Comments on: Hands-on MacBook Pro 13-inch June 09

By: Quick look: Early 2011 MacBook Pro: DoesWhat

Quick look: Early 2011 MacBook Pro: DoesWhat — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:39:34 +0000

[...] reviewed the mid-2009 MacBook Pro nearly 2 years ago. Yesterday Apple released a press release, updating the entire MacBook Pro [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:45:47 +0000

Quality review. I found this site while looking for people’s impressions on the 13″ MBP’s heat and noise output. My current laptop (Dell XPS M1210) gets so hot that it leaves red streaks on my legs, even after taking it apart and giving the cooling system a good cleaning. Ouch!

It’s so hard to find honest reviews that aren’t just cleverly-disguised affiliate portals. Well done.

Be careful about which SSD you buy. Some of them have a nasty habit of bringing the system to a grinding halt during intensive random write operations. My understanding is that the Intel and OCZ SSDs do not have this problem, but they are quite pricey.

By: Mike Dorsey

Mike Dorsey — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:25:06 +0000

Thanks for your review. I enjoyed it too. My new Macbook Pro 13 is 2 days old and I love it. I’m looking to put Windows 7 on Fusion next so I can do some work stuff. Thanks again.

By: Andre Vocent

Andre Vocent — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:34:56 +0000

I am running Windows 7 RC 64-bit on my MacBook 13″ Aluminum with the same hard drive and it’s performance score is 5.3. My scores in order are 6.0, 5.9, 5.2, 4.4, and 5.3. I am not sure why you would have gotten such a low score on the MacBook Pro 13″. I have the same specs as you except for a slightly slower processor. Mine is equipped with the 250GB 5400 rpm SATA drive, 4GB of RAM, the Nvidia 9400M and the 2.4GHz CPU. You may want to confirm that all the dirvers etc. have been installed correctly. I am very happy with the performance of Windows 7 on my MacBook and you should get at least the same performance marks.

Other than that, I would like to echo the thank you for the user’s perspective review that you have provided. Very well done!

Andre

By: Karl

Karl — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:22:07 +0000

Hi, just wanted to drop by to let you know that I bought myself a MBP 13″ 2.26mhz 4gb RAM and a WD ScorpioBlue 500gb harddrive =) I’m on cloud 9 at the moment…

By: Editor

Editor — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:22:52 +0000

720p is technically 1280×720 which is less than 1280×800. Most 13.3″ notebooks have a resolution of 1280×800. It isn’t a problem in the slightest, I would say that OS X is more suited to higher resolutions, but there are very few 13.3″ laptops that offer greater than 1280×800. The 15-inch MacBook Pro offers a resolution of 1440×900. As someone who has become accustomed to the 1024×600 resolution of netbooks, 1280×800 is acceptable.

I’ve been a Mac user for almost two years now. This is my first Mac laptop. Having been brought up on Windows, I find I can get more done on a Windows PC, but for day to day use I prefer the Mac. In particular, I don’t like the software that is provided for Mac that was originally created for PC. For example, Microsoft Office 2008 is below standard in my opinion. I use Entourage, but it’s missing a number of basic features that you’d expect from an email client and is not nearly as good as Outlook. I also prefer the Adobe suite on Windows rather than Mac. Similarly Skype appears to be missing some functionality. Firefox however is just as good on Mac as on Windows and there is plenty of great software around. Spotlight is one of the highlights of Mac OS X, it gives you the ability to find anything instantly. Windows Vista and 7 offer a similar feature, but I’ve found the Mac version to be far more reliable.

Time Machine doesn’t apply to laptops quite as much as it does to desktops, not only is it stunning, but also extremely useful. I was running XP through Parallels and at some point I managed to corrupt the entire virtualisation. Without time machine I would have lost a fair amount of work and time. I simply ran it, travelled back through time and restored a version of the Parallels before corruption.

I think it’s just something to get used to, it doesn’t take long. The command key is indeed the start key in Windows.

By: Karl

Karl — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:26:43 +0000

Thanks for your reply and info!

A few additional Q’s:

- Do you find the screen resolution to be limited? Most of the 13″ PC laptops I’ve been looking at have a 720p screen.

- When you’re in Windows, does the Apple command keys work as the Windows start key?

- From your review I draw the conclusion that you’re and old windows user (as I am), have you found it hard to swap to osx? Do you feel you’re missing some functionality or s/w from the windows environment? At the occasions when I’ve had the chance to try osx, I always find the “finder” toughest to get used to, I’m so used to the windows explorer…

By: Editor

Editor — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:15:02 +0000

Congratulations Sandi! Please let us know your thoughts and opinions once you’ve received it.

By: Sandi

Sandi — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:35:13 +0000

After reading this review (and others) I have purchased my first MacBook Pro. I have gone for the standard configuration for the 13″ 2.53 GHz as I thought going for the faster model now would give added longevity to the machine. I also purchased a Tech Air case for it as well, as your comments were so favourable.
I will be using OS X rather than Windows as I prefer the former, but I will be interested to see how Windows 7 performs. At the moment I see no need for Windows on my machine as most of the programs that I use will export and import quite happily to a Windows environment.
The only thing that I forgot to buy was a mini displayport to VGA adaptor so I can hook up with the multi-media equipment at work.

By: Editor

Editor — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:40:28 +0000

Thanks Karl!

Installation was very smooth. Essentially it involves 8 significant steps:

- Run Boot Camp on Mac OS X.
- Partition the drive using Boot Camp.
- Insert installation DVD.
- Go!
- You’ll then have to select a few Windows 7 options.
- Once Windows has completed installation, insert the Mac OS X installation DVD, which will automatically run the boot camp software. This installs nearly all necessary drivers.
- After installing an anti-virus program, connect to the Internet and run Windows Update, this should detect and install the Nvidia display driver.
- Go to the ‘System’ control panel item, activate your copy of Windows 7.
- Run the performance test which should automatically enable the Aero theme.

Once Windows Update has completed installation of the Nvidia driver, make sure you run the performance test, you’ll then be able to use the translucent Aero theme which looks great on the LED screen. I would use Windows 7 as my primary operating system on the Mac if it wasn’t for the awful trackpad driver. It’s fine if you leave it in its default settings and click down on the trackpad, but if you want to use a soft tap, it’s useless. I’ll be looking for a third party utility that fixes the issue, I’m not all that hopeful.

If you’re happy clicking down the trackpad for each click or you use an external mouse then I’d highly recommend using Windows 7 on the Mac. If like me you prefer to tap the trackpad to click, then at the moment it’s unusable, you’ll find yourself clicking constantly without meaning to.

Performance is let down only by the HDD, which I’m hoping will be fixed with a replacement SSD.