Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

World's Fastest Vista Notebook: The Apple MacBook Pro

(1/3) > >>

Ralf Maximus:
Holy irony, Batman.  The fastest Vista notebook ever tested by PC World is made by Apple.

http://www.pcworld.com/product/review/id,30190/apple_macbook_pro.html



And priced below $2,500 USD it's reasonable for what you get:

- 17 inch widescreen
- 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 CPU
- 4GB RAM
- nVidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics
- 160GB drive
- 802.11n and Bluetooth
- Honking Big Apple logo

Note that it outperformed every other notebook tested, even machines specifically designed with Vista in mind.   And clocking 141 FPS on Crysis it's a damn sight faster than my desktop.  Getting past the fact it's only got one mouse button and moderate/sucky battery life, I can still see myself with one of these.

But (surprise, surprise) it doesn't come with Vista.  You'll have to supply your own copy of that. 

f0dder:
141fps in crysis? Sounds like the GPU lacks support for some of the fancier things, and a less eye-candyish shader path is chosen? Same reason some of the linux guys get insane fps, simply because the DirectX clone only has basic features :)

Darwin:
4GB RAM in a notebook for less than $2500 - sweet. I haven't seen any high-end Windows based notebooks on offer with 4GB RAM in that or any price range (I live in a small town) - makes me wonder if Apple is beginning to realise that there's money to be made now that their hardware will run either Windows or OSX? Actually, stupid me, I thought this was the whole point with they switched to Intel and then they seemed to be proving me wrong. Maybe I was right after all...

nontroppo:
Getting past the fact it's only got one mouse button
--- End quote ---

I thought this too for the first 10 seconds of using my macbook. But the *great* feature of Apple trackpads is you simply chord two fingertips and click. This is simply faster and causes less strain on my hands; it really is better than a second button. Oh, and two fingertips and slide scrolls horizontally, vertically or both - this is just fast and ergonomically brilliant. I dread using my older Acer with its crappy Synaptics hotzones for scrolling or contorting my hand to its 3 buttons.

I would never go back to a standard laptop trackpad ever again. This is one case where Apple hardware got things really right (they are doing penance for also designing the mess that is the mightymouse). IMO.

Oh, this may sound pointless, but the Apple laptop power supplies are so much better designed. Smaller  overall, you can swap the wall->supply cable with a direct plug for portability, and with little popup wings to neatly fold cables they make fornicating-snakes cable hell when travelling less hellish. A small detail but it does make a difference.

Ralf Maximus:
Thanks, nontroppo.  I had no idea single-button life could work. 

I don't need a new laptop right now, but if I did I'd seriously consider this one.  Isn't there a rumor floating around that Apple's bringing out a super-portable to compete with the Asus Eee?  Now THAT would be interesting.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page