No New 13″ Macbook Pro For Me

Like many, I was anxiously awaiting the Macbook Pro refresh. And, like many, I was disappointed that 13″ model didn’t see the more significant processor upgrade that its 15″ brethren were treated to. The new 13″ MBP features astounding battery life, on par with the iPad, that I’d most definitely appreciate (along with a backlit keyboard and SD slot). But my primary complaint with the current 13″ unibody Macbook (late 2008 model) is that spinning beach ball. Something I’d hope to see significantly less of with an Intel Core i5 processor. Incidentally, this same sort of Apple decision is why we don’t own a 21.5″ iMac. The fact that I don’t want a larger screen shouldn’t imply that I don’t want larger processing power.

ZNF regular Greg Glockner suggests my response is one of a fanboy. However, I imagine a true fanbois would be one who thanks Steve Jobs for his insight and makes a purchase without evaluating his computing needs. I had a buyer lined up for my current 13″ model at half of what I originally paid, never minding those Snow Leopard and 2GB upgrades (bringing me to 4GB total). But I can’t justify the ~$600 out of pocket expense for marginal improvement in processing power… especially when I could find a similarly equipped Windows laptop for much less. Then again, Apple’s portable laptop hardware is generally more thoughtfully designed than the MS contingent.


So, for the time being, I’ll continue to sit on the sidelines… having made a few software adjustments. Being a blogger and a generally voracious reader, it’s not unusual for me to have two dozen (or more) Firefox tabs open. While I haven’t empirically analyzed the data, I get the sense that Firefox is something of a resource hog. And this speaks more to memory than to processing power. However, as someone who multitasks, it plays into the larger performance wall I frequently run up against. Now, for the first time since the pre-Firefox 1.0 days when we called it Firebird, I have a new primary browser. The Mac version of Google’s Chrome is finally ready for prime time. It’s still got one or two quirks, but the kiosk mode has been successfully ported from PC (much smoother than FF) and, more importantly,  the vast majority of sites I visit render/behave properly. It’s too soon to declare a verdict but, over the last few days, things do seem sprightlier. Or, perhaps it’s all just coincidence and I haven’t hit as many Flash-based sites.

Another program I hope to save cycles with is Acorn. I’ve been using Photoshop and derivatives, like Elements, since 1997 as my go-to image editor. However, it’s a bit bloated for my minimal photo hackery needs (and skills). I originally ended up with Acorn during a Macheist event about a year ago. And never used it, or really any of the programs. However, the folks behind Acorn are offering a $10 upgrade dealio this weekend. So I’m giving it a shot. 24 hours in, I’ve noticed a somewhat repeatable cropping quirk and the save dialog doesn’t calculate image size based on jpeg quality. But I’ll stick with it a few weeks, as it does appear sufficiently capable and lighter weight.

Of course the video manipulation department is where I could really use some additional horsepower. But I’m not aware of suitable replacement software. And will carry on with my (hopefully less frequent) beach ball friend.

20 thoughts on “No New 13″ Macbook Pro For Me”

  1. I highly doubt even doubling the processor speed would cut down on the beach balls. I’m the type who keeps the Activity Monitor on my Dock showing the CPU usage in real time and in 9 months I’ve had my mid 2009 13-inch MBP I can count how many time I’ve seen the CPU maxed out on one hand.

    Whenever I see a beach ball I click on Activity Monitor and look for the bottle neck. Guess what, it’s almost always directly related to Disk Activity. So instead of looking at a faster computer, more memory, or different apps; try replacing that slow 5400rpm drive your MBP came with.

    http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-2.5-mobile-hard-drive-charts/Mobile-Performance,1138.html

  2. Just don’t get a SSD drive for it. Apple in its infinite wisdom does not support TRIM. Seriously, how can you not have TRIM support?

  3. Hm, interesting. Wonder what a faster hard drive would do to battery life? (Related, I need to check my current capacity. I’m probably down to 75% or so of what it shipped with.) Still probably wouldn’t help much with video editing or rendering. Also there is the perception of value at play here for me. I want Intel’s “2010” processor line in 2010.

    Since moving to Chrome, I haven’t (yet) seen a beach ball while in the browser though. Of course, I haven’t built up my tabs/reading list and like I said maybe it’s all Flash’s fault.

  4. “But my primary complaint with the current 13″ unibody Macbook (late 2008 model) is that spinning beach ball … it’s not unusual for me to have two dozen (or more) Firefox tabs open.”

    1) Install Clicktoflash. That’ll solve 50% of your problems. Every OS X user should do this. It doesn’t matter how fast your processor is if you have 10 background web pages in the background sucking up resources.

    2) Take the next step: surf in your primary browser with Javascript disabled. When you run across a web page that you actually need Javascript for, fire it up in a secondary browser with Javascript enabled. That’ll solve the other 50% of your problems.

    I’m on a 2007 MBP, I always have 20 – 50 open tabs in my primary browser, and I haven’t seen a SPoD in months.

    Backgrounded web pages just suck up too many resources unless you take steps to limit their guzzling.

  5. “So instead of looking at a faster computer, more memory, or different apps; try replacing that slow 5400rpm drive your MBP came with.”

    Dude. Didn’t you recently abandon a MacBook because of overheating problems?

    There’s a reason Apple ships its laptops with 5400rpm drives rather than 7200rpm drives, and that reason is not cost…

    Heat is the main design constraint on all of the smaller Apple laptops. It’s why the new generation of Intel CPU’s isn’t in the new 13″, and it’s why putting a 7200rpm drive in a 13″ is generally a pretty bad idea.

  6. SSD all the way. Huge performance change on a slower processor HP tablet. Not sure if that ruins your Apple warranty though? Also the lack of TRIM support is troubling, maybe once Apple officially releases SSD it will add TRIM.

  7. First, it appears the reason the 13″ MBP didn’t get the core i5 proc isn’t Apple’s market segmentation, rather there just isn’t room for 3 chips on the logic board plus all the other stuff they need to operate the device. Thanks to the douches at Intel who denied Nvidia a DMI license, 13″ MBPs have to stick with a 2 chip solution (CPU plus Nvidia integrated graphics and IO). Going with the standard arrandale GPU isn’t an option because its very weak and cant do OpenCL which is something Apple has pushed heavily.

    I have an ancient (May 2006) MB 13″. I was looking forward to updating, but instead I’ll just get my iPad and see if that suffices for internet…

  8. “maybe once Apple officially releases SSD it will add TRIM”

    Apple has officially been selling SSD equipped laptops for about 2 and 1/2 years now…

  9. I was also hoping for the i5 and i7 family to reach the MacBook Pro, after drooling over the equivalent Dell models for months, but I, too, will have to wait. (The bigger models are of no interest to me.) Interesting to see the comments here suggesting it’s not JUST that Apple doesn’t think we deserve the power in the smaller laptops. :-)

  10. Chucky,

    I sold my MacBook Air because it didn’t have adequate cooling for the CPU, the 5400rpm drive in it wasn’t the problem.

    My 13-inch MBP runs cool, even with a 7200 rpm drive in it.

  11. “My 13-inch MBP runs cool, even with a 7200 rpm drive in it.”

    Good luck and god bless.

    My only point here is that heat is THE major consideration in the small form factor laptops, and that everything else being equal, a 7200rpm drive introduces more heat inside the case.

    More heat equals hotter cases, louder fans, CPU throttling, thermal shutdowns, and increased failure rates of every component inside the case. And laptop ventilation and cooling often degrades over the lifetime of the laptop.

    Again, I think this is why the Apple Store won’t take money from you to custom build you a 7200rpm equipped 13″ laptop, while they are happy to take your money to put in a SSD.

  12. I’ll second that my 13-inch MBP runs just fine temp. wise with a 7200 rpm drive. I swapped out the stock 5400 rpm drive the first month I had the laptop – new drive has run like a charm for over a year.

    In regards to the spinning beach ball – I’ll admit that I had this problem when I first got my MBP – drove me crazy trying to figure out what was causing it. I eventually determined that my particular issue was being caused by the “Sudden Motion Sensor” kicking in randomy when it wasn’t necessary. I disabled SMS via the command line and that fixed the spinning beach ball issue for me. YMMV, but it’s worth checking out.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934

  13. Thanks for the link!

    I agree that the “beach ball” is most likely caused by disk rather than processor. The Core i5/i7 isn’t going to make much of an impact except for CPU-bound activities.

    Put another way, since getting my SSD-equipped MacBook Air, I was surprised to see that it does a few things faster than my RAID-0 equipped MacBook Pro. So I’m getting an SSD for the Mac Pro as soon as I finish travel odyssey & get some time in front of it.

  14. Apple had to face this problem before. Yes, it is Intel’s fault for screwing with Nvidia. If Apple really wanted to be competitive, they could have put a separate GPU in the 13th. Would it raise expenses? Would it cut down on battery life? Absolutely.

    But the real problem is it would continue to cut into the 15″ sales. This is pure product segmentation.

    Look at what happened with the original ibooks and GPUs for an example. After being hit with a bunch of bad GPU they finally upgraded it to the same as the PB 12.

  15. For what its worth, I just upgraded from a 2-3 year old MBP with a 2.13 GHz Core2 Duo and 5400 RPM HD to a new MacBook Air with the exact same processor speed and memory, but with a 128 GB SSD. Beachballs, once everpresent: gone.

    Processor speed quite simply doesn’t matter to me anymore. All of the processors in every computer Apple ships are fast enough. Spend your money on RAM and a great SSD. Everything seems lightning quick for me now!

  16. I don’t like the touch pads. When Apple incorporated the button into the whole pad, I stopped liking the touch pad.

  17. “I agree that the “beach ball” is most likely caused by disk rather than processor. The Core i5/i7 isn’t going to make much of an impact except for CPU-bound activities.”

    It’s complicated!

    Dave’s slowdown has to do with a very specific need: having a browser with tens and tens of open background tabs.

    Constantly rendering many simultaneous web pages with their intensive Flash and AJAX demands indeed taxes the processor, as well as the graphics chip, hard drive, and all busses. It’s not a lightweight need. Moving to a SSD would probably help mitigate one of the bigger bottlenecks, but a faster CPU would help too.

    However, as I suggested upthread, this really calls for more of a software solution than a hardware solution.

    —–

    “Processor speed quite simply doesn’t matter to me anymore. All of the processors in every computer Apple ships are fast enough. Spend your money on RAM and a great SSD. Everything seems lightning quick for me now!”

    Depends on how much you value your money.

    SSD’s are bleeding edge technology to begin with, and OS X support for SSD’s is even more bleeding edge.

    If you’re willing to plunk down $500 for an SSD today, and are happy to spend another $500 a year and a half from now when your SSD has slowed down from usage and the SSD technology field has matured, well then, enjoy.

    Personally, I like to buy a value laptop and then keep it for 3 years so I can spend the bulk of my tech budget on other things. So I’m still in waiting mode on SSD’s.

    The new MBP that tempts me is the 13″ with the Apple supplied and supported SSD, but at $1550 for the bare bones version of the machine, it seems a bit pricey for what you’re getting. I’m thinking of holding off until the next feature refresh or price cut.

  18. We got a 13″ last june/july, and I must say its been something of a lemon. After a hard drive and display failure and something else that I can’t remember we have pretty much replaced everything but the RAM. Recently the touchpad started acting up, which I read is do to the connection being prone to being loose.

    I don’t live in a major metro, so its been a pain to have to go to the apple store when I am on a biz trip or visiting family.

    Reminds me, I need to buy applecare before my year is up.

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