MacBook Pro review early 2011

MacBook Pro review early 2011

Apple might say were in the post-PC era, but hey -- turns out they still make Macs in Cupertino, and thenew MacBook Pro is actually one of the more aggressive refreshes in the machines history. Not only has it been less than a year since the last MacBook Pro spec bump, but our 15-inch review unit is actually the first Sandy Bridge system weve received from any manufacturer. And its not just the CPU thats new: Apples also launching the new Thunderbolt high-speed interconnect, and theres been a big switch to an AMD Radeon HD 6750M GPU paired with Intels integrated HD Graphics 3000, an arrangement that should offer both solid graphics performance and great battery life. Thats a lot of new parts in a familiar case -- but do they add up to something more than just a speed bump? Read on for our full review!

MacBook Pro (early 2011) unboxing and hands-on

Look and feel

Its been nearly three years since the MacBook Pro last had a significant design change, so youll need some eagle eyes to tell these new models apart from its predecessors. Seriously, Thunderbolt even uses the Mini DisplayPort connector, so the only distinguishing characteristics are the lightning-strike Thunderbolt icon on the port row and a subtle new texture to the aluminum lid. Oh, and the SD slot is now SDXC. Almost everything else is exactly the same: the still-best-in-class keyboard and glass multitouch trackpad, the standard glossy display, the ports, the sealed-in battery, you name it.

Thats both good and bad, of course: Apples competitors have only recently gained any ground on the MacBook Pros unibody build quality and stiffness, but would it really kill anyone to throw in a couple extra USB ports? And maybe space them out enough to allow for both a thumb drive or wireless card and another device without an extension cable? That would be cool. And while were at it, wed also love that optional higher-res 1680 x 1050 display to come standard -- in matte, if possible. We will not even begin to lament the lack of a Blu-ray option; down that road lies only the aching pain of desire forever unfulfilled.

To sum this up: it looks and feels exactly like a MacBook Pro. Its still the industry standard in terms of design and quality, but after three years competitors like the HP Envy 14 have started knocking on the door, and wed like to see the best get even better the next time around.

Performance, graphics, and battery life

No two ways about this: the new MacBook Pro is the fastest laptop weve ever tested, hands-down. We were sent the stock $2,199 15-inch MacBook Pro, and its 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7-2720QM, 4GB of RAM, and AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics with 1GB of dedicated GDDR5 RAM turned in numbers exceeding any Mac weve ever had in the labs. In fact, the raw CPU score is so high youd have to step to a Mac Pro and Xeon processors to get anything faster, as far as we can tell. (Thatll obviously change when Apple bumps the iMac line to Sandy Bridge.)

OS X Benchmarks	Geekbench	Xbench OpenGL	Battery Life
MacBook Pro (early 2011) (2.2GHz Core i7-2720QM, Radeon HD 6750M / Intel Graphics 3000)	9647	340.1 (Radeon) / 157.78 (Intel)	7:27
MacBook Pro (early 2010) (2.66GHz Core i7-620M, GeForce GT 330M)	5395	228.22	5:18
iMac (mid 2010) (3.06GHz Core i3-540, Radeon HD 4670)	5789	unavailable	n/a
iMac (late 2009) (2.8GHz Core i7-860, Radeon HD 4850)	8312	191.08	n/a
MacBook Air (late 2010) (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo, GeForce 320M)	2717	117.38	~7:30
Notes: battery life on all machines but the Air calculated using our standard video rundown test; Air was a usage test

Lets talk about those graphics scores for a moment. While the Radeon HD 6750M performed admirably when active, it also seemed to run a little hot -- yes, we got between 80 and 130fps running around inHalf-Life 2: Episode 2 at native res, but the fan kicked in as soon as we launched the game, and it stayed on loudly the entire time, even as the case got noticeably warm around the hinge. Its obviously a capable GPU, but its a good thing the system automatically switches to the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 when its not needed -- theres a serious decrease in heat and power usage.

Unfortunately, reduced heat and power usage comes at the expense of raw capability. Intels integrated graphics have never been much to write home about, and while HD Graphics 3000 is an improvement, its still pretty slow. Apple told us Intel integrated graphics performance should equal or exceed the previous Pros integrated NVIDIA GeForce 320M, but we found it to be slightly slower at every turn, although not enough so to be dramatically noticeable. Its not a huge problem on the 15- and 17-inch Pros, since you can fall back on that Radeon, but we wouldnt try to do more than average HD media playback or casual gaming on the entirely-Intel 13-inch model.

On a happier note, we set up Boot Camp and ran benchmarks in Windows 7 to provide some more context to our numbers, and the MacBook Pro crushed those tests as well -- the VAIO Z only got a better PCMarkVantage score because of its fast SSD, and the Envy 17 just barely pulled out better graphics performance. (You can configure the MBP with a 128GB SSD for $100 extra, which should probably be standard over the pokey 5,400RPM hard drive.) Playing a little Batman: Arkham Asylum while booted in Windows netted a smooth 60fps at native resolution while meandering about, with a dip to 55fps during fights.

Windows Benchmarks	PCMarkVantage	3DMark06
MacBook Pro (early 2011) (2.2GHz Core i7-2720QM, Radeon HD 6750M, under Windows 7)	8041	10,262
HP Envy 14 (Core i5-450M, Radeon HD 5650)	6038	1928 / 6899
Toshiba Portege R705 (Core i3-350M)	5024	1739 / 3686
Sony VAIO Z (Core i5-450M, NVIDIA 330M)	9949	6,193
HP Envy 17 (Core i7-740QM, Radeon HD 5850)	6153	10,787
Dell XPS 14 (Core i5-460M, NVIDIA 420M)	5796	1955 / 6827
Notes: For 3DMark06, the first number reflects score with the discrete GPU off (if possible), the second with it on.

Needless to say, we had no problems getting through a workday on the new MBP -- we generally juggle Firefox, Chrome, email, a couple chat clients, and various image and video editing tasks on and off throughout a day, and things never felt sluggish or laggy at all. Used this way, we also managed to get around seven hours of battery life, which is pretty impressive -- we imagine things would have dipped had we fired up the Radeon more often, but in day-to-day usage the Intel graphics did just fine.

And fair kudos to Apple: with the MacBook Air, the company switched to a new battery test that automates browsing popular sites over WiFi at standard brightness, which generates a more accurate number, but also means the new MBP actually is rated lower than the outgoing model using the same battery. Thats a solidly consumer-friendly move, and one we definitely wish more PC manufacturers would make as well.

FaceTime HD

Apples been chugging along with VGA webcams on their machines for so long we were actually shocked when we found out the new MacBook Pro has an upgraded 720p FaceTime HD camera in the lid. Image quality is obviously improved from the previous generation, and we noticed a slightly cooler cast. Wed love some fine-grained image controls at the system level for this camera -- even just white balance and exposure sliders would go a long, long way.

Although FaceTime now supports HD calling, Photo Booth weirdly hasnt been updated and still takes VGA shots. Same with Skype, which only supports sending VGA video on OS X right now -- wed imagine an HD-ready update is a much higher priority now, though.

Thunderbolt

Theres just not much to say about Thunderbolt right now -- yes, the port is there, but there arent any peripherals that use the new 10Gbps dual-channel interconnect just yet. LaCies announced a dual-SSD Little Big Disk and Promise has announced a Pegasus RAID, but neither of those are shipping yet. Of course, Thunderbolt also carries Mini DisplayPort video, and we were able to drive an external 24-inch monitor without any issues, using an existing Mini DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter. Well note once again that this marks the first time we can remember Apple switching standards without switching connectors -- a watershed moment in the history of dongle purchasing.

In any event, were marking Thunderbolt as an incomplete right now -- until there are peripherals to support it, it might as well just be a Mini DisplayPort. Thatll change soon, though, and well revisit the subject when that happens.

Wrap-up

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