Meet Matt, a senior technician here at Laptop Broker. Like all our technicians, Matt knows his way around a laptop and has upgraded and rebuilt thousands of computers over the years. We asked Matt to review a few laptops he is familiar with and have posted them for our customers to review. We hope you find this information helpful and welcome your feedback.

Apple MacBook Pro Review

Apple MacBook Pro is the latest notebook by Apple. It offers the utmost in notebook technology. Apple MacBook Pro is a sleek and elegant-looking laptop.

Features

Apple MacBook Pro depends on 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with ATI Mobility Radeon X 1600 graphics. It has a video RAM of 128 MB. The speed of MacBook Pro is five times that of MacBook G4. You can your jobs much faster. Display is bright and integrated iSight camera helps you video chat with anyone and from anywhere. It offers 1GB RAM memory with a maximum of 3 GB. The hard drive is 120GB and has a speed of 5400 RPM. You benefit through a twelve-month manufacturer warranty.

Rating: 5/5

The Looks on the Exterior

Apple MacBook Pro is a slim notebook. It has a strong aluminum chassis. It is metallic silver in color. The design and build of Apple MacBook Pro is excellent. It offers a 4x single layer DVD burner, which adds to its thin built. This notebook perfectly suits the professionals on the go.

Rating: 5/5

Processor and Chipset

Apple MacBook Pro uses Intel Core Duo CPU. This processor is an improvement over Intel’s Pentium M. The Core Duo Processor uses two Pentium M CPU cores each with its own 1 MB of cache. It does so by compressing everything within a 65-nanometer die process. Apple offers an improvement over BIOS, Extensible Firmware Interface, or EFI. This offers easy functioning through MacOS and Vista operating systems. Apple uses Intel's new 945 PM (Napa) platforms or chipset with discrete video in Apple MacBook Pro. This offers Serial ATA storage interface, 667 MHz front side bus, and PCI Express for video. Other standard features of Intel processor include USB 2.0, Wi-Fi of either 802.11b/g or 802.11a/b/g, and ExpressCard34.

Rating: 5/5

Memory (RAM)

Apple MacBook Pro offers 512 MB of 667MHz DDR2. Although this is just half of RAM as available in typical notebooks, yet it is very fast. The Intel platform offers dual-channel memory. Hence, you can benefit through the empty RAM slot available here. Further, this arrangement offers increased memory bandwidth of dual channel.

Rating: 5/5

Graphics and Video Capabilities

Apple MacBook Pro offers ATI's RADEON Mobility X1600 for video capabilities. Although this is a new setup with Apple MacBook Pro, it sure will deliver excellent results with better performance. This feature coupled with the ability to dual boot makes Apple MacBook Pro an excellent bet for playing games. Mac Book’s X1600 video chip supports ATI's AVIVO technology. This technology offers easy encoding or trans-coding of video content and smooth movement of video packages.

Rating: 5/5

Ports

Apple MacBook Pro offers a dual-link DVI port. You can use an external monitor to attach to this port through VGA adapter. However, Apple MacBook Pro does not offer any S-Video port and hence you cannot connect it to a television. Other ports include a FireWire 800 Port, a FireWire 400 Port, 2 USB 2.0 Ports, a stereo audio output, and a microphone or mono input.

Rating: 4/5

Battery Life

The total battery life is little over three hours. It could extend to a maximum of three and half hours. However, this can get reduced if you use all options at the same time. There is a special menu of better battery life option. This brings in automatic increase in battery life. If your screen is not in use for some time, it switches off the screen, ramps down processor speed when not required, and in similar ways extends the battery life. In that case, battery life gets extended to around five hours.

The power adapter of Apple MacBook Pro is an 85-watt unit. Therefore, power supply is much better than its predecessor is.

Rating: 4/5

Innovation

Apple MacBook Pro offers an innovative solution for power plug problems. It offers MagSafe. This is a magnetic power attachment. It can break a connection if your power-cord trips. This attachment swings into action immediately and hence prevents any serious damages.

Rating: 5/5

Software

Apple MacBook Pro offers excellent software package included within the package. It offers inbuilt iLife 06 consisting of consumer video, photo, and audio and DVD authoring software for easy use on Windows. iLife consists of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, Garage Band and iWeb. It functions fine with Windows XP operating system. It additionally offers complete compatibility to Microsoft Vista OS.

Rating: 5/5

Wireless

Apple MacBook Pro offers built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, and an installed 802.11 b/g. Mac OS X allows automatic connection to the strongest available network. This is a huge benefit.

Rating: 5/5

Keyboard and Touchpad

Apple MacBook Pro offers a backlit keyboard. This facility helps you use the keyboard even in lowlight conditions. Further, the built-in light sensor allows easy and automatic adjustment to available light. This sensor comes to life in dark surroundings due to its default settings. Keys are firm and allow easy movement across the keyboard. The function keys on the top help control volume and brightness.

Track pad is good and big enough for smooth operation. It offers a two-finger scroll. As soon as you put two fingers on the track pad, you can scroll up and down or side to side. The four direction keys also integrate home and end keys.

Rating: 5/5

Screen

Apple MacBook Pro offers a 15.4-Inch WXGA+ Widescreen. The resolution offered is 1440 x 900 pixels. The horizontal viewing is insufficient and does not offer clear viewing. The vertical angle is not too good. All images and color brightness is perfect and you do not find anything very glossy or glaring.

Rating: 4/5

Sound, Heat, and Noise

Apple MacBook Pro has built-in speakers on the left and right side of the keyboard. Placement of speakers allows easy flow of sound without any blockades. Volume is just perfect. It proves good even for watching movies. Headphones offer the perfect audio coverage. Although sound bass is little less, it however allows for decent hearing.

While Apple MacBook Pro runs on power, it is perfectly cool. However, once you put it on battery, the laptop becomes little warm. If you continue usage on battery for extended hours, laptop becomes hot. Further, the aluminum chassis soaks and radiates the heat fast and more. The hot parts include backside of the left speaker grill and the strip along the back on the bottom. It is best to use your Apple MacBook Pro keeping it on a table or similar place other than your lap.

On the noise front, Apple MacBook Pro hardly emits any noise. While working in a silent room, you can hear the faint noise of the processor fan. However, you should strain your ears to catch this noise. Otherwise, you cannot hear it. The DVD drive is little noisy if you try to install anything. Overall, Apple MacBook Pro functions silently.

Rating: 4/5

Overall Conclusions

Apple MacBook Pro offers easy working with different software. It is definitely smaller and quieter than other laptops. However, this could be the reason for the difference in cost in comparison to other laptops. Apple MacBook Pro supports durable hardware components. This saves you many dollars on repairs and other similar expenses. Although durability of the different hardware parts could add up to the weight of your laptop, yet, it is worth the weight.

Apple MacBook Pro contains a 4 x SuperDrive model for the optical drive. This is approximately three millimeters thinner than the original optical drive available in other laptops. Hence, it cannot support burning of dual-layer discs as available in previous PowerBook models.

Apple MacBook Pro offers sleek and fast performance. Apple Remote initializes Front Row and gives quick access to iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, and iDVD. Some of the programs are not optimized to function according to the speed of the Intel processor. Hence, their working speed could be less. This proves little frustrating.

Pros:

• Good Performance
• Smaller and less heavy
• Compatibility with Windows XP or OS X
• No noise
• High quality webcam
• Special remote for media and power point

Cons:

• Gives out lot of heat
• Lacks media card reader
• Only 90 days of toll-free technical support

Features: 5/5
Performance: 4/5
Price: 3/5
Usability: 5/5