MacBook Pro Offers Promising Start to Era Of Intel-Powered Apple
I am writing these words on a sleek, fast laptop computer powered by an Intel processor. But unlike the vast majority of Intel-powered laptops, this machine isn't running Microsoft Windows. It's the latest Macintosh laptop from Apple Computer, and the first Apple portable to run on Intel processors. Like all Apple computers, it uses the company's excellent Mac OS X operating system instead of Windows.
The new laptop, called a MacBook Pro, is the successor to Apple's PowerBook models, and at first glance, it looks just like a PowerBook. But the MacBook Pro is quite different, and not merely because it uses a modern, dual-core Intel chip instead of the aging G4 processor its predecessor used.
I've been testing the MacBook Pro and comparing it to both a late-model PowerBook and a roughly similar Windows laptop, the new H-P Pavilion dv5000t. All three machines have 15-inch-wide screen displays.
My verdict: The MacBook Pro is better than the PowerBook and better than the H-P, though it has some drawbacks. It is faster than previous Apple laptops, but the speedup isn't as great as Apple's claims suggest. At a starting price of $1,999, the same as the PowerBook it replaces, the MacBook Pro costs more than the H-P. But in my opinion, the price premium is more than justified by its superior design and features.
Apple is switching to Intel chips in hopes of getting greater speed at lower temperatures. It has rewritten its operating system and built-in software to run on the new Intel processors.
But some important Mac software published by other companies, like the Mac version of Microsoft Office, won't be rewritten for awhile, so Apple has built in invisible translation software, which can slow things down. Despite this, the MacBook Pro seemed generally crisper than the PowerBook, with fewer spinning beach balls -- the icon Apple uses to indicate a delay.
In my speed tests, the MacBook Pro beat the PowerBook at such tasks as importing photos and music, burning CDs, opening multiple Web sites and launching some programs. But most of the speed gains were slight, and even the biggest gains were nowhere near the 400% speed increases Apple claims. In a few tests, the MacBook Pro was actually slightly slower than the PowerBook.
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WSJ's Walt Mossberg reviews Apple's new MacBook Pro.I didn't run a full set of speed tests against the H-P laptop because software differences make comparisons difficult. But using the Windows version of Apple's own iTunes music software, I discovered that the H-P was faster than the MacBook at copying songs from a CD but slower at burning songs to a CD.
In my harsh battery test, where I turn off all power-saving features and play an endless loop of music, the MacBook Pro lasted two hours and 59 minutes, exactly the same as the PowerBook and 12 minutes longer than the H-P. In more normal conditions, I estimate the MacBook's battery life could approach four hours.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro comes in two standard configurations. The $1,999 model has a 1.83-gigahertz processor, 512 megabytes of memory and an 80-gigabyte hard disk. A beefier version, for $2,499, comes with a 2.0 GHz processor, one gigabyte of memory and a 100-gigabyte hard disk. Both versions are one inch thick, 9.6 inches deep and 14.1 inches long. Both weigh 5.6 pounds.
Compared with the PowerBook, the MacBook Pro has a slightly larger screen, at 15.4 inches vs. 15.2 inches. The screen is 67% brighter than the PowerBook's but has a slightly lower resolution.
The MacBook Pro also comes with Front Row, Apple's across-the-room interface for watching videos and photos and playing music, and it has a remote control. It also has a built-in camera for video conferencing. The PowerBook had none of these things.
But the MacBook has fewer ports than the PowerBook did. And it has a new, narrower industry-standard card slot. Unfortunately, almost no cards have been redesigned to fit the slot. "It also has a much larger electrical adapter than the PowerBook, and a slower DVD-burning drive."
The H-P dv5000t I tested has the same-sized screen, the same amount of memory and the same processor as the $1,999 MacBook Pro. It also comes with an across-the-room multimedia interface, called Windows Media Center, and a remote. And it has some features the Apple lacks, including a slot for camera memory cards and an external TV tuner. At $1,659, after rebate, it seems like a bargain compared with the Apple.
But the H-P's hard disk is much smaller, 60 gigabytes versus 80, and a whopping 13.3 gigabytes of that is devoted to special system-recovery software. To get near the Mac's hard-disk capacity, you need a $110 upgrade, which raises the H-P's price to $1,769, or $230 less than the Mac's.
So what does Apple give you for that $230? You get a much better operating system; vastly better built-in software for Web surfing, email, photos, videos and music; a much brighter screen with much higher resolution than the H-P's; twice the dedicated video memory; and the built-in camera. Plus, the H-P is quite bulky compared with the Apple. It's a pound heavier than the Mac, and up to 77% thicker. Also, despite the recent discovery of a couple of harmless viruses for the Mac, the H-P is much, much more vulnerable to viruses and spyware than the Apple.
The MacBook Pro isn't revolutionary, but it's a promising start to the era of Intel-powered Apple laptops.
苹果笔记本电脑进入新时代
我正用一台内置英特尔(Intel)处理器的笔记本电脑写这篇文章，它外型时尚，运行速度飞快，但和绝大多数使用英特尔处理器的笔记本不同，其操作系统并非微软公司(Microsoft)的Windows。这就是苹果电脑公司(Apple Computer)最新款的Macintosh笔记本电脑，也是苹果公司有史以来首次使用英特尔处理器的笔记本电脑。不过和所有苹果电脑一样，它使用的是苹果公司优秀的Mac OS X操作系统而非微软的Windows。
这款新电脑叫做MacBook Pro，是苹果PowerBook笔记本电脑的继任者。乍一看，它和PowerBook几乎一样；其实不然，它使用了先进的英特尔双核处理芯片，而非以往的G4处理器。不过两者的区别不止于此。
我将MacBook Pro与之前的PowerBook、以及一款功能相似的Windows笔记本电脑惠普 Pavilion dv5000t做比较。三台机器配备的都是15英寸屏幕。
我的结论是：MacBook Pro比PowerBook和惠普的都要好，但也有一些不足。它的运行速度比苹果老的笔记本电脑快，但没有苹果公司说得那么好。MacBook Pro的起价为1999美元，和PowerBook一样，比惠普贵一些。不过以我看来，其优秀的设计和功能可谓物超所值。
苹果公司正在转而使用英特尔芯片，以求在更低温度下获得更快的运行速度。公司改写了其操作系统和自带软件来适应新的英特尔芯片。
但一些由其他公司开发的重要Mac版本软件，如微软Office Mac版，目前尚未做出相应修改，因此苹果公司在笔记本里加了一个隐形的转换软件，而这会影响运行速度。尽管如此，MacBook Pro还是比PowerBook快，在运行时很少看到在苹果操作系统中意味著运算延迟的旋转彩球。
在速度测试中，MacBook Pro在导入照片和音乐、CD刻录、打开多个网站和运行一些程序等方面比PowerBook快，但大多数情况下差别很小，即使速度差别最大的地方也没有苹果宣称的四倍之多。在几个测试中，MacBook Pro的实际速度还比PowerBook慢一些。
在拿MacBook Pro和惠普比较时，我没有做全部项目的测试，这是因为两者使用的软件不同，因此很难直接比较。当惠普运行Windows版的苹果音乐软件iTunes时，我发现其从CD复制歌曲时速度比MacBook Pro快，但在把歌刻录到CD时比MacBook Pro慢。
在我严酷的电池时间测试中，我关掉所有节电功能，并循环播放一段音乐，MacBook Pro的电池持续了2小时59分钟，和PowerBook一模一样，比惠普多12分钟。在通常情况下，我估计MacBook的电池能持续使用近4个小时。
15英寸的MacBook Pro有两种标准配制，一是售价1,999美元的型号，使用1.83GHz的处理器，512兆内存，80G硬盘；另一种是售价2,499美元的型号，使用2.0GHz处理器，1G内存和100G硬盘。两款机型的尺寸都是长14.1英寸，宽9.6英寸，厚度1英寸，重量都为5.6磅。
MacBook Pro的屏幕为15.4英寸，比PowerBook的15.2英寸大一些，亮度要高67%，但解析度稍弱。
MacBook Pro还配备了Front Row软件，即苹果公司为用户在房间另一端观看视频、照片和播放音乐而设计的界面，配有遥控器，并有内置摄像头可用于视频会议。PowerBook没有上述配置。
MacBook Pro的端口没有PowerBook的多，但有一个新型而更狭窄的行业标准卡槽。不幸的是，几乎还没有厂商重新设计卡的尺寸来适应它。MacBook Pro的电源适配器比PowerBook的大，DVD刻录光驱速度较慢。
我测试的惠普dv5000t屏幕大小、内存和处理器都和1,999美元的MacBook Pro相同，也有名叫Windows媒体中心(Windows Media Center)的多媒体遥控界面及遥控器，它还具有苹果电脑缺乏的一些功能，如数码相机记忆卡插槽和外部电视调谐器。这款惠普电脑打折后的价格为1,659美元，比苹果电脑便宜不少。
不过，这款惠普笔记本的硬盘只有60G，而且其中多达13.3G的空间都用于一个特殊的系统恢复软件，如果要达到苹果电脑80G的硬盘容量水平，用户需要多花110美元做升级，使其价格达到1,769美元，比苹果笔记本低230美元。
那么苹果笔记本为何要贵230美元呢？因为你能得到一个更好的操作系统；一些好得多的自带软件，可以用于上网、收发邮件、看照片、看视频和听音乐；一个比惠普更亮、解析度更高的屏幕；两倍量的显存，以及内置摄像机。此外，惠普的外型要比苹果电脑笨重得多，重量多一磅，而且厚77%。而且，虽然最近出现几种针对苹果电脑的无害病毒，但惠普在抵御病毒和间谍软件方面要比苹果电脑弱许多。
MacBook Pro并非一项革命性产品，却标志著苹果笔记本进入了英特尔处理器新时代。
