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Apple MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo)Apple's upgraded high-end notebook offers a faster processor and double the RAM, but how does that translate into real-world performance? Price:
$3,174
By Troy Dreier 
There's a new dream machine for Apple fans: The MacBook Pro has been updated with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, along with more RAM and hard drive storage. We got our hands on this top-of-the-line 15-inch model, a thing of beauty clad in sleek aluminum. It didn't post the performance numbers we expected, but we suspect it will still be snapped up by devoted creative professionals.
Still only one-inch thin, the MacBook Pro remains one of the lightest notebooks with a 15.4-inch widescreen display. This 5.6-pound notebook is excellent for home and office use but is portable and compact enough to take on the road. Using the MacBook Pro is a pleasure, and it didn't take us long to fall in love with the screen, whose optional glossy treatment is perfect for watching movies. The notebook comes with an infrared, six-button remote, so you can enjoy flicks from across the room. Our only complaint is that the system became uncomfortably warm after it was on our lap for longer than 15 minutes. We like the MagSafe Power Adapter, which disconnects from the notebook if you trip over the cord. For this model, Apple added the MagSafe Airline Adapter, which uses the same concept but connects to an in-seat power port (a $59 option, not included in our tested configuration price). The MacBook Pro's illuminated keyboard and motion-sensor technology for protecting the hard drive help make this a solid pick for business travelers. The big improvement is the upgrade from Intel's 2.16-GHz Core Duo processor to a 2.33-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Like the previous CPU, the Core 2 Duo has two processing cores, but now each chip has 4MB of shared L2 cache. That cache allows the Core 2 Duo to store more data nearby so that it makes fewer passes to the main memory. Apple's computers have long been RAM weaklings, with standard configurations that paled next to their Windows counterparts, but the company appears to be correcting that. The 2.33-GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro comes with 2GB of 667-MHz DDR2 SDRAM standard, twice that of the previous version. Ours came maxed out with 3GB of RAM for an extra $575. That's overkill for everyone but the most demanding power users. Apple claims that the new chip works up to 39 percent faster. Testing Apple machines is difficult, since there's still no version of Adobe Photoshop for Intel processors. On the other hand, there are more than 4,000 universal applications available today, and Apple estimates that 80 percent of the 500 Mac apps it considers most important to Mac customers will be available as universal versions. We tested the MacBook Pro using MobileMark 2005 and the free Boot Camp download, which enables Macs to run Windows XP. Productivity performance was decent, with a score of 204 but below the average score of 231. We suspect this may be because Windows uses only a small partition of the MacBook Pro's hard drive (although you can set it to use more) and that Boot Camp itself has some performance overhead. We also ran an iTunes encoding test. The MacBook Pro took 4 minutes and 21 seconds to encode a one-hour music CD into MP3 tracks (using iTunes 7), compared with 4 minutes and 26 seconds for a 2-GHz MacBook we tested this summer (using iTunes 6). Both machines read CDs at 24X, and the MacBook Pro has far more RAM. The new chip may be stronger at complex integer operations (which is the test Apple used to get the 39 percent figure), but it didn't show a huge improvement for this basic task, which is probably due in part to the fact that iTunes 7 is much more resource intensive. Otherwise, programs loaded quickly and ran smoothly throughout our testing, even when we ran multiple demanding apps concurrently. We navigated through the OS and processor-intensive programs quickly and we didn't notice any lag time. We even had videos playing in multiple windows and didn't notice a single dropped frame, although the earlier MacBook Pro performed just as well in this regard. Running MobileMark 2005, the MacBook Pro's battery lasted 2 hours and 53 minutes with Wi-Fi off, compared with the average runtime of 3:22 for mainstream notebooks. We also ran a DVD rundown test and got 2 hours and 58 minutes with Wi-Fi on (compared with 3 hours and 5 minutes on the 13.3-inch MacBook). That's a decent runtime considering the larger size of this display, but the bottom line is that you should go with the slower (and cheaper) 2.16-GHz processor if you want more endurance. Wireless antenna strength is supposedly no longer a problem with Apple's high-end notebooks, but we noticed a weaker signal with this MacBook Pro than with a Mac desktop in the same location. Compared with other mainstream notebooks, this system wasn't too far off with scores of 12.6 Mbps at 15 feet and 9.6 at 50 feet. Other features include 160GB of storage, a slot-loading DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW SuperDrive, and an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card, as well as a terrific software bundle that includes the Apple iLife suite. The standard warranty offers a scant 90 days of free phone support and one year of parts and labor. Overall, the Core 2 Duo-enabled MacBook Pro isn't the dramatic improvement we were hoping for. However, it provides more than enough performance for both productivity and entertainment and does so with style-and with lots of thoughtful amenities that Windows-based machines just don't offer. Compare Prices | Apple MacBook Pro Specifications
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