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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
DO NOT buy the MacBook Pro...
Zach Honig, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 11:20 AM on 01.12.06 |
->> I've been at MacWorld all week... waiting in line from 5:30 AM on Tuesday, I got into the third row of the keynote. I was mostly impressed with what I heard - "The MacBook Pro is 4 to 5 times faster than the current PB model"" - holy cow!
But wait - the only applications that run natively on the CoreDuo at the moment are Tiger, iLife, and iWork. Do you use iPhoto for all you image editing? Think you'll be able to get buy with those "beautiful" new iWeb web sites? If so, you will absolutely love this new processor. If you have to use Photoshop, Aperture, or heavens forbid Final Cut Pro, you won't see performance anywhere near the current Powerbooks until you PAY TO UPGRADE to the new software versions, when they become available months from now. You're in luck though... you won't see any delay with Microsoft Word!
I've played around with the MacBook Pro and asked all the questions that came to mind - why wasn't battery life mentioned - what about the Superdrive - where is that FireWire 800 port - and the pc card slot? The Battery isn't a production version - so they "didn't test it." SuperDrive has been downgraded to a 4x non Double Layer model - "Because the MacBook Pro is (the slightest bit) thinner than the PowerBook. The current drive won't fit." FireWire 800 and pc card are gone.
On the plus side - the built in iSight camera is pretty darn cool!
Once software for the CoreDuo becomes available, this baby will really scream. Until then, DON'T BUY IT. I wouldn't even consider buying one until the next revision, which I suspect won't be too far away. |
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Walter Tychnowicz, Photographer
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Edmonton | Alberta | Canada | Posted: 11:26 AM on 01.12.06 |
->> Hey Zach.
Did Apple say why they dropped firewire 800,S video, as well as the PCMICA slot ( in favour of this Express card 32 ) ? How about all of the older software and so on if it will work with the new stuff .Great that its 4-5 times faster is not any good to me if my current system runs everything I need it to run.Its looks like a nice machine ,but not much different from the one I already have.Thanks but I am keeping mine for now. |
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Chris Machian, Photographer, Assistant
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Omaha | NE | USA | Posted: 11:51 AM on 01.12.06 |
->> You can run your older programs on the Macbook Pro. You use an emulator called "Rosetta" I believe. In theory it sucks some processor power but is still faster than current powerbooks.
This and the express card were covered in a previous thread:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=18897 |
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Zach Honig, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 12:04 PM on 01.12.06 |
| ->> Chris, I saw the current thread. Rosetta is NOT as fast as the current PowerBooks. Walter, the older software will work (with the exception of Virtual PC, go figure), but it will not be as fast. Jobs mentioned during his keynote that Rosetta will not run Photoshop fast enough for professionals using the program for hours each day. |
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Warren Wimmer, Photographer
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Orland Park | Il | USA | Posted: 3:58 PM on 01.12.06 |
->> OK, now I am as usual, befuddled. I have the older powerbook g4 17in 1.33 gig. model
powerbook 5,3. 1440x9. with it tuned to use the verizon high speed internet card in the pcmi slot. I WAS going to go with the MacBook Pro 15in screen for the better rez and 4 times the speed. But now with Zach's recon mission all bets are off.
Any thoughts about getting the current 15in powerbook g4 which is sold on apples site. (maybe its price will come down after the new ones start shipping) says it is the same rez as what I have now but 26% more pix and a brighter display. (the smaller the screen the better the imagae looks???)
I have a buyer for my current 17 paying me a very good (high) price so the purchase of a new one wont hurt that bad. But he wants to move on the buy now.
Input/thoughts please |
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Greg Ferguson, Photographer
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Scottsdale | Az | USA | Posted: 3:59 PM on 01.12.06 |
->> Version Tracker has a page showing the apps that have made the conversion to an Intel-native code-base.
http://www.versiontracker.com/macintel/ |
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Monty Rand, Photographer
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Bangor | ME | USA | Posted: 8:42 PM on 01.12.06 |
| ->> Thanks for the info Zach. Much appreciated. |
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Jeff Kowalsky, Photographer
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West Bloomfield | MI | United States | Posted: 11:09 PM on 01.12.06 |
->> There is a memory card reader for ExpressCard. It does not say anything about availability.
http://tinyurl.com/btgo3
jeff kowalsky |
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Mike Isler, Photographer
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Santa Barbara | CA | US | Posted: 11:34 PM on 01.12.06 |
->> Jeff,
That's great, as long as you don't shoot CompactFlash. I'd hate to be forced to use SD cards exclusively in my Canon's simply because of the reader. I love my CardBus32 PC card CF reader for my current powerbook. I believe with ExpreccCard/34, that's impossible to recreate because the form factor is smaller. It would either stick way out or have a cable to the reader part. |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Andrew Malana, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 12:07 AM on 01.13.06 |
->> Delane, this link was posted on another thread but worth mentioning here also:
http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/about.jsp
When they make the '54' adapter for bigger peripherals like CF cards, we should be able to use CF cards but like what Mike says, maybe it will stick out and not flush like our CF cardbus readers.
This Expresscard uses either PCI express or USB 2.0 bandwidth so speed of transfer may be negligible from what we are used to with 32-bit cardbus CF card readers. |
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Nelson Antoine, Photographer
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São Paulo | SP | Brazil | Posted: 1:27 PM on 01.13.06 |
->> about the new MacBookPro, ok, in terms of performance i think this new ones are vastly superiors, at least in a teoric way!! built-in iSight camera, gorgeous!!!! BUT the lack of a built-in 56k modem in a professional apple-notebook kills me....its the new tendencie, ok, but for us photojournalists, its not a very good idea!! anyway, u can get one external from apple store for $49 bucks.
i will stay with my old PB G4 for a more couple of time........:p |
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Baron Sekiya, Photographer
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Kailua-Kona | HI | USA | Posted: 2:34 PM on 01.13.06 |
| ->> There are companies coming out with SD/MMC card readers for ExpressCard/34. I've switched my personal memory card needs over to SD cards and don't want to use CF anymore since the future points to SD. Check my member page and you'll see how I use an adapter to use SD cards in my Canon 5D. |
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Larry Vaughn, Photographer
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Gainesville | FL | | Posted: 3:44 PM on 01.13.06 |
->> Good point Zach. When the G5 came out, or was it the G4, they claimed it was the fastest in the world. Not.
Even with new software and hardware, it's unlikely that anything would be 4 or 5 times faster.
If something takes 60 seconds to finish, they are claiming that it now will take 12-15 seconds.
That claim is hard to believe.
Apple used to claim that their processors were much better and faster than Intel's offerings.
Now that they are using Intel, they are claiming that the Intel processors are 4-5 times as fast as the old processors? Hard to believe.
Are they lying now or were they lying then?
Tests by qualified people who use various types of software have shown that the Intel PC's are usually faster than the Macs, in actual use, not some pie in the sky Photoshop plug in that you would almost never use. Frequently AMD powered PC's were/are faster than the Intel versions.The same new processors are available in PC format, from various manufactures, for less money.
Don't believe advertising.
Advances in computers are incremental.
When you consider the time you use for a work session, extra speed is almost meaningless. You don't sit down at the desk faster, boot the computer much faster, arrange your work faster, surf the web faster, instant message faster, drink your Mountain Dew faster, type faster, transmit faster, shoot faster, think faster or talk about your new computer faster but maybe you do spend your money faster.
Most tests with single vs. dual core processors show that the single processor is faster for most applications, meaning what is available now. Hardware normally is way ahead of software, so when the optimized software versions are available, you can get a newer slightly faster version of the hardware required to run it.
You might get better faster results overall by using a 10,000 rpm hard drive or improving other subsystems. Save your money unless you will actually benefit from spending it.
Personally, I'm waiting for the playstation 3 to come out, since it is supposed to run linux out of the box. Fast and cheap. Also, the rumor is that the mac's will be able to run Windows Vista. Not that you would want to. |
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David Seelig, Photographer
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Hailey | ID | USA | Posted: 4:33 PM on 01.13.06 |
| ->> I am always excited by new equipment, but I cannot buy a new computer where the dvd burn speed is slower then what I can do now 4x instead of 8x in my g4 powerbook . My powerbok is for naming and archiving quickly and my desktop is what I do my hard core image processing for . Now if and when the new nopteboooks are as fast as my g5 dual 2 gig desktop and I can sell this thing and go down to one computer well that would be a different story . |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington, DC & Seattle | WA | US | Posted: 4:35 PM on 01.13.06 |
->> Larry...on the Apple site they reference the following:
SPECfp_rate_base2000
Floating-point
calculation (estimate)
and
SPECint_rate_base2000
Integer calculation
(estimate)
Testing conducted by Apple in December 2005 using preproduction 15-inch MacBook Pro units with 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo; all other systems were shipping units. Estimated SPECint_rate_base2000 score: 30.3. Estimated SPECfp_rate_base2000 score: 25.6. SPEC is a registered trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.spec.org for more information. Benchmarks were compiled using the IBM compiler and a beta version of the Intel compiler for Mac OS.
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I thought we all used SPECint_rate_base2000 Floating-point and Integer calculation EVERY day; it's kinda like learning algebra right?
While I LOVE apple (and recent made the switch back from a peecee), they are flat out liers becuase you can't have it both ways (G4/G5 is faster...no wait...Intel is faster)...I hope somone in the media calls them on this...
Delane
(this post does not "sound" humerous, but it's supposed to be) |
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William Jurasz, Photographer, Assistant
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Cedar Park | TX | USA | Posted: 4:51 PM on 01.13.06 |
->> Delane, while Apple certainly over-rates their performance edge over the competition (who doesn't, actually), I honestly do not believe they were liars then or are liars now. In other words Apple can have it both ways.
The first G4's to hit the market were many years ago. I happened to be on the verification team of the original G4 processor. And, back then, it really was faster than an Intel offering. A combination of a nice internal pipeline, a SIMD instruction set (AltiVec/VMX) that actually made sense (compared to what Intel had at that time), and a very good internal cache and bus interface unit made for a great processor.
So why is Apple now saying Intel is better than PowerPC? Basically, Intel did not stand still and Motorola did. Their focus shifted and the G4 was improved in ways that benefited other customers, but not necessarily Apple. |
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Mike Brice, Photographer
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Toledo | OH | USA | Posted: 8:36 PM on 01.13.06 |
->> Well I am sitting here in the Philly airport surfing the net on my Verizon PC Card using my 15" PB.
I wouldn't be able to do that with the new computer, so unless the airlines get their act together and start flying on time, I'll stick with this combo so I am not bored to tears while waiting for my twice weekly flights. |
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Greg Ferguson, Photographer
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Scottsdale | Az | USA | Posted: 3:18 AM on 01.14.06 |
->> "Delane, while Apple certainly over-rates their performance edge over the competition (who doesn't, actually), I honestly do not believe they were liars then or are liars now. In other words Apple can have it both ways.
The first G4's to hit the market were many years ago. I happened to be on the verification team of the original G4 processor. And, back then, it really was faster than an Intel offering. A combination of a nice internal pipeline, a SIMD instruction set (AltiVec/VMX) that actually made sense (compared to what Intel had at that time), and a very good internal cache and bus interface unit made for a great processor.
So why is Apple now saying Intel is better than PowerPC? Basically, Intel did not stand still and Motorola did. Their focus shifted and the G4 was improved in ways that benefited other customers, but not necessarily Apple."
That is exactly what happened. IBM and Motorola and Apple designed a nice chip-set in the PPC, but IBM and Motorola did not deliver on their ability to scale the technology.
Given the theoretical advantages of the PPC RISC vs Intel's CISC design, it was surprising that Intel was able to gain the speed-ups they did - I interpret it as determination on their part to not fall behind and an aggressive willingness to spend the R&D dollars as need-be to pull it off.
Motorola focused on making the PPC smaller and more efficient so it could be used in car ignitions and tiny devices. At the same time, Motorola crumbled - their SPS division was sold off and the corporation is a shell compared to what it used to be. Having spent over 20 years working there I saw it fall apart; It was not pretty.
IBM is having their problems too. They have great fabs, but haven't been performing like a company with their reputation should. I think they still drag a lot of their culture from their heyday.
I was in San Jose at the intro of Apple's initial RISC adventures to see their proof of concept experiments with LC computers and Motorola RISC (well before PPC) and the speed up was remarkable. The first PPCs ran circles around Intel's fastest boxes, and the testing was NOT some esoteric plug in, it was a full demonstration of a photographer's workflow from start to finish that exercised integer and floating point and I/O. A PPC G4 single processor was out-running dual processor Intel boxes, so not only was it 2x as fast (2x would only keep up) but was at least 3x. And it wasn't an entry level PC - it was a top-of-the-line system easily 2x the cost of the G4 box. And, after the demo, Jobs explained that was the entry-level G4 PPC.
So, Intel did a great job, IBM and Motorola dropped the ball, and Apple, being smart, is moving to the CPU architecture with the best bang-for-the-buck.
What is more significant that escapes so many people, is that Apple took an OS that was very tightly coupled to the hardware - a totally closed system - and now they're able to recompile and slide the old hardware out and something new in, all the while maintaining compatibility and operation of the customer's software investments. Yeah, the PPC versions of our apps won't be able to take the best advantage of the new hardware, but then again, they continue to work, and we're not forced to repurchase immediately just to be functional. THAT is what customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer sensitivity is all about, and shows why Apple is a class act.
I have absolutely no complaints about how Apple does business - yeah, there are times they do the big-corporation brain-dead things, but overall they do a great job of making our computing life a lot easier than other companies or OSes would. I am impressed as hell with Jobs for the great job he's done steering Apple because they're stronger than ever (wasn't this the company the naysayers proclaimed would be dead over and over?) and they're still innovating and showing how it's supposed to be done. |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Larry Vaughn, Photographer
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Brian Light, Photographer
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Pennsville | NJ | USA | Posted: 9:04 AM on 01.17.06 |
| ->> By the time this comes out in the next two months many of the packages that you warn about will have been updated for it. Anyway that you look at this, this is a good move for the future. Our current performance crawl will now turn back into the run that the AMD/Intel competition fuel. As far as FW800. I, like most people, don't own anything FW800. I alway look that way but in reality, with the PC crowd so USB2 dominate, FW800 has even less a chance than SCSI had. I've never used the modem in my 17" Powerbook. A USB cable or Bluetooth and my cell phone, or WIFI is about all I ever use. The same kind of issues were brought up when the floppy drive was dropped, but I never missed that either. Fear not what the future brings, the sky is not falling, only opening up to the potential with which we have been excluded over the last few years. |
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Zach Honig, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Columbia | MO | USA | Posted: 3:39 PM on 01.17.06 |
| ->> I agree that using Intel chips was a good move for Apple, but they should have waited until this summer as they had previously announced. In my opinion it doesn't look good when they release a pro line computer before completing the universal binaries of their pro applications. Steve Jobs is a businessman; his job is to sell computers. If he was confident that professionals would be pleased with the performance of applications under Rosetta, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to announce (during his keynote, mind you) that Photoshop performance under Rosetta won't suffice for the professional until Adobe releases their universal binary. I've played with the MacBook Pro and I've used Photoshop on it... why should you spend 2 grand or more on a computer that will probably run Photoshop slower than what you've already got. There may be a shortage of CoreDuo chips right now but there will be plenty to go around. Be patient, wait for Adobe to release their new version of Photoshop, and then buy a MacBook. Who knows... by the time Photoshop is ready Apple may release an even more powerful portable. To those of you who marked my original post "Huh?" - hopefully this will clear things up. |
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William Jurasz, Photographer, Assistant
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Cedar Park | TX | USA | Posted: 4:19 PM on 01.17.06 |
->> Zach wrote: "In my opinion it doesn't look good when they release a pro line computer before completing the universal binaries of their pro applications."
Then there obviously must be a good reason for them to have done so, and that reason might be something that is best kept internal and out of the press for a variety of possible reasons. IBM was extremely outraged when Apple made the move. My rumor source tells me they doubled the price of the G5 to Apple the next day. Its entirely possible Apple simply needed to accelerate a move away from G4 and G5 processors.
In hind-sight I don't think Apple should have even announced the switch to Intel until they were very close to shipping the very first real product. "We're moving to Intel, and in two weeks you will be able to buy..."
Now I have a spare license on Photoshop for PowerPC, trying to determine if I buy a G5 system because of that. Or get a MacTel and fork over the cash for the Photoshop port when it becomes availalbe... hmmm... |
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Chuong Doan, Photographer
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Kansas City | MO | USA | Posted: 5:07 PM on 01.17.06 |
->> Have you guys seen the new Mac commercials that feature Intel, saying something like "Intel chips have been trapped inside boring machines until now"?
Intel is definitely not happy about those. And insulting PC users like that is not the way to get people to switch. |
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Wynn Rujiraviriyapinyo, Photographer
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Pete Lorence, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Loughborough | Leicestershire | UK | Posted: 7:11 PM on 01.17.06 |
| ->> Ouch, Photoshop really does crawl on the new system, an ideal reason not to get the new systems yet. |
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