by While I was dealing with the bulging battery on my Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch laptop last week, a brand-new MacBook Pro 15-inch laptop with the new LED screen was winging its way to me from Shanghai, China.
Those few days arguing with Apple over a battery and tracking my new MacBook online as it wended its way through the world to me was the utter definition of a Love/Hate relationship!
I am in total love again.
My new 15-inch MacBook Pro is divine. It is twice as fast, three times
as good and 100% better than my original, first generation, MacBook Pro 17-inch monster.
I
used to think Bigger Is Better — when it came to computers — and now
that I have a 15-inch LED MacBook Pro from Apple, I realize that
compact and fast are much better in a laptop than huge and slow.
My new MacBook Pro 15-inch laptop is well-built. It has a certain
sturdiness in the screen hinge, keyboard and trackpad that are missing
from the 17-inch version.
I purchased the fastest processor with the
most video RAM and packed 4 gigs of memory into the machine.
The new LED screen is killer! The screen is bright and lively and when
the screen dims in preparation of sleep, a single touch instantly
brings the screen back to full and luscious luminosity.
The hard drive is faster.
Surfing the web is faster.
Adobe Creative Suite CS3 screams now.
I still like and admire my MacBook Pro 17-inch even though the screen,
even at its fullest brightness, is half as dim as my MacBook Pro
15-incher.
That dimming could be due to use at fullest brightness for
18 hours a day for a year — that’s around 6,500 hours of “on” time —
but still, the lack of a strong and bright screen in the 17-inch is
sad.
It’s also interesting I can see so much better on the 15-inch LED
screen than the traditional 17-inch screen.
The fonts are of a more
behaved size and shape at 15. At 17, fonts either seemed to be
ridiculously large or alarmingly tiny. At 15, fonts are uniform and
entirely readable in all circumstances.
If you’re looking for a superfast laptop that will serve you well in
all aspects of your online and private life, it’s hard to find a better
machine for hat collaboration than the new Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch
LED.
I was thinking of getting the 17 not the 15. Now you confused me.
Hi arin!
Sorry for the confusion!
If you’re looking for fast, compact, luggable and a super bright screen… you want the 15.
So who is the 17 for. I thought more screen was better.
I know it’s confusing, arin, and I was under the same concept that a bigger screen was better and it is if you do a lot of video work and watching but a bigger screen usually translates into tiny fonts that can be hard to read.
I would’ve ordered another 17 if not for the new, killer, LED display in the 15. I convinced myself the LED screen was worth the offset in the smaller screen and form factor. I was delighted to find the smaller form factor is so much better.
How much did this run you.
The whole thing was around $3,800.00 USD because I rocked it out with RAM and added AppleCare at the time of purchase. I ordered the 15-LED on last Tuesday, the day it was announced, and it shipped from Shanghai on Friday and was delivered early Monday morning by FedEx. Outstanding service.
That’s a lot of money. Maybe I can try the education discount.
The Apple education program is excellent, arin, and you won’t have to fret the higher cost the rest of us pay. 😀
The LED screen is made up of tiny LED then right.
The screen is LCD, but it is back-lighted by LEDs instead of a the regular CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent tube) backlight.
The LED backlight is mercury-free and is “instant on” meaning it doesn’t take any time to warm up at all.
Hard to understand so I guess I will believe when I see it.
Just have faith I’m leading you right when it comes to the excellence of the LCD screen, arin. Some complain of banding and a yellowish cast — but I see none of that in my machine. You won’t be sorry, my friend!
Okay I’m placing an order now will let you know what happens.
I’m here to answer any questions you have, arin! You know how to find me. 😀
Hi David,
Congrats on the birth of your new baby MacBook!
If I had not recently spent mucho dinero on an HP tower, I would grab at the baby, since I’m locked in now to a desktop.
Lost in nonportablitiy,
Donna
Hi Donna!
Why did you decide to go tower instead of portable?
Do you ever compute outside of your house?
Hi David,
No, currently I do not compute outside my house. I like my mouse, I like my big LCD, I like my printer all at hand.
I probably will make a notebook my next tech purchase, since I am started to become an online addict and feel lost if I’m away from the Net for too long. 😀
It would be great to take to the beach on vacation!
Donna
That makes sense, Donna!
Going portable can be a lot of fun, especially if you have a high bandwidth connection card from Sprint or Verizon! Then you don’t have to worry about WiFi hotspot security and you can generally get on the web anywhere you can make a cellular phone call.