Urgent macbook pro advice

R

RamPagE

Adept
My elder brother is looking for a macbook pro.

He has two options -

1. 2011 MBP, i5 2410M 2.3Ghz, Intel 3000 HD, 4GB 1333Mhz, 320GB 5400rpm, 13.3"

Model - MC700LL/A (BRAND NEW), Cost - 65k

2. 2010 MBP, i7 620M 2.66Ghz, Nvidia 330M 512MB, 4GB 1066Mhz, 500GB 7200rpm, 15"

Model - MC373LL/A (SPARINGLY USED, 3 MONTHS WARRANTY, 100% MINT CONDITION), Cost - 55k

These are the two deals available, which one ??? :huh:
 
Just ask your bro to check out the laptops with both(13/15 inches) screen size at some store like croma/staples etc and then get the one which he prefers, personally i will pick that MBP 15.
 
I'd go with the 15" one + Apple Care but it depends upon his requirements and uses.

13" is more portable, has a longer battery life and heats up less while the older has better speakers, lesser battery life, much better GPU and gets hotter apart from having the larger (and better HDD).
Dont forget to get Apple Care for the older one. Just in case anything happens.
 
red dragon said:
Get the 15 incher.The 13 inchers of 2011 have shorter battery life than the 13"of 2010.
Click to expand...

not necessarily anandtech has posted higher battery life,those numbers by apple are because of adopting more stringent testing methods :)

@OP,

according to benchmarks though which is faster(the new 15inch and and old 13inch)?

I read somewhere these sandybridge i5's are faster than the last gen i7.

But there's a catch here,the GPU.(intel hd 3000 vs nvidia 330m)

if you are going to game,then go 15incher,its a no-brainer. :)
 
anything over 13inch kills portability.if he is more into a allround work horse typpish use than tell him to get the 15 incher eyes close.if its more on the go than portability is a factor and thus would recommend you the 13 inch.either ways both would handle whatever your brother is doing coz both are very very powerful
 
Thanks for all the input guys.

Portability is not that important for him. The bigger the screen the better (but this aint a deciding factor at all)

The final points -

1. Bigger screen 15" vs 13.3"

2. Much better graphics - 330M 512mb vs Intel 3000HD

3. Slightly inferior on CPU performance, i5 2.3 > i7 2.66, according to benchmarks.

4. OLD vs NEW

5. Thuderbolt ..??

6. Price difference of 10k, 15" - 55K, 13.3" - 65k

7. 500GB 7200rpm vs 320GB 5400rpm

I am totally confused..
 
1. Bigger and better screen on the 15" is definitely the way to go. The 2011 13" screen is pretty bad. My older Vaio had sucky hardware but the screen was much better. This one outright sucks. Or maybe I'm just used to a very high quality screen at home.

2. The 3000 is good enough for browsing, flash and some movies. I haven't yet got to watching a lot of movies on it, but the few office videos I do have run fine. Have yet to test HD capabilities.

3. Better CPU for sure, but you don't get to figure it out in most daily work. My Athlon X4 feels about the same speed as this fancy i5, and I don't use the laptop for encoding or photoshop yet.

4. Your call. The new one is a good fancy thing to have given that it looks the same and feels the same as the 2010 model, I don't know how practical it is to worry about minor differences lie this.

5. You tell me. With not a single released peripheral, it's just a fancy DP connector.

6. The only parameter that makes sense, and the one you should base the judgement on. I still think 65 is too much for the 13 incher. It's not a terribly capable machine from the graphics perspective and the screen should have been much better. I get one from the office and don't have much of a choice, plus it's a bunch better than a crappy Vaios I had till now, which was very heavy and bulky. But the OS takes a bit of getting used to, being a hardcore Windows person.

7. Again, 150-odd GB isn't that much of a difference in practical terms.

I would say that you should go for the 15" if the support package is right.

Good Luck.
 
Dunno - I can't compare it to a 2010 model 'cause I don't have one, but it sucks. Too glossy, a little blurry and generally very sad quality for a 65K laptop. I wouldn't buy it myself if I needed a laptop, the Dell RGB 1080p display with an i5 (non-SNB) would be in the 65K range and be my personal choice.

btw I use a Dell 3008WFP at home. So I'm used to good screens :)
 
No they don't, at least not the one I got. Comfortable for super-long period of time on my lap. Much cooler running than most of the other laptops I remember using, except maybe the old Dell that weighed about a million tons. Guess the large mass took a while to heat up.

Reading something on a blog and actually using it are very different :) Maybe the reviewer got a lemon or two. Actually another great thing (from where I sit) is the battery life. It runs all day without a charge and without a break - some Youtube, FB videos, all my email and work stuff happen just fine. At peak charge it says 8 hours of life, and it gives that much. So it gets through the day without seeing a power socket - this may be one of its best features yet.

The screen should have been at least 40x better on a laptop costing this much.
 
Yeah, might be a lemon. There have been quite a few reports of Apple using excessive TIM in the newer MBP's causing overheating. They might have got the initial batches with extra TIM which caused such temps.
Can you stress test yours and post temps, if possible ?

Anyways, the 15" MBP is a better buy IMO
 
@sid: I'm not permitted to install any applications outside the network mandated guidelines. Actually the organisation is so uptight about these things that they frown upon using email readers at all, mandating the use of corporate email over either the gmail web interface (the worst in the world, bar none) or Blackberry.

However, tell me what apps to use and I'll see if I can figure out a way to get it off-net.
 
@ Rampage - Good choice

@cranky - I dont know which stress test apps are available for OSX. If you had bootcamp, it would have been easier. Anyway, thanks for helping.
 
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