The MacBook Pro is the flagship brand of laptop to the apple. Updated a few weeks ago, this new version works now with the Intel Santa Rosa platform and also includes a long-awaited screen LED backlighting. However, is it really almost 1 500 dolar more than its little brother the MacBook?

A true success for gaming and multimedia

These are certainly areas where the MacBook Pro excels. This model is in effect provided a screen 15 inches to a comfortable resolution 1440 x 900 pixels. For more demanding, his older brother by 17 inches offers an optional Full HD panel (1 920 x 1 200). Here we will therefore confine HD Ready.

NIVIDIA card in a Mac laptop

Users of Apple machines most faithful will note that it certainly was a few years now that the MacBook Pro cards were equipped high-end graphics from ATI. Turnaround with this new generation is now the newest GeForce 8600M GT NVIDIA team that these models. Depending on the version chosen, it will be by cons 128 or 256 MB of dedicated memory to be integrated. During our tests, we have seen with pleasure the good performance in Quake 4 with about 40 FPS at a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.

Comfortable in the media

Of course with an entry price of 2 000, the MacBook Pro is a high end machine and its configuration suffers. Equipped with Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 (2 GHz) and T7700 (2.4 GHz), both models take on board what is the best currently. Yet, day by day, the difference with a single 2 GHz MacBook (Intel T7200) equipped with a disk drive 7 200 trs / min and 2 GB of RAM is not so obvious. For example, encoding WAV files to AAC in iTunes is not faster than our MacBook reference. It is indeed around thirty times the playback speed on both machines. No worries either side of decoding high definition movies, even full HD resolution, they are decoded smoothly through the machine. All the more reason to integrate an HD in this machine is really starting to run out.

Battery performance and good ergonomics

Battery performance

Even with a large 15-inch screen, the autonomy of the MacBook Pro is very good. With DVD playback, it reached almost 3 hours (2 h 47 to be precise), where the simple MacBook reached 3 h 10. In other words, the use of an LED screen that will win almost 20 minutes to the MacBook iSight overcomes the new screen LEDL’iSight overcomes the new screen LEDPro. It therefore looks forward to integrating this technology into the MacBook!

An LED screen in the center of attention

On this screen, much has been written about the dominance of yellow over its predecessor classic neon backlight. We also found that dominant with the default settings. After calibrating the screen in good and due form, but it actually manages the color fidelity of the slab is still strongly undermined. However, it is not surprising from a laptop screen. Ultimately, this aspect yellow does not notice if you do not place the screen next to another better calibrated. In short, this is not at all uncomfortable when used daily. The graphic therefore prefer an external display.

Reviews more mixed for the keyboard

The least we can say is that the keyboard of the MacBook Pro has really taken a blow since the old MacBook has a new version. This highly criticized when it was released (called Minitel keyboard), is ultimately much more comfortable than the MacBook Pro. Separate keys to reduce typing errors (that is pressed very rarely on the wrong letter). Moreover, the key stroke is much more straightforward than the MacBook Pro, which integrates the other hand keys to end the race a little too soft for our liking. There is really by cons fan system backlight keyboard. In dark environments it can better discern the keys. Ideal for artistic professions working in the dark, or simply for those who prefer night life.

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