MacBook Pro: questions before purchase.

~J~

~J~

~J~

Soldato
Joined
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99% chance I'll be purchasing a 15" MacBook Pro at the end of the month and just wanted a few guidelines prior to purchase.

1) I didn't realise how 'poor' (?) the native resolution was, even on a 15" screen. It appears the only way to up this is to go for the glossy screen. By doing this, will this have a detrimental impact on the overall battery life between charges? If so, is this a big change?

2) This probably sounds stupid, but I'm not a hardware expert so bear with me. I've read (and had a few sources tell me) that the average battery life is about 9hrs. This is one major buying point for me, my XPS1530 has been a magnificent machine over 2 years but having a (then) battery life of 90mins and (now) a life of 40mins, it's impossible to work without it charged in. This "9hr" claim by Apple, is this based on the 'average' user or only something like webbrowsing, etc? I also see a lot of you lot mentioned about cycles or something. Because I've found out Apple use their own batteries, does this mean it's best to NOT plug into a power source if I'm near one, but ONLY if the battery is running out? I'm a little confused about this cycle talk and life of the battery.

3) For my work I still need a Windows backend (for Visual Studio, SQL Server). Based on peoples experiences which is the more reliable option to use: BootCamp or Parallels. I can see the major advantage of Parallels is that I can switch to OSX without a reboot, but if anyone does have a significant experience in running VS2010, are there any pros/cons to running it in BootCamp or Parallels?

4) Has anyone gone from an XPS1530 to a MBP 15" - any major differences you noticed? (weight, screen size, mouse pad, etc).
 
Humm well for one there's a "high res" option to put it up to 1680x1050 which has had some good reports (forgotten the name for the wednesday fan on here who got one a month or two ago) and as far as i know the gloss vs matt screen is just down to personal preference as they take about the same amount of power to use...

For the battery lasting 9 hours, thats a bit ambitious, with my last gen mbp (the first 15" with the massive battery) i get about 3 and a half hours of football manager (my personal battery test) which is pretty amazing in my eyes (though its down to a bit over 3 after a year of heavy usage). The inclusion of i5 and the new graphics chips do improve it a bit more so if you turn a few things off when web browsing 5-6 hours could be achievable pretty easily.

Urm used bootcamp, it was simple but since steam is out on mac i have no need for it anymore so i cant really help and for the last one, the mbp doesnt really compare to anything on the mouse pad front, it feels really weird for about a week and then you can not use ANYTHING else as its miles better than other offerings. The weight is naturally low and well balanced across the laptop as well so there isnt really a heavy side (and overall weight isnt that bad either).

Hope that helps a bit, some of your questions can be best solved by a trip to an apple store to have a look at one in reality :)
 
Didn't know you were also an XPS1530 owner! I gave mine away a while back, and then got my present 13" uMacbook.

I can answer No.2 to an extent. The quoted time obviously varies with what the user is doing. Either way, it'll destroy the XPS1530's batt life. In my blog review I stated that I'd get 4-5hrs out of mine, dropping to 4hrs when I gave it away.

The cycle talk is a bit overdone. Apple essentially state that a battery will last for x amount of cycles vs older ones that lasted less. Add this to the fact that the OS actively monitors the battery means that most owners monitor the health of their battery a lot...much like windows users go nuts about defrag utilities :p

I can give you some links about battery charging when I get home. Apple's batteries are a lot better than your average laptop battery yes, but the charging principles still remain the same.

A 15" sounds like a good first time purchase. I love my 13", but only invested in that because I wasn't sure if I would like my first Apple computer...that changed in 3 sodding days and I wish I had a 15".
 
Yeah I've ummed and ahhed over the 13" / 15", especially how there's quite a bit of money between the two.

But I 'do' need one for work now and I don't want to be in a situation where I'm using something that I hate because this may reflect in my work. Can't remember the last time I played a game on the PC, so it won't be used as a gaming device. So long as the screen is of a big enough size where I can still work at maximum resolution (the XPS1530 currently does 1920x1200 which is bloody good for a 15" laptop).

I'll lose 180 pixels, sounds daft but that is actually a lot of screen estate, but providing the battery life exceeds AND the reliability is that bit more (absolutely sick to death of Windows losing WiFi connection or slowing down) then I'm prepared to give up those 180 pixels for less stress.

Dragging you to Regent Street to help me learn it so don't go too far :p
 
1) I didn't realise how 'poor' (?) the native resolution was, even on a 15" screen. It appears the only way to up this is to go for the glossy screen. By doing this, will this have a detrimental impact on the overall battery life between charges? If so, is this a big change?

Personally I prefer the 1440 x 900 to the 1680. I found the 1680 tiring unfortunately. That's personal preference though isn't it? Saying that, I have 1920x1200 monitors on my desk at home and at work....

2) This probably sounds stupid, but I'm not a hardware expert so bear with me. I've read (and had a few sources tell me) that the average battery life is about 9hrs. This is one major buying point for me, my XPS1530 has been a magnificent machine over 2 years but having a (then) battery life of 90mins and (now) a life of 40mins, it's impossible to work without it charged in. This "9hr" claim by Apple, is this based on the 'average' user or only something like webbrowsing, etc? I also see a lot of you lot mentioned about cycles or something. Because I've found out Apple use their own batteries, does this mean it's best to NOT plug into a power source if I'm near one, but ONLY if the battery is running out? I'm a little confused about this cycle talk and life of the battery.

The 9 hours is quoted on screen at 50% brightness, wifi on, no heavy duty apps. On my i7 I get around 8 hours however I have an SSD and a 640Gb SATA plugged in too.

You also need to watch out for the graphic switching: MBP i7 Poor Battery Life

The cycle thing is an interesting one. One cycle is a full discharge and recharge however small discharges and recharges add up to one full cycle eventually. It's worth recalibrating your battery now and again to keep it in good health. Apple quote your battery as being good for 80% capacity at 1000 cycles - for my use, that would put it at 80% original capacity after around 6 years. That'll do me. See Battery Calibration.

3) For my work I still need a Windows backend (for Visual Studio, SQL Server). Based on peoples experiences which is the more reliable option to use: BootCamp or Parallels. I can see the major advantage of Parallels is that I can switch to OSX without a reboot, but if anyone does have a significant experience in running VS2010, are there any pros/cons to running it in BootCamp or Parallels?

BootCamp is running Windows natively, Parallels/Fusion is running it virtualised. I'm sure you know that, just making sure :)

Advantages to running BootCamp is that the machine will be a bit quicker than running virtual. Advantages to running virtual are many though - you can switch between everything at free-will and not have to reboot all the time.

I'm a big user of virtualisation. My machine constantly has 4+ guests running. While I have bootcamp for Windows 7, I rarely boot into it - if I do it's usually for our Vid Conferencing system - this plays poorly under virtual.

Here's my Win7 index running in Parallels on an i7 MBP: http://grab.by/5oBG

In terms of your question - reliability. I find my VM/Parallels stuff just as reliable as a physical machine, they rarely crash or get all temperamental.

Hope that helps.
 
That's a fantastic set of answers MacRS4, they've certainly painted a clearer picture.

Thanks again, really really helpful.
 
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