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Did apple improve the screen on the 13"mbp? or is it same as the old 13" uni-mb

F

fameadvance

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 19, 2008
27
0
I just sold my MacBook Air and im looking to buy the new MacBook Pro 13" but have a question about the screen brightness and quality.

Back when it was called the unibody Mac Book 13" i read a review (walt mossberg i think) that stated the quality of the screen wasnt on the same level as the air of 15"mbp. This has put me off, does anybody know if when apple rename the 13" in June did they improve the screen?
 
I've used both the machines before, and the screen on the MBP is MUCH improved over the horrid one on the uMB.
 
fameadvance said:
This has put me off, does anybody know if when apple rename the 13" in June did they improve the screen?
Click to expand...
Based on the threads about it on MacRumors, Apple looks like they starting putting in the new screens a month or two before they announced it (when the uMB was relaunched at the MBP).
 
aristobrat said:
Based on the threads about it on MacRumors, Apple looks like they starting putting in the new screens a month or two before they announced it (when the uMB was relaunched at the MBP).
Click to expand...

The updated UMB screens still aren't quite as good as what they put in the UMBP models.
 
Yeahhhh

Oh fab, thanks guys thats excatly what i wanted to hear.

Now should i get the 2.26GHz or 2.53GHz? Is there a huge difference in speed between the 2?
 
The color depth is like nothing i've ever seen.

Not sure what to make of it. It's a bit tricky to calibrate but i've only had it a week.
 
fameadvance said:
Oh fab, thanks guys thats excatly what i wanted to hear.

Now should i get the 2.26GHz or 2.53GHz? Is there a huge difference in speed between the 2?
Click to expand...

The difference between these two uMB 13's is there but not huge. They actually don't get significantly different scores in Xbench from what I've seen. I asked a friend to run Xbench on his 2.53 machine and I ran it on mine (both with no disk test, to make it clearer) . The 2.53 got a 197. My 2.26 scored 192 the first time, 196.9 the second time around. I don't think you will notice a difference in real-world performance between the two.

Save the $300, buy the 2.26. If you want speed, use the $300 you save on a fast hard drive (or SSD) and 4GB RAM. You will blow the 2.53 out of the water with those upgrades (you may not even need the RAM), and will actually notice a difference in everyday performance.

As for the screen, it's beautiful. Nicest LCD I have ever owned - and yes it is noticably nicer than the plain uMB.
 
does it slowdown when hot?

Think i'll go for the cheaper 2.26Ghz version. Dont really need the extra power for simple blogging and surfing do i?

Just hope it doesnt get too hot like my Macbook Air used to. It would get so hot if you watched you tube and eventually it would slow down to unworkable. Anybody experienced similar issues on the uni-MBP 13"?
 
i also sold my air and bought the 13" mbp...the mbp screen is on par with my mba and it doesn't have the horrible heating issue i had with the air.
 
fameadvance said:
Oh fab, thanks guys thats excatly what i wanted to hear.

Now should i get the 2.26GHz or 2.53GHz? Is there a huge difference in speed between the 2?
Click to expand...

Based on pricing online at the Apple store, you can get the 2.26 GHz model and upgrade to 4 GB Ram and the 128 GB SSD (from Apple) for $1,699.

If you get the 2.53 GHz model (which already comes with 4 GB RAM) and upgrade to the 128 GB SSD (from Apple) it will cost you $1,849.

And of course, you can upgrade the RAM and HD from elsewhere and save even more, at the expense of processor speed.

So the question I leave to those more knowledgeable than I is, which will have the greatest positive impact on performance? Faster HD and more RAM, or the slightly faster processor, or both?
 
jhewes said:
So the question I leave to those more knowledgeable than I is, which will have the greatest positive impact on performance? Faster HD and more RAM, or the slightly faster processor, or both?
Click to expand...

You'll notice no performance difference with just the processor. In CPU heavy tasks you may notice it performs them some seconds faster but that's about it.

A faster HDD, especially a SSD will be the upgrade that makes the biggest difference. More RAM will only help if you actually run programs that need that much. For most tasks 2GB is plenty.

When it comes to the displays, I was at a store yesterday looking at the new Macbook Pros. The 13" model's display is a ******** better than the POS that was in the previous revision. Now you don't have to wring your neck trying to find an angle where it shows the picture right. Of course, it's still a 6-bit TN panel so it can't compete with proper (meaning anything with PVA and IPS panels) external displays but for a laptop display it's not bad at all.
 
powerful enough

someone on twitter just said

"Well, the low specced #MacBook Pro 13'' won't be able to render high quality movies, just to take an examble"

Is that true?
 
fameadvance said:
someone on twitter just said

"Well, the low specced #MacBook Pro 13'' won't be able to render high quality movies, just to take an examble"

Is that true?
Click to expand...

Of course it won't. High quality movies (Harry Potter 6, Madagascar 2, etc) are rendered on server farms consisting of thousands of overpowered computers.

;)
 
fameadvance said:
someone on twitter just said

"Well, the low specced #MacBook Pro 13'' won't be able to render high quality movies, just to take an examble"

Is that true?
Click to expand...

No, it's nonsense. And I wouldn't trust a person with those spelling skills anyway.
 
fameadvance said:
someone on twitter just said

"Well, the low specced #MacBook Pro 13'' won't be able to render high quality movies, just to take an examble"

Is that true?
Click to expand...

Firstly, you can't go wrong with the faster machine has it's more future proofed and it will have a better resale value, however people get too fixated on clock frequency when there's so much more involved in the CPU. The system bus, memory speed and clock play a role in how fast the computer runs. at 1Ghz system bus, a lot can be done with this so don't worry about it. These are the fasted machines that Apple has made over the years and their previous machines were no slouches in terms of video and graphics rendering which is what Macs are legendary for.
If you're tight on a budget just get the lower spec Macbook Pro.
 
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