Bought the new 15" i5 2.53, few things of note for interested parties

Question

I've just been reading a lot of concerned posts on here lately, and wanted to drop my line in the pond on what I've noticed on this new MBP, coming from the late 2007 2.2ghz c2d 4gb mem non-unibody version I had before.
1) This thing cools down FAST. I mean seriously fast. I play WoW on these machines, and generally get the settings up as high as they'll reasonably go, and as a result, the system heats up quite a bit, but the fans kick in very quickly, and their sound is pretty noticeable. The chips will hit 70 degrees celsius while playing, but as soon as the app is off, you're back down to the low 50s in almost less than a minute.
2) Noting the above, the baseline noise of this new machine is about the same as what my 2.5 year old machine is. Bear in mind that the 07 machine likely had worn bearings after 2 or so years, and as a result was louder by general wear and tear.
3) In general, and even more moderate usage, the speed differences between this machine and that other machine are not very noticeable. I'm a web designer, and bounce between Photoshop, Dreamweaver and several open web browsers during any given session. In this type of usage, I don't notice much difference. But when I turn on VMWare to test in Windows, it's like night and day. This machine does heavy multitasking very, very well, but even moderate usage doesn't really push it.
4) The DVI port is non-standard. It's not even mini-DVI. This was a bit of a let-down, but the adapter is only $20, so it wasn't a deal breaker. But the older model I had had a standard DVI out. That was a nice feature.
5) The airport wifi seems more stable and faster to connect. It would take my old computer upwards of 10 or 15 seconds just to connect to wifi, but this machine is connected in 3 seconds or less.
6) It doesn't get hot *at all* when the nVidia card isn't on. But when it is, it probably shouldn't be in your lap. My old computer would turn into a hotplate when I was just on a website with a lot of javascript.
7) No BluRay option? I'm pretty disappointed with this. Not that there is any current need in software for a blu-ray disc, but with what essentially amounts to a 1050p display and optical out, it would've been severely awesome to have that option at least available, especially on a professional level machine at least by now.
If you're looking at these new models and are wondering what the step up would be like, feel free to ask, and I'll try to answer.
Message was edited by: dclowd9901

Answer 1

Most of the negative talk about the new MBP 15" is from people who bought their MBP 2 months ago and are jealous. Seriously. The new model, aside from the screen which I'm not in love with, is the best laptop I've ever known... and I've owned at least a dozen Powerbook models and one MacBook through the years. I especially love the keyboard. It feels like a normal desktop keyboard rather than the typical mushy laptop kind.
15" vs 17" really depends on whether you need a notebook or just want a portable computer. 15" if you commute with your notebook, travel with it etc. 17" if you just want to be able to move it from room A to room B in your house, maybe take it to the office now and then. 17" is not a good machine to travel with however.