Instead, Apple touts the new display's energy efficiency (and being mercury-free), and our battery drain tests show a marked improvement to battery life.Ĭompared to other recent 15-inch media-friendly laptops, the MacBook Pro performs well, beating the HP Pavilion dv6500t and the Sony VAIO FZ180 in CNET Labs' Multitasking and iTunes encoding tests. Apple doesn't claim any difference in image quality or screen brightness (the new screens feature the same 1,440x900 native resolution as that of the previous 15-inch models), and based on anecdotal observation, we'd agree. On the other hand, despite our love for a clean look, we've become used to having at least a few media control shortcut keys - and adding a media card reader wouldn't deface the otherwise clean look.Īside from faster processors and new chipset, more memory and larger hard drives, the big change to the 15-inch MacBook Pro is its LED-backlit display, similar to those making their way into new Sony and Toshiba laptops.

The minimalist layout-you'll find only a power button, a full-size keyboard, stereo speakers, a sizable touch pad with a single mouse button, and a built-in iSight camera-remains a standard other laptop designers should emulate, and the thin chassis makes it easy to stow the system in even smaller laptop bags. We refer you to our review of the Apple MacBook Pro (15.4-inch 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) for a detailed take on Apple's excellent industrial design and attention to detail. Physically, the refreshed MacBook Pro is essentially identical to the version we looked at late last year. While $2,499 is still a lot to spend on a laptop (the entry-level model starts at $1,999 we reviewed the middle child in the MacBook Pro family), the MacBook Pro makes a strong case by keeping its components on the cutting edge, especially because Apple has bumped up the specs without raising the price.īy upgrading to the latest Intel platform and Nvidia graphics for better performance, adding a new screen tech for better battery life, and keeping the same great design and same starting prices, the MacBook Pro puts enough distance between itself and the lower-end, Editor's Choice-winning MacBook.

Moving to Intel's latest 2.4GHz mobile Core 2 Duo CPU (part of the new Centrino Duo platform) means the MacBook Pro's performance can stand up to that of the latest Windows Vista laptops, and the new LED-backlit display on the 15-inch model is more power-efficient than traditional LCD displays, resulting in better battery life. Apple's recent update of its 13-inch MacBook line was a modest one, with an incremental processor upgrade and updated default components, but the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro laptops have gotten a much more radical overhauling, even if they, like the MacBooks, look the same on the outside as previous-generation models.

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