[MW Forums]

The MacBook Pro marks the first Mac portable to run on an Intel chip, the Core Duo. How does the laptop compare to a PowerBook G4? What are some of its major features? And how will a dual-core processor affect battery life? We dig up the answers to these and other questions. more

[chasesequence]

God damn, I want one. I could work on my comic strip in the middle of nowhere if I had a laptop fast enough to run Adobe Illustrator...

[Civet]

Quote:
"Intels Core Duo processor gives Apple a combination of speed and energy efficiency that the company never could get from the PowerPC processor family..."
Really? Or is this just repeating Apple propaganda ad nauseaum until it becomes accepted "fact"? 'Cos last I read over at Freescale's website, they now have dual-core G4's that meet or beat the specs of the current Intel duos in the MacBook (yuck) Pro.
I know, I know. Water under the bridge, forget PowerPC, etc etc. But still, one needs to report FACTS, regardless. You can tell I'm not happy about losing a part of my identity, can't you.

[Whit_G]

Say what? I'm a professional designer who runs Illustrator almost every day on a 1.25 Ghz PowerBook G4. So far I haven't felt any tremendous need for more power except when I'm doing trade show display work (read: biiiiig files). I can't imagine a comic artist needing much more speed/power from Illustrator than I do, but I'm damn sure the current crop of 1.67 Ghz PowerBooks would run AI fast enough for just about anyone.

[Kees]

the most important piece of information in this article is missing. Namely that pretty much no pro app (betas don't count) will be running in rosetta emulation mode, and therefor slow as molasses.
Apple's own pro apps'll be done in march, but I need to hear from Adobe before I can even consider getting one of these new intel powerbooks.

[archi]

The loss of the modem is disappointing. I would love to do away with modems except, most businesses are not going to give up their fax machines. I shouldn't have to pay a fee to send a fax.

[ckasper]

I look forward to Rev 2 on this product. You should too.

[creativeg5]

Kees:
You must mean that ALL the pro apps will be runing in Rosetta. Assuming that I would say that you have no solid information about the real world speed of Rosetta. These are the first Intel based machines available (and only the iMacs immediately). TThat being the case it is going to be a few days or weeks before people get them and start testing with PPC versions of Photoshop, Logic, Dreamweaver etc. When Apple announced all this I seem to remember the claim that many apps ran at about 80% of the native speed. In a 'book that is 2x - 4x faster than the current best offering that sounds like a net positive to me. Don't be grumpy and pessimistic unless you have found solid information about the speed of Rosatta with specific apps. (if you have, share it!)

[rwmoore]

Not for me. At least not for now. Maybe in a year I'll be dieing to have one of these, but for now there is no way I can live without a modem (unfortunate, but true) and I really don't want to have to carry anymore peripherals, all of my external hard drives are Firewire 800 or 400/800 with only 800 cables and I'm not planning on upgrading anytime soon or spend any more money (even for a cable) unless I really have to, and there seems to be very few Expresscard modules and adapter available right now (with a quick search, I could not find a microdrive adapter which I must have for my digital camera). That is the nice thing about my current Powerbook, I though in a power adapter and maybe a spare battery and I am set. Now I may need an USB modem or modem card, a card reader, and a Firewire 800 card adapter (at least I will need to carry one everyday for home and work).
OK, eSATA is going to be better than Firewire 800 (at least I've been told) or maybe wireless Firewire is finally coming out, modems are slow (but they work well for email), and expresscard is the new generation, but I kind of feel like I have my first iMac with out a floppy. Will it take as long for these changes to catch up as it did for me to finally lose that external USB floppy? It took over 7 years for me to finally be able to give that up (my boss still used floppies) and my iMac didnt have a CD burner!
I'm all for latest technology, but having the latest technology with not much way to use it (at least not conveniently) and losing backward compatibility at the same time is a really taking two steps back!

[salmonstk]

These don't ship till Feb and Apple's pro apps ship in march. A month isnt that big a deal.

[Graeme_Smith]

Goodbye Firewire 800 /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[bdruth1]

Simple Google search produced:
http://www.lycom.com.tw/EK102.htm
Says it only has drivers for M$ systems, but drivers may be built-in to OS X (like USB mass storage is)

[RexRay]

...to the PowerBook G4. This supposedly Pro level laptop lacks FireWire 800 and an internal modem. The "Pro" moniker would suggest pro technologies like FireWire 800. The fact that it's a laptop would dictate it needs an internal modem for those rare but inevitable times many people will need a dialup Internet connection. Both of these technologies were present in the excellent PowerBook G4, for the same price as the MacBook Pro. If I want to add them, at extra cost to me, it's $49 for the external USB modem, a minimum of $99 for a (non-existent) FireWire 800 Express Card, and two extra things to keep track of and add weight to my laptop bag. All of this makes the MacBook Pro a worthless POS to me, but at least it's a fast POS. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif I guess I should have expected this from Intel, but I'm surprised at Apple. Let's hope they do it right next time...

[booga]

For me, the Bluetooth functionality would take the place of the modem. Seriously, a lot of cell companies sell Bluetooth phones for almost nothing these days and offer package deals for data transfer. Why be tied to a landline with a slow modem, when Bluetooth+cellphone tends to be faster and more convenient?
(Ok, another poster said fax. That seems valid... I guess you'd have to use one of the cheap internet fax services and get your faxes via email.)