Review New Laptop

Laptop computer
With its all-silver finish and embossed logo on the lid, the MacBook Pro maintains the Apple laptop lineage, despite the Intel heart that beats within. Externally it looks like an evolution rather than a radical redesign and, once again, the build quality puts other laptops to shame.

It wouldn’t be an Apple if there weren’t some cool hardware innovations and there are two worth noting. First and most obvious, despite its tiny size, is the iSight video camera built into the top of the screen surround — use it to videoconference with iChat, or shoot straight into iMovie. The only drawback is that a few lines of screen resolution have been poached to provide for the camera, and the loss is oddly noticeable on the 15.4-inch widescreen. That said, the screen itself is a delight with a maximum resolution of 1,440 x 900 pixels and 32-bit colour.

Perhaps more valuable in the long run, considering the investment this laptop represents, is the new MagSafe power adapter. Instead of using a plug, this adapter connects magnetically to the computer with a satisfying ‘clunk’. That means that if you or anyone else kicks your power cord, the power adapter — and not your computer — harmlessly hits the deck.

Internally, the news is all good. The Intel pro­cessor is a Core Duo model running at 2GHz and this is combined with 2MB of L2 cache, a healthy 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM and a bus hurtling along at 667MHz. Gamers are also looked after with the brand-new ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card with 256MB of dedicated video RAM. Storage duties are handled by a generous 100GB SATA hard drive spinning at 5,400rpm. Completing the package is the slot-loading DVD+/-RW SuperDrive.

Connections are comprehensive but the MacBook Pro is resolutely modern. There is a DVI port, for instance, and a DVI-to-VGA adapter is provided, but the S-video port is gone. Similarly you get a PCI ExpressCard/34 slot along with a more typical FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports. The FireWire 800 port from the last PowerBook, however, is also gone. Rounding out the connections is the welcome addition of optical digital audio input and output.

Networking is handled via gigabit ethernet and wireless connectivity comes courtesy of built-in 802.11g AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0.

In use, the MacBook Pro looks and feels just like any other Mac running OSX Tiger. It also benefits from the addition of the Front Row software and remote to give you a big graphic interface and easy access to your music, photos, iMovies and DVDs. This is eminently practical for a laptop, and with the new optical digital audio out, the MacBook is a rival for any standalone DVD player when connected to a big display and a home theatre amp. DVDs also look terrific onscreen with uniformly smooth playback, rich colour and good brightness and contrast — but as you might expect, the speakers are nothing to write home about. Games are also handled extremely well, with what looks like a very high frame rate.

Productivity wise, the MacBook seems awesomely fast in applications like Word, Excel and PhotoShop. However, it is worth noting that many applications (like PhotoShop) must be interpreted through Apple’s Rosetta translation technology, because they are not what Apple calls “universal applications” written to run on both the new Intel and the old PowerPC processors. New versions will be universal and will run faster, but anyone using current applications that need to run in real-time should be aware that Rosetta will slow them down. One last fish-hook is that Apple’s own Pro applications (like Final Cut Pro) are not supported by Rosetta and you’ll need to upgrade to universal versions. An upgrade from Final Cut Pro 5 to Final Cut Studio (universal), for instance, will cost you $199.

Like Apple laptops before it, the MacBook Pro does run warm and battery life is only average, but overall it is a serious and welcome step up from the G4.


For people who appreciate finer laptop accoutrements such as a backlit keyboard and a slot-fed DVD drive, Apple has crafted another tasty offering in the form of the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Sleek, powerful, and able to run Windows as well as the Mac operating system, the MacBook Pro makes a strong case for becoming anyone’s ultimate notebook.

Equipped with a 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 processor, the maximum 4GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and nVidia’s new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card, the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT, our $4699 test unit set new speed records. The MacBook Pro outperformed notebooks that claim Windows as their primary – nay, their only – operating system. We loaded Windows Vista Home Premium on the Apple notebook, and it snagged a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88. In games it achieved a blazing frame rate of 141 frames per second in Far Cry (with antialiasing turned off).

At 3kg and just 26mm thick, the MacBook Pro is the lightest 17-inch notebook available. But it has no memory card slots and only three USB ports, and it comes configured with an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the more versatile ExpressCard/54 slot. Though it has Bluetooth and 802.11n wi-fi, built-in broadband is not an option. On the other hand, video editors will be happy to have not one but two FireWire ports.

Battery life was disappointing: Apple pegs it at 5.7 hours on one charge, but in our tests we got less than 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Nevertheless, the MacBook Pro is elegantly designed and remarkably mobile for a 17-inch notebook.

What would you say about a laptop that performs well, has satisfactory battery life, is loaded to the gills with extras, and costs - depending on configuration - from $US1500 to just under $US2000? You might say, "It's too good to be true."

I found Fujitsu's new LifeBook C Series C-6591 to be quite real, however, and an incredible value. My $US1900 850-MHz/700-MHz Pentium III notebook packed in lots of standard equipment: built-in DVD/CD-RW and floppy drives; four USB ports; IEEE 1394 (FireWire), S-Video-out, and ethernet ports; 128MB of RAM; a 30GB hard drive; a 14.1-inch XGA display; an ATI Rage Mobility-P graphics card with 8MB of memory; a 56-kbps V.90 modem; and Windows 98 SE.

At 7.1 pounds without the power cord, it's relatively heavy, which makes the C-6591 more of a desktop replacement than a travel companion. However, the Fujitsu is also a viable on-the-go multimedia machine. It's the first notebook we've seen with four USB ports - especially useful for people who want to connect several devices (say, a printer, a digital camera, a scanner, and a PDA) simultaneously. The trade-off: The C-6591 does not include legacy PS/2 or serial ports, though it does have a parallel port.

This shipping notebook's PC WorldBench 2000 score of 143 made it comparable in performance with other similarly configured Windows 98 SE notebooks, and its battery lasted a respectable 2 hours, 47 minutes.


New review of the Lenovo Thinkpad X60 Core Duo Laptop from ArsTechnica/Engadget. The Lenovo Thinkpad X60 features a Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz Processor, 512 MB DDR2 5300 (667mhz) RAM, and 12.1″ 1024×786 XGA LCD Display. Read full story for more from the review. Via




Engadget: The Lenovo X60 has a 12-inch display, and also includes an 80GB drive. The main reason for its more slim profile: no optical drive; you need either a USB drive or an optical docking station. Ars Technica took a look at the X60, and found some differences between the X60 and earlier IBM-designed ThinkPads, including a redesigned keyboard (which now actually includes a Windows key) and a new dock connector. In the end, Ars found that the new model benefits from the Core Duo’s speed and battery life, and still has many of the ThinkPad qualities, such as an ergonomic keyboard and sturdy design, that the model was known for under IBM, making it one of the ‘best ultraportable machines on the market.’