Apple Thoughts: Aluminum and Glass: The New MacBook Pro

Rubber Meets Road
The question, obviously, is does the new MacBook Pro live up to its name? In my unscientific results, I'd say it does. Let me clarify one thing, though. I'm not a big "benchmarks" guy. Honestly, I think most computers that do well on benchmarks tend to do so because they were designed to. In the real world, we don't go "oh, this must be fast because it has 300000 operations per second," so I don't hold computers up to that standard. I want to know how my daily computing experience is enhanced by shelling out a few bucks on a new system. The more I use this one, I can say that experience has been enhanced quite favorably.

One of the things I do in my spare time is a videoblog, and I use Final Cut and iMovie '08 to produce it. As much as I love Final Cut, the constant waiting for rendering is brutal and time-wasting. The intro for the show is a canned intro I drop in at the beginning. On my old iMac (and my MacBook), the intro took roughly four to five minutes to render. On the new MacBook Pro? 45 seconds. That'll definitely add up over time, I'm sure.

Figure 7: I don't believe in benchmarks, but I know some of you do, so here's what Xbench had to say.

Spreadsheets with huge Pivot Tables are much more manageable (something I deal with regularly in my day job). Although it's still not perfect, throwing tons of raw computational power at a spreadsheet will improve performance (please, don't hand me any captain obvious stuff; I know!).

The bottom line is that the new MacBook Pro is smoking fast. This is easily the fastest computer I've ever used, and I've used a lot of them. I can hardly wait for Snow Leopard because I've heard, from various sources, that once it's out, the performance of this beast will really be unleashed.

Conclusion
The "Brick" process is more than a shiny marketing gimmick, it's a revolution. I don't buy into marketing hype much, but the minute you put this machine into your hands, the word "solid" comes to mind. When you close the lid and it closes with no clicks or creaks and a satisfying thud, you realize that the one thing Apple is known for best, industrial design, is present in every aspect of this device. As far as performance goes, there is nothing I've thrown at it that it can't handle relatively easily from editing in Final Cut Express to ripping MP3 files from CDs, to audio processing and conversion.

Minor quibbles aside, Apple has produced one hell of a computer here, and it's an excellent successor to their premium line of notebooks. While I don't think I can just say "upgrade your old Pro people," if you're about to make a buying decision, the choice on the top end is clear and obvious.

Vincent Ferrari is an Apple fan, videoblogger, blogger, writer, and all-around geek from the Bronx. He works in the IT Department of a cellular phone company that shall not be named, and lives in a very comfortable apartment with his lovely wife, two lovely cats, three Macs, two iPhones, and God-knows-how-many iPods of varying age.