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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
03/03/09
03/03/09
For those wanting to make the jump, but already have a daisy chain of firewire peripherals, the decision has already been made for you, and it's very very annoying. Giving up trusty firewire external drives in favor of network storage or USB is a pain, even if either option is way cheaper.
03/03/09
Buy a white one if you really need firewire.
03/03/09
03/03/09
I like to do audio with my Macs, and so having a small, yet full-featured Mac laptop to haul around would be great. I recently heard some audio guy reminiscing about the - I forget what size it was - 12" Apple laptop I think- how it made for a really convenient "studio on the go." I know a lot of Apple customers miss firewire on the MB because of their MiniDV camcorders, but for music types, there's no USB substitute for a firewire interface.
@justinpe: Maybe... the white one is just so 2008, and so... white. :)
03/03/09
Yeah, plus I believe it is firewire 400, not 800. Still would be better than only having USB. I guess with the new trackpad, and aluminum enclosure, they had to find another way to differentiate the pros and non-pros besides size.
03/03/09
03/03/09
02/27/09
WRONG!
It's not matte, it's anti-glare, and a site like this should know the difference.
Due to their cheap-ass screens, the new 17" MBP is no longer suitable for professional graphics work. It's a nice consumer level toy.
03/03/09
It's excellent for professional graphics work.
02/26/09
02/26/09
As an FYI, you can increase your battery life by creating a network scheme in OSX that has no network connections in it (This includes removing the Ethernet card from the profile) to further increase battery life.
I have such a setting on my laptop labeled Airplane Mode that adds another 30 min to my overall runtime on my older MBP.
By doing this it shuts off the peripheral entirely. (Or, at least it used to, newer hardware may behave slightly different.)
02/26/09
Is what you're recommending at all related to flipping the Wiffy Adapter switch commonly found on Windows laptops to the "Off" position?
02/26/09
02/26/09
I've been looking around to verify this and I can't find anything that says that Li-Poly has broken through the Li-Ion issues with charge cycles or that validates this change of charge-cycle definition.
We have always considered a charge-cycle to be just that - charge it, discharge it however much, then charge it is one cycle.
Apple is saying that this is no longer true, but the ONLY place I can find that (including IEEE) is Apple's own website.
Anyone have anything corroborating them?
02/26/09
As for the specific recharging definition, it is straight from Apple.
02/26/09
1) Battery built in. This is ass. I would rather the computer have 7 hours battery life and a removing mechanism than an 8 hours battery life and it stuck in there. Why? Because when I'm home (and since this is a 17" laptop, I doubt this is as mobile as the 13" or 15" laptop) I want to be able to TAKE THE BATTERY OUT and plug my laptop to the wall. Which leads me to:
2) AC adapter is too small to allow 100% of the laptop's power without the battery. This is bullshit. You get nearly a 30% drop in power if you take the battery out. Bullshit.
3) And the reason why Apple won't put 8GB support or 256GB SSD in the smaller laptops: they want you to pay $300 more for the bigger laptop. They always do this. Instead of having the update readily available in the lower echelon model, you have to pay an extra $300 to $500 for the higher end model which comes with a bunch of extra shit you didn't really want in the first place. So in a way, this 17" laptop is a chain holding back what the smaller laptops can do.
4) PRICE. If its $2800, it better come with at least some free programs or some movies or a lap dance, SOMETHING. But instead, you're paying a "premium" for the "quality". I understand its a good laptop, but $2800 is highly presumptuous on Apple's part (shocker) to think that that's a justified price for what we're getting (which isn't much, this thing doesn't even have a 9800M GT. Why is it a 9600M GT and 9400M GT? If you want less power in battery mode, can't you just underclock the 9600M GT? I still don't understand it)
02/26/09
You mean...like iMovie? iPhoto? iWeb? iDVD? Garageband? Each considered a best-in-category application? Yeah, Apple should do that...
02/26/09
02/26/09
To the contrary, I would suggest he was doing a whole-system price comparison of Macs to similar PC packages--which may, or may not, be cheaper than Macs (let's not even start that line of value analysis) yet DON'T come with such well-regarded applications. To overlook this fact is "convenient" on his part.
Am I a Mac fanboy? Yes. Was he whining without basis? Yes.
02/26/09
02/26/09
02/26/09
And no floppy port or VGA connector either. Damn that Apple!
Of course, I'm just being facetious. I realize there are people who would enjoy a built-in SD (or whatever) card reader. But that's where I would point out that, in any laptop, the designer's have to make design decisions and priorities. I might suggest that, in making an elegant solution here, an SD card slot lost out to other, higher priority spatial considerations.
That said, there IS an ExpressCard/34 slot. Stick an (inexpensive) SD card reader into that slot and you are good to go, just as if you'd had it built-in...except you ALSO have the adaptability to use that slot for MANY OTHER purposes.
02/26/09
I'd love the extra screen real estate the 17" offers, and we've got a couple of the last generation 17" MBP's here at my company. However, I'm always put off by the size of the overall machine. This one looks awfully tempting, but I think 15" will remain my sweet spot. But damn it, let me have 8 GB!!
02/26/09
02/26/09
02/26/09
02/26/09
02/26/09