[EndUser]

Does the SuperDrive in the MacBook Pro read double-layer DVD's?

[shoaf]

To Jason & The Macworld staff:
Since it seems (in my world) that nearly everyone -- including myself -- that's contemplating a MBP purchase is considering it as a replacement to a G4 tower. In your benchmarks, I would suggest throwing in the scores from a G4 tower just for comparison's sake. Taking this a step further, maybe include both a Dual- and Single-Processor version. I think this would help many of us put a better perspective on the speed of the MBP.
To put this request into context, many purchase Macs with the intent on them being their primary rig for at least 2 years. Our company (and I'm sure many others) uses a 3-yr amortization of the cost because that's how long AppleCare lasts. You think of what was being sold 3 years ago, and you're looking a DP G4's.
And I'd also like to add my thanks for getting this info out and live.

[wintomac]

Sort of looks that way doesn't it. Hopefully with recent price cuts in duo chips Apple can outfit the new iBooks with core duo chips. A 1.6ghz would do nicely, don't you think?

[saxmike]

I agree with MelGross --- I'd love to see if Rosetta really can "cache" instructions and speed up performance the SECOND time you do a task. I think we might need some really well-designed metrics to really put Rosetta to the test. For example, what if you repeat a task but change it SLIGHTLY (same task with a new file, for example), will the cache still allow it to work faster?

[fstop808]

Please replace "faster" by "as fast".
If something is 0.5X faster, it means it IS faster, not slower. If something is 0.5X as fast, it means it is SLOWER.
You attempt to explain the "X-factor", but it is still incorrect.

[Jason Snell]

FWIW, the batteries we're using for testing are brand new.

[Jason Snell]

There's basically no difference when running a task a second time. Sometimes you might see a slight difference, but you generally see that with native apps as well, because of caching.

[pkeene]

Something to consider about battery life - the battery is brand new. Lithium-Ion batteries only reach peak efficiency after several charge / discharge cycles.
Peter

[pkeene]

Drat, you beat me to it. Serves me right for going offline.
Peter

[Defender]

I want to know if the MacBook Pro or the iMac Core Duo can install and run Windows.
An owner of one of these needs to do this with an off the shelf version of Windows.

[jdb8167]

In reply to:

---

First impressions of the battery life don't really give much points to the new MacBook Pro. It was supposed to be using a more efficient processor, or so Intel claims.

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The new MacBooks are significantly faster than the PowerBooks they are replacing. Everything I've read says that the new MacBooks get about the same battery life as the PowerBook. I'm not sure why that is seen as a negative. If the Core Duo processor wasn't efficient you would see much worse battery life. Remember this is a much faster bus--667 MHz v. 167 MHz and that there are two cores. Also, the video card is also a bit of a battery hog and it is much faster than anything on a PowerBook too.
If you read the story, the 2 hour battery life was in a test situation that was designed to drain the battery about as quickly as possible. And the PowerBook got essentially the same time, about 2 hours. I've read a couple of reports that say with Energy Saver turned up to give the best battery life, you get about 4 hours.

[jdb8167]

In reply to:

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I want to know if the MacBook Pro or the iMac Core Duo can install and run Windows.

---

No you can't. There is some speculation that it should be possible and even a cash reward for the first person to do it but right now it isn't possible. If Windows booting is a requirement you can't be sure that it will ever be possible.
On the other hand, you can be quite sure that running Windows applications under OS X will be possible. There are several projects that will create a VirtualPC like environment for Windows on OS X. They certainly will work at some point in the near future. There are some proofs of concept versions floating around already.

[seattlemacuser]

Thanks again Jason. It is great to be able to request feedback in specific areas.
Following on prospervic's question about Airport reception, a salesperson at a local Apple Store claimed that reception is much better in the MP. He demonstated this by showing a long list of local stores in the shopping mall that their MP was picking up. I would love to see this tested.

[melgross]

That's odd. Apple made the point about the caching in Rosetta. Maybe it is dependant on what is being done. There should be a noticable difference. This is like what happened in the mid '90's with Apple's emulation program. When Connectix came out with theirs, which cached instructions, unlike Apple's early version, I measured up to a 30% improvement in speed from many program tasks. Apple, and others have learned from that experiance.
Since when does it cache instructions on a non-translated program?