[andy31]

I connect my G4 PB to a SHARP AQUOS LC-37D7U 37" LCD TV via a dual link DVI cable and can mirror my PB display on my TV, including DVD movies and iPhoto slideshows.
What is the problem connecting MBP to a TV?

[Jason Snell]

My problem involved running it lid-closed with an S-Video connection, rather than DVI. It didn't quite work right -- but I've got more investigating to do there tonight. I would imagine it would work beautifully via DVI, but I haven't tried that either, mostly because it would require me to unhook my HD TiVo, and that would make my wife angry as it's Olympics season. :-)

[Rick LePage]

I've been playing with my own MBP for more than a day now, and I'm getting 3 to 4 hours of life out of the battery on a full charge, just doing normal stuff - Entourage, Safari, Excel, etc - without any special power-optimization settings. Occasionally, I'll close the lid or walk away (go get a cup of coffee, visit the loo), but that's generally with me working solid.
And it's a little more than what I've been getting on my 1.67GHz PB 15", but not by much.
Overall, the system feels quite good, and the native stuff is really quite zippy. I went through today and got rid of a bunch of problematic stuff that had been moved over in the Migration Assistant - plug-ins, preference panes (no Menu Master /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif ) and things like that that were coming up in the console logs. That, more than anything other than the completion of the Spotlight indexing, really seemed to tune the system properly.
Jason will have more in his review; stay tuned.
Rick

[nikster2004]

I have a PBG4 last generation which has the lines on the display problem. There are slight horizontal lines all over the screen.
So I went to the Apple store to closely inspect the screens on the new MacBook Pro. I did not see any lines so it definitely doesn't suffer the same lines problem as the PBG4. But the screen is "more brilliant" than normal LCD screens. I found them a little bit strange to look at, just like my PBG4. So I looked very close and I saw that they are banding. The brightness and brilliance (colors look better, basically) come at a price, and that is that there is a clear moire-pattern going on.
If I look at a normal laptop screen very closely, I see a stable surface that's lit from behind. With the PBG4 HD screen and also the MacBook Pro screen, I see a slight moire phenomenon. A bit like flickering on a TV screen. It certainly looks as if things are moving around on the surface of the LCD.
Most people won't see it, but I really don't like it. I assume that both screens are made using a different technology than the old ones.

[CoreLogiK]

Sounds like mostly vanilla at this point. I would like to know how Photoshop CS or CS2, MySQL, and PHP MyAdmin work out,... These are be critical to me, I cannot switch until these are fully functional.

[Soundman]

Great article. I'm giving extreme consideration to moving to the Mac platfrom from MS garbage. I'm interested in the Rosetta side of the house in that I understand Virtual PC will not work on the new Intel based laptop. I'm curious if it will run AutoCAD and I need it to run Real Estate software. I understand MacFORMations is a program like Winforms. If you happen to have access to it, I'd love to know if it runs.
Thanks, It time for me to come back home. My 1st computer was an Apple II+

[sjk]

I'm curious to know how much battery life is extended by turning down display brightness, e.g. differences in tests with 3/4, 1/2, and 1/4 settings.
Someone wrote about disabling a CPU. Pretty sure that's possible with Apple's CHUD Tools installed; no third-party hacks necessary.

[Kees]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that turning of a core is indeed an energy saving features of the core duo. I would assume Apple has support for this in the OS, which would make turning of energy saver a bad idea for a battery test. One core would still have no problem playing the DVD.
As a side note, spinning the disc in the drive also requires a lot of power, which is another reason playing a DVD is such a battery stress test.

[prospervic]

Thanks, Jason for following-up on the Airport reception issue (I imagine you'll provide more detail in your pending report). This is encouraging news. The PB's inferior Airport reception was the main factor that kept me on my iBook all this time. Now, at last I'll seriously consider going Pro.
Prospervic

[jdb8167]

In reply to:

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turn off one of the cores, hopefully resulting in extended battery life.

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I've read reports that say that turning off one of the cores actually decreases battery life because the single core has to work harder than two working in tandem. You can turn off a core with Apple's CHUD tools.
CHUD Tools

[kattkieru]

Few people seem to be posting what you asked for. I'd like to see in future review updates:
1) Speed comparisons that include the 12" and 17" PBG4's. Some people are thinking of moving to the MacBook Pro's from those machines as well. Not the whole spectrum, but at least the most recently-available models. And I don't think tossing in some sort of baseline G4 Tower, as suggested above, would be a bad idea, either. For overkill a Mac Mini 1.42GHz might also be nice.
2) Notes on both the hissing and on the "white line" LCD issue. (Apparently a portion of the screen on many models is exceedingly bright.)
3) Compile times. If you can swing it, I'd love to know how much faster gcc is on the new machines. I've heard that it can utilize both processors, and if that's true color me a buyer. Something relatively large from fink would do.
4) The mandatory World of Warcraft test. It deserves to be in there as one of the only great MMO games on mac. Let's face it: UT2K4 is a great game, but it's not what I'd call hardware taxing in this day and age.
5) Some notes on the Unix backend stuff, particularly X11 and how the Intel version compares to the OSX version. Also, does Rosetta cover X11 apps? I don't see anyone talking about that.
6) Heat issues and the fan noise level. My PB12" constantly has its fan on if I'm doing any kind of multitasking, and especially when I'm doing graphics work or playing WoW. It sounds like an airplane taking off.
I know you can't get to all of the above, but they're there as suggestions in case you have the time before the article gets posted.
Thanks in advance.

[Jason Snell]

1. As apps change we have to re-test old systems. You should be able to extrapolate other G4 performance based on clock speed. We will be adding reference systems to future tests, however.
2. Hissing we've got covered. Haven't seen any evidence of the "white line" in our systems, so not much to be said there.
3. Sorry, compile tests aren't gonna happen here.
4. World of Warcraft is very difficult to actually test. UT2K4 and Doom have the advantage of built-in benchmarking tools, so that's what we use.
5. I don't think we'll be covering Unix backend stuff in our review.
6. Heat is covered -- it's warm, but doesn't seem warmer than previous PBG4s. As for the fan, I'm not sure what there is to say beyond the fact that I never really heard it. As a 12-inch user, I noticed it was MUCH quieter than the 12, which as you point out, does a lot of blowing.

[Peter Cohen]

In reply to:

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4. World of Warcraft is very difficult to actually test. UT2K4 and Doom have the advantage of built-in benchmarking tools, so that's what we use.

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Actually, just a point of correction here, and sorry to step on the boss's toes, but UT2K4 doesn't have built-in benchmarking tools either. It is quantifiable, however, using a toolpack from Santaduck. This is the same thing that MacSoft uses to figure out Unreal Tournament 2004 frame rates, so we're in pretty good company.
Unfortunately, there's no equivalent for World of Warcraft. And since the game is purely online, any test would be hampered by Internet lag that might fudge test results. There's no way to run WoW "locally" to produce consistently repeatable results for frame rates.

[Jason Snell]

Thank you for correcting me, Mr. Cohen. (You're fired!) We do indeed use the santaduck tool to benchmark. I should've said "UT2K4 is more readily benchmarkable."
In any event, Peter's take on WoW is right. It's a hot game, but it's not really something that's benchmarkable.