive. I need the space, but it's so expensive for the Apple option ssd. My wife's MBA boots so fast though. It's amazing.

March 05 2011 at 6:40 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
abramelin

Er, so pig-ugly it made my eyes hurt?
So many design flaws I don't know where to start.

March 05 2011 at 4:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Martin

So does TUAW review hardware like Engadget does? If not you should do that. We know you guys love mac, so which machine let's you do it best?

March 05 2011 at 3:07 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jon Kessler

Yummy.

March 05 2011 at 2:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Caspian

SSD you say?

March 04 2011 at 10:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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