I thought I would break out my 2006 15" MBP and compare it to my latest 16" MBP and see how far the Machine has come in terms of design in the past fourteen years.
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How far has the MacBook Pro Come?
- Thread starter CPark98
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- 2006 2019 mac macbook pro
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That, right there, the 2006 15" MBP was the first computer I ever tried iLife on. Which is what made me buy a Mac myself eventually and not just try it at a friend's - GarageBand and iMovie - Played with those and I were sold. - And I honestly love that design and still do. I genuinely think it's better than the Unibody that followed it, and thickness aside, even the Retina generations. The keyboard especially, IMO, looks way nicer, and the backlighting as I remember it was great on it. And the little hibernation thing it did where the Apple logo could breathe along. It was such a cool computer
In my opinion the MBP 16 is the best one yet, I just ordered mine and it should be here in a week or so.
Can't wait for my MBP to arrive! Cheers!
- 2.3GHz 8‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz
- AMD Radeon Pro 5600M with 8GB of HBM2 memory
- 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
- 1TB SSD storage
Can't wait for my MBP to arrive! Cheers!
A friend of mine got the very first Intel MBP that came out. And then he got the second one (when they went to Core Duo). I never got one until 2010 or 2011 as a used model, and the NVIDIA graphics died on me 
It ran so damn hot. The keyboard stunk. The trackpad was fine at the time, but so tiny back then. The case scratched easily. The unibodies were so much easier to take apart.
But the worst thing was the fact that there wasn't much x86 native software yet. Especially drivers! Plus the early versions of OS X lacked a lot. It was frustrating to use those early Intel Macs.
Some good things - the battery was easy to remove, the screen was matte, and when they were faster than a G4 Powerbook, they were way faster!
It ran so damn hot. The keyboard stunk. The trackpad was fine at the time, but so tiny back then. The case scratched easily. The unibodies were so much easier to take apart.
But the worst thing was the fact that there wasn't much x86 native software yet. Especially drivers! Plus the early versions of OS X lacked a lot. It was frustrating to use those early Intel Macs.
Some good things - the battery was easy to remove, the screen was matte, and when they were faster than a G4 Powerbook, they were way faster!
That 2006 MacBook can easily be repaired when broken. The 2020 MacBook will have to be thrown into the landfill when it breaks after your warranty ends.
Try having another look with your glasses on
I mean, they’re both laptops, yes, it’s not like one of them is shaped like an egg, but I think they look massively different, also in some functional areas like seeing the trackpad with the dedicated click button instead of a full-trackpad-click-area...™...
That MacBook Pro on the left was my first personal Mac that I bought. Mad to think that I used to throw 50+ tabs at it with 2GB of ram and it would handle it like a champ.
Having said that my 2007/8 model wasn’t particularly reliable especially with all the ATI graphics issues Apple had at the time. It also ran super hot most of the time. Still I loved it and it was far better than anything out there in the windows world IMO.
Having said that my 2007/8 model wasn’t particularly reliable especially with all the ATI graphics issues Apple had at the time. It also ran super hot most of the time. Still I loved it and it was far better than anything out there in the windows world IMO.
As much as I loved the body style of that 2006 MacBook Pro when it was on the PowerBook G4 lines, I always thought it kind of off when it was on the 15" MacBook Pro. The 17" MacBook Pro with it at least felt similar enough to the 17" PowerBook G4 to not feel overly different.
In my opinion, these were the best MacBook Pro releases to date:
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012) (non-retina)
- MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013/Mid 2014)
- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
- MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
The Mid 2010 13" had the best graphics relative to its generation of any 13" MacBook Pro that has existed before or since. The NVIDIA integrated graphics were what caused Apple to tack on the "Pro" moniker to begin with and it was a slap to the face when they switched back to Intel graphics that, at the time, were less performant.
The Mid 2012 non-retina 15" was the best non-retina 15" MacBook Pro period. It was also a model with NVIDIA discrete graphics that didn't have reliability issues (ironic since the retina version with the same GPU had issues due to the reduced thickness). Plus it came out during an era where there was actually a ton of Mac ports of AAA PC games coming out. It ran them all pretty well, all things considered! Also, it was still upgradable all across the board.
The Late 2013 and Mid 2014 15" stabilized the retina generation. Plus you had the option of yet another good NVIDIA GPU that didn't have reliability issues. You also didn't have the exploding battery of the Mid 2015 15" that was otherwise the same (other than an AMD graphics option and the force-touch trackpad)
The Early 2015 13" was and is stellar. You have the only MacBook Pro with Broadwell, force-touch trackpad, and has the fastest DDR3 RAM of any pre-touchbar Mac. Intel's Iris isn't all that to write home about, but given that Apple put Broadwell in this MacBook Pro, at least it was a bump up from its Haswell predecessors. Plus, Apple may cut off Haswell and earlier Macs at some point. If that happens, then this would be the only pre-touch-bar Mac still supported at that point.
I can't say a good thing about any Mac laptop, let alone MacBook Pro in between the Early 2015 13" Retina and the 16-inch MacBook Pro (I don't count the 2017 Air, which is basically the 2015 Air). I wouldn't recommend one to anyone.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro is awesome. The multi-monitor thing is annoying and Apple is ridiculous for not having resolved it with software or firmware (as it's not a hardware issue). But it was the first time Apple actually listened to user complaints, and made a THICKER Mac to resolve performance issues. Also, yay for Magic Keyboard!