Apple Laptop has Looks and Brains

New York Times ^ | 3/2/06 | David Pogue

[Reborn]

APPLE LAPTOP HAS LOOKS AND BRAINS

David Pogue
3/2/06

The MacBook Pro's camera and power help with iChat video meetings.

REMEMBER the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance? If you're a fan of the Macintosh computer, meet the five stages of switching to Apple's new laptop: lust, anticipation, delight, dismay and waiting.

Ordinarily, it's not really news when a computer company introduces a new laptop model. You don't see newspaper headlines blaring, "Gateway's New P32-XC5 Adds Faster Processor, Third U.S.B. Port."

But the new Apple MacBook Pro ($2,000 and up) is a different story. Although it looks nearly identical to the company's existing 15-inch PowerBook, something radical is going on under the hood.

Apple's high-end laptops are beautiful, thin and light, clad in scuff-hiding aluminum and crammed with features: Wi-Fi wireless networking, Bluetooth wireless, DVD burning, light-up keys for typing in the dark, stereo speakers, batteries with illuminated "fuel gauges" and much more. But the speed of Apple's laptops has only inched forward in recent years, no thanks to the suppliers of its processor chips ( I.B.M. and Freescale).

Apple made the eyebrow-raising decision, therefore, to replace that chip family with chips from another company you may have heard of: Intel.

Now, changing chip families in a computer isn't as simple as changing a CD in your stereo. The entire operating system and every single software program must be rewritten — recompiled, the geeks would say — to speak the new chip's language. That process can take weeks or months.

[js1138]

The Macbook uses a dual processor setup which means that if you're working on something, say loading up email or a giant iphoto library - you'll still be able to browse the web or do other things with a very minimal speed penalty.

Don't hold your breath about this. I've been building and using dual processor PCs for six years. There is an improvement in multitasking, but it isn't like having twice the speed and power.

[goldstategop]

The reviewer says Apple's own programs will run slowly. They all have to have be recompiled to run on an Intel chip and until they are, performance will take a hit. There's not much reason to upgrade from the old PPC chip. At least none that I can find worth the $2,000 price tag on the MacBook.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[TheBattman]

Makes perfect sense considering that Microsoft is the majority stakeholder in Apple.

What Kool-Aid have YOU been drinnking?

[indcons]

"What Kool-Aid have YOU been drinnking?"

The Kool-Aid reference was unnecessary, you moron. I made a mistake and others corrected me (see my post later in the thread).

[Admin Moderator]

Could you tone it down some?
Thanks.

[daviddennis]

When I switched from a single processor system to a dual, first with a dual 450 G4 and then with a 2ghz PowerMac G5, I got truly massive advantages in multitasking power.

It really does work as I described, at least on the Mac platform. I don't know if Windows is as well optimized for multiprocessor systems as the Mac is.

D

[indcons]

Yessir...appreciate the reminder.

[js1138]

It will be interesting to see what happens with Intel processors on a Mac. One thing about the Intel line, including AMDs, is that multi-CPU capable chips lag behind singles in raw clock speed.

It's not just the OS that influences performance. Memory access plays a role. So far, the AMD Opteron has the best memory architecture for scaling up to quad procs or greater.

It also matters whether the application can benefit from having separate memory channels. The benchmarks I've seen don't indicate that one kind of computer has an across-the-board advantage.