The 15.4" MacBook Pro Notebook Computer from Apple is a powerful notebook computer with an innovative aluminum unibody design. It is loaded with advanced power management features and an integrated battery, which work together to provide up to 7 hours of wireless web browsing.
You may notice an unfamiliar logo next to one of the ports on the left side of the system. This is Thunderbolt, a high-speed interface that can move data at an amazing 10Gbps, which is double that of USB 3.0. The Thunderbolt port also doubles as a display output because it shares the same physical form factor as a Mini DisplayPort. You can daisy-chain up to six devices, so you'll be able to connect high-speed external storage and an external Apple LED Cinema display via the same port!
The computer's 15.4" display features LED backlight technology and a glossy finish. Its 1680 x 1050 native resolution gives you ample screen space to work with. You'll be able to output to an external display at up to 2560 x 1600 via Thunderbolt. Any Mini DisplayPort-compatible display will plug in without the need of an adapter. If you have a display with DVI, VGA or HDMI input, you'll only need to purchase an adapter cable (i.e., HDMI-to-Mini DisplayPort) for connection.
You'll be able to communicate with friends and family thanks to built-in support for FaceTime chat. The computer's FaceTime HD camera supports 720p HD video chat via the included app. You can make video calls to other Mac users with FaceTime as well as to anyone with an iPhone 4, iPhone 4S or an iPod touch model with a built-in camera.
The system is powered by a quad-core 2.4GHz Intel Core i7 processor. The computer is loaded with AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1GB, a 750GB 7200rpm hard drive and a SuperDrive DVD burner. You'll be able to connect to the Internet with ease via 802.11n Wi-Fi or wired Gigabit Ethernet. The MacBook Pro also features built-in Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, which allows you to connect wireless headphones, keyboard, mice and other compatible peripherals without a hassle.
Graphics are handled by integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics, which gives you the best of both worlds in regards of battery life and performance. The MacBook Pro uses integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics for everyday use, such as web browsing and word processing. It is also capable of HD video playback.
The computer features a comfortable backlit chiclet-style keyboard, which features space between each key for improved accuracy and comfort when typing. It also sports a glass Multi-Touch trackpad with a clickable design. Rather than having a separate button for mouse clicks, the entire surface of the pad is clickable. This increases the active surface area and allows you to quickly click without having to maneuver to the bottom of the trackpad.
The trackpad also fully supports Multi-touch gestures. You can tap the trackpad with one finger to click, tap with two fingers to right click, scroll through documents using two fingers, pinch to zoom, navigate through Safari or iPhoto with three-finger left and right swipes or use two fingers to rotate a photo or PDF.
iLife '11 has a complete suite of digital creativity applications. Easy enough for anyone to use, iLife '11 will help you edit your home movies, organize digital photos and compose original music. iLife '11 includes iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand.
The 64-bit Mac OS X Lion features Time Machine backup, which automatically backs up system data to an external hard drive. It also features intuitive Cover Flow navigation, the powerful Spotlight search tool and Quick Look document preview. You'll be able to use Boot Camp to run Windows on your Mac, if needed.
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Processor | 2.4GHz Intel Core i7 Quad-Core |
| Cache | L3: 6MB |
| Memory |
Slots: 2x SO-DIMM 204-Pin Type: 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM Installed: 4GB (2x2GB SO-DIMM 204-Pin) Capacity: 8GB |
| Graphics Card |
Type: Hybrid Graphics System Installed: AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 1GB GDDR5 SDRAM Dedicated; Intel Graphics System HD 3000 with up to 384MB DDR3 SDRAM Shared |
| Display | |
|---|---|
| Type | Widescreen |
| Size | 15.4" |
| Backlight | LED |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:10 |
| Finish | Glossy |
| Native Resolution | 1680 x 1050 |
| Supported Resolutions |
1680 x 1050 at 16:10 Aspect Ratio 1440 x 900 at 16:10 Aspect Ratio 1280 x 800 at 16:10 Aspect Ratio 1152 x 720 at 16:10 Aspect Ratio 1024 x 640 at 16:10 Aspect Ratio 800 x 500 at 16:10 Aspect Ratio 1024 x 768 at 4:3 Aspect Ratio Stretched 800 x 600 at 4:3 Aspect Ratio Stretched 640 x 480 at 4:3 Aspect Ratio Stretched 720 x 480 at 3:2 Aspect Ratio Stretched |
| External Resolution | Up to 2560 x 1600 |
| Dual Display | Yes |
| Video Mirroring | Yes |
| Storage | |
|---|---|
| Hard Drive |
Installed: 750GB 7200rpm Type: SATA |
| Optical Drive |
8x-Speed Slot-Load SuperDrive Reads DVD: 8x CD: 24x Writes DVD-R: 8x DVD-RW: 4x DVD-R DL: 4x DVD+R: 8x DVD+RW: 4x DVD+R DL: 4x CD-R: 24x CD-RW: 10x |
| Input/Output Connectors | |
|---|---|
| Ports |
2x USB 2.0 (A) 1x Thunderbolt 1x FireWire-800 (9-Pin) |
| Display |
1x Mini DisplayPort via Thunderbolt port 1x DVI via optional cable 1x Dual-Link DVI via optional cable 1x VGA via optional cable 1x HDMI via optional cable |
| Audio |
1x Integrated Stereo Speakers with subwoofer 1x Integrated Omnidirectional Microphone 1x 1/8" (3.5mm) Combo Headphone & Audio Out digital/analog 1x 1/8" (3.5mm) Combo Microphone & Line In digital/analog |
| Flash Media Slot | 1x SDXC |
| Communications | |
|---|---|
| Network | 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45) |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11a/b/g/n |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 2.1+EDR |
| Webcam | Yes |
| General | |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (64-bit) |
| Security | Kensington Lock Slot |
| Keyboard |
Keys: 78 Type: Full-Size Features: Backlight, Chiclet Style |
| Pointing Device | TouchPad with Double-Tap, Drag, Four-Finger Swipe, Inertial Scrolling, Multi-Touch Control, Pinch, Rotate, Tap, Three-Finger Swipe, Two-Finger Scrolling |
| Battery | Built-In Lithium-Polymer Providing up to 7 Hours per Charge (77Wh) |
| Power Requirements | Not Specified By Manufacturer |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 14.35 x 0.95 x 9.82" / 36.45 x 2.41 x 24.94 cm |
| Weight | 5.6 lb / 2.54 kg |
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Comments about Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro Notebook Computer:
I use it as a home computer for browsing, videos and development work.
This is my first mac and switching from windows. Was little unconfortable for 3-4 days as I was comparing everything to Windows. Now I am ok with it.
This is not a cheap system and I expect awesome quality for the amount I paid. So I rated everything out of 5 and hope some one finds it helpful.
Look: 4.6 - Great
size: 4.3 - I wont say sleek but at the same time way better than those thick gaming laptops.
Weight: 4 - Ok. Can live with it. Dont expect feather weight like air.
Screen: 3.8 - Good picture quality. (Glossy is reflective though..)
Case: 4.5 - Aluminium case looks and feels good.
camera: 3.5 - Ok. good enough for chatting. Had fun with iChat backgrounds when chatting. Needs good light for great quality video.
Keyboard: 4 - Good.
Hardware: 4.25 - 4gb ram is normal average these days. I7 processor is kind of top of line. Graphic card is way better than rest of laptops with same size. Dont compare graphic card with 1-inch thick, battery draining gaming laptops.
Battery: 4.7 - Advertisement says 7 hrs. I get 5-6 hrs with normal browsing and exploring the system. 4hrs with youtube videos. I haven't played dvd's on it yet.
One more thing, I have 50% brightness set on my screen.
Touchpad: 4.9 - Excellent.
OS: 3 - Good for the features and amount of utility softwares it comes with. I never knew OS-X had so many preinstalled applications. Launch pad is great to access these applications easily. The reason for less rating is small font size. I opted for Hi-res screen 1680*1050 and I have hard time reading text. Finder window has option to increase font size for it. Safari I can increase size of some areas. Many of the windows I am stuck with small font and I am not pleased with it. No option to set universal system font-size. Such a good OS and not having such a common feature is really annoying.
Noise: 3.5 - I can hear fan sound with just safari and terminal running. I have no load ( 1.5% CPU). I have not run video encoding and still have to test the fan noise.
Heat: ? - So far good. Cant give rating with no load test.
Pros
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro Notebook Computer:
is very comfortable
Pros
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Best Uses
Comments about Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro Notebook Computer:
I have been a near-exclusive Mac/Apple user since 1994. This is my fifth Apple laptop, and far and away the best. Of course, its faster, and more capable than my PowerBook G3 from 1998, but more than that its better made, more solid, smarter looking, and of course has more than double the battery life (though that old machine still works fully, for the limited purposes it can still manage, given today's web and applications).
*I mainly use my new MBP for writing, digital/film photography, distributed computing projects, internet, light gaming, some occasional programming (mostly small hacks to open-source apps for my own use), and also make extensive use of virtualizers to run other OSes.
*The quad-core i7, dual GPUs, high/fast RAM capacity, and SATA3 drives, and ports make this machine a real desktop replacement. I had considered an iMac with slightly better processor specs (for the larger screen as well), but after trying both out first hand on a variety of tasks/apps, the Late 2011 MBP isn't detectably any slower than the iMac, and it's portable. Running Lightroom, Photoshop, GIMP, Pro Optics, FileMaker Pro, Excel, Word, Parallels/W7-Linux, and a variety of games, this machines easily beats my late '09 iMac, and my brother's current model i7 (dual) PC laptop. If you ran benchmarking apps on all three machines, I don't know what the result would be, but the difference against the >3GHz iMac would certainly be small for the uses I put my machines to.
*A 15 inch screen may seem a little confining these days, but if you have access to a larger external display, that is no problem for the occasions where you need it. I haven't so far needed to plug in the 30" display, but it's there when I need it. Bright, contrasty, very sharp: even for comparisons and fine tweaks to RAW development and other photo tasks, this is a terrific screen.
*Thunderbolt is a wonder. So far, there are limited drives or other devices to connect to T-bolt, and the only direct adaptor to other technologies I can find is ExpressCard, which isn't useful to me. Still, 10Gbps is wicked fast, and in less than a year there will be affordable external T-bolt drives, and/or adaptors to use USB 3.0 or eSATA.
*Takes up to 16GB RAM (officially Apple 'supports' 8 only). The 2x8 modules are still hard to find, but getting more available. Even with "just" 8, that's a lot of (fast) RAM!
*HR glossy screen is a pleasure, and very bright. Best screen on a laptop I have yet seen (considering resolution, brightness, contrast, etc.), even models with higher pixel counts. Mostly I turn the brightness down 4-5 'clicks', it is so bright.
*Beauty: the design and construction of the 2011 MBPs are lovely. Solid aluminum, and the black framed screen (real Pyrex glass on the screen and trackpad), and everything else looks great. Feels great too. I think it is the most robust, sturdy feeling laptop I have ever handled.
*Lion is great, and has none of the issues experienced on some older machines, or where installed on top of Snow Leopard. There are some things you may have to add on, like Java and Flash, and Rosetta is gone, but overall the Mac OS just gets better each time the kitty changes.
*I should also say that battery life so far has been excellent. I easily get the promised 7 hours "wireless web" that Apple states, with over 5.5 hours using the MBP in a more intensive way. I was concerned at the "non-removable" battery (a first for me), but given the long life per charge, and the huge number of cycles (1000+, vs. around 300 for older Macs), that shouldn't be an issue either.
*The only serious downside to this machine is the Recovery Partition in lieu of an install/restore DVD. That means a long download should you ever need to reinstall and you don't have a clone disk. I plan on buying the Lion USB key later, since that is the only option that gives you the same bootable, install-on-any-drive functionality as DVD (as with Snow Leo, Leopard, Tiger, etc.), and that is aggravating, but I have gotten over it.
I rate the Late 2011 MacBook Pro outstanding all around; I am more satisfied with my purchase than with any other computer I have ever bought. B&H is a winner also, giving a great price and other incentives, and terrific customer support at the sale, and fast, secure shipping. Highly recommended, both the computer and B&H as your vendor. I had never bought anything except photography items from them before, but now I will look here first for Apple gear, and many other items.
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Comments about Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro Notebook Computer:
This is my 8th Mac and my second MacBook Pro, obviously I'm a fan.
I am replacing an IMac that I bought about a year ago as I'm going on the road full time and need a good machine to crunch thru graphics and photo apps and filters, this is the one.
I do recommend the extended warranty, as both of my last two laptops needed logic boards, sand at the price B&H offers them it's not too much more and will save considerable $'s if needed
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Comments about Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro Notebook Computer:
I am not a fan-boy, but have been a Mac-user since 1994, and almost exclusively a laptop/notebook user as well. This 15" MacBook Pro Late 2011 replaces/supplements a early '08 MacBook and a late '06 iMac. I have had it a month, and it continues to surprise and delight me daily. Fast/powerful? Very. Lovely, elegant, and totally over-engineered? Definitely. This is Mac number 11 for me (only ever bought one PC), and I think my favorite (not all the other 'new' ones exceeded their predecessors by much, but the this gorgeous beast does, and then some). It is so well built (yay, metal! hooray, tempered glass!), and has so much speed and extra headroom for the tasks I demand (Photoshop/Lightroom, some video/film work, scanning all types, layout, typography, distributed computing projects, light gaming, and beginning programming/compiling/scripting) that I expect is to fully live up to the rep of the i7 MBPs as a real "desktop replacement," and that it should still hold its own five years from now with new software (and like all Macs I have owned, outlast several batteries and its productive usefulness, since they are so well built. Still have a 100% functional PowerBook G3 WS from '98 for Classic apps/90's games/Word, and an SE/30 from 1990 for Zorkish-nostalgia: Apple builds durable computers!)
There are a few new pros (some for the model, some for me):
•Trackpad Gestures: love them, and they are productivity multipliers. I had to switch scrolling behavior back to the old style, but that is just personal preference.
•The Screen: sharp, detailed, and very bright, and worth the extra $$ for the HR option. So bright I dim it to about 60% for normal indoor use
•The Battery: after about 5 cycles of break-in (which ALL Lithium rechargeables benefit from), I am now getting slightly better than the promised 7 hours using the machine as Apple describes ('Wireless Web'), and more than 5.5 hours using it intensively as I normally do (PS/LR, film scanning, web, music, a little optical disc writing, a small USB HDD attached always, plus wireless-N & a BT mouse). This is impressive, though it the promised 1000-cycle life (compared the the 300-cycles of older models) is even more valuable. No battery 'calibration' is said to be needed, and if that turns out true, there's another truly helpful refinement.
•Ports: Thunderbolt is exciting, though I have yet to use it (waiting for cheaper external T-bolt drives or enclosures, or adaptors for use with USB3 & eSATA); Apple has a history of piloting great I/O technology, but sometimes they don't succeed in the mass market. Intel is behind T-bolt, and is pushing it hard on the PC side as well, so this should be a really great high-speed, powered port to use for decades, possibly as big a deal as USB was. Wish there was an ExpressCard slot like on the 17", and the lack of USB3 in the long run is no biggie, once adaptors/convertors appear (and there is FireWire 800 for now)
The only "cons" are aimed at Lion, not at the machine. Ultimately though, with 8GB of aftermarket RAM, and this machine made for Lion, I have had none of the issues others have had installing on top of Snow Leopard on older machines. I do have some PPC applications (mostly games) that of course won't run under Lion now that Rosetta is gone, but for me its not an issue since I have two other machines, one of which is 32-bit so will always remain SL. Everything else, in terms of interface, appearance, etc. is either changeable back to the way I want it (95%) or tiny so I'll not even notice it in a month or two (like all the icons in the Finder sidebar being gray now, or the menubar and prefs panes referring to "wifi" rather than Airport).
Oh, the screen is so sharp, bright, and vivid, that I do have one complaint: the glossy screen was a no-brainer for me, since photography and image work is 50% of what I use a computer for, but it does drive me a bit crazy when the display is OFF since it shows every light fingerprint and tiny spit droplet (but not noticeable when on even on close scrutiny, as when reviewing/comparing photo edits). Actually the type of "defect" that only appears on equipment of such very high quality.
So, HIGHLY recommended, LOTs of power even for most professional users (IT, photo, business). If you need more computer than this, you probably mostly need the greater screen area of an iMac, or are really in the stratosphere of processing (science, or pro video editing) and need a MacPro's cores and expandability. But for less dollars than that G3 PB of mine cost, I have a machine that would have got me arrested by the NSA in 1998! The best design/construction quality I have EVER seen in ANY laptop (Apple has frequently made great ones, but not all: the Late 2011 MBP line are function, beauty, form, & quality perfectly fused). Not the cheapest high-end laptop (notebook, whatever), but I think the best yet on all scores (and remember it boots Win7 and Linux and FreeBSD at the plug of a drive and a key press, thats all)
PS: B&H gave me the best deal I have ever got on a new Mac, by far (and on some crucial add-ons), and I did a lot of research! Strongly recommend B&H in general, and they are my Apple-brand retailer of choice from now on.
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