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Regarding SSDs, I admittedly haven't done too much research in this regard when it comes to OS X, but is it possible to buy the TRIM-capable SSDs that Apple uses/provides support for in Lion, commercially? Or can we get a list going or link perhaps to a list of SSDs that are TRIM supported in Lion, since I'm guessing SSD usage will only increase with time.
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Jul 20, 2011 22:29
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japtor posted:The only ones that I know of are the OEM Apple drives. To get it working with others there was some hack (I think it essentially added your drive to a whitelist, or just opened up the whitelist completely) but there's no official support afaik. Star War Sex Parrot posted:The only one that Apple sells aftermarket is the 500GB SSD for the Mac Pro. It's $1300. Bah, that sucks. Well hopefully compatibility improves, as long-term I would like to simply throw a SSD into the MBP and have TRIM supported. 
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Jul 20, 2011 22:54
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MrChupon posted:Kind of a related question: Having the WiFi on means that your wireless adapter's antenna is on and scanning/waiting to connect and transmit/etc. It won't use nearly as much power as if it's connected (since it's not actively transmitting regularly), but it's still consuming some power. I doubt it's that much power though.
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Jul 23, 2011 19:09
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Auriak posted:Speaking of RAM, what is the difference between DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) and DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)? Will my 2011 MBP recognize both? If so, is there any noticeable performance difference between the two or should I just go with whichever is cheapest at the moment? Ultimately: go with what's cheapest for DDR3 1333 that's also a decent brand/etc.
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Jul 28, 2011 00:56
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movax posted:Interested to hear some reports from goons who've hooked up their Airs to an external display.
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Jul 28, 2011 21:02
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natlampe posted:You should be fine, I think. Yeah, the primary reason I'm concerned is just due to what some reviewers (such as that Anand quote) commented on regarding high-resolution displays and a GPU with dedicated vRAM being desirable. I do plan on upping the memory to 8GB right away though, and apparently increasing the memory to 8GB also bumps up the allocated shared RAM to the HD3000 from 384 to 512 MB. Not much, but every little bit helps.  Bob Morales posted:If not, you can get a 8GB upgrade (which would take your iMac to 12GB) for $39.99 with a free 4G USB drive and free shipping from NewEgg If you're referring to the G.Skill deal, I think it's dead now (as it no longer shows the free 4GB flash drive, and now shows $54.99 for the RAM).
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Jul 28, 2011 21:32
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DEUCE SLUICE posted:As long as you're not talking about hooking it up to a 24" Cinema Display, you should be fine. Canned Sunshine fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jul 28, 2011 |
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Jul 28, 2011 22:16
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I have a friend who is thinking of picking up a 13" MBP for school, and I've been able to answer most questions, but they asked about whether the i5 is sufficient (they're a architectural major, so it'd probably be stuff like AutoCad, etc.), or if they should pay extra for the i7. I see that the i7 Turbos up higher, is slightly-faster in terms of the HD3000 on-board graphics, and has some features (I'm guessing they wouldn't use) such as AES-NI and such. Is the i7 worth the upgrade cost?
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Jul 29, 2011 02:41
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dissss posted:I just don't think 1280x800 is enough screen resolution for stuff like Autocad - something else to consider anyway. As far as CPU goes the I5s are still blazingly fast, doubt it'll be much of an issue. movax posted:I'd tell him to get the 13" Air, simply because it has a much, much better screen (1440x900 in 13" vs. 1280x800 in 13") that will pay off for apps like AutoCAD. The i5 in the 13" MBA should more than enough. Thanks for the suggestions! He does have a 20" monitor already with his older desktop, and was thinking of connecting the MBP (or the MBA) to it. Not sure how much he'd be in AutoCAD while on the go, but I can ask. He also interns with a firm, so that's partly why I'm guessing he's been doing more in AutoCAD. For my own MBP: Bob Morales mentioned how someone could throw a Scorpio in to boost the performance (down the road I'll go with an SSD once costs come down for larger drives), but I've heard the Scorpio Black 320 has issues with vibrations? What about the 500GB Scorpio Blue?
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Jul 29, 2011 05:26
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fleshweasel posted:Why did you even gently caress around with it for so long before taking it to the apple store?
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Jul 30, 2011 06:56
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SpoonsForThought posted:I'm a senior architecture student and I plan on picking up the 13" Air this summer to allow me to be more mobile so I can get out of studio every once in a while! However, the 13" Air will compliment my i5 desktop Hackintosh that I use when I need more muscle. My friend ended up going to an Apple store this past weekend, and so now he's deciding between paying a bit extra for the 15" Pro, or going with the 13" top-end Air upgraded to the i7. At least for a couple of years it'll probably be his main system, so he's going to spend this weekend apparently deciding on which to go with, and probably pick it up next weekend. So my own 13" MBP arrived, but I haven't opened it yet because I'm deciding whether it'd be worth it to return it for a 13" upgraded to the i7. I haven't seen a lot of reviews comparing the two and what I could find was limited. is the i7 worth it in the 13" MBP?
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Aug 2, 2011 00:00
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Bob Morales posted:For $300 (25% of a $1199 laptop!) I wouldn't bother. Unless you're going to use it to run Cinebench and Photoshop all day. Buy $300 worth of Apple stock and then just buy a new one in 3 years.
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Aug 2, 2011 07:02
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Binary Badger posted:Hey, different levels of service at different stores. Is your friend cute? That could have something to do with it too... Though I've always had good experiences at the Chandler and Phoenix Biltmore stores here. Never been to the Scottsdale location, but guessing there's a huge cloud of *smug* present (since it's Scottsdale).
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Aug 3, 2011 07:53
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Auriak posted:Thanks! I missed it by just a few minutes last time. Just placed my order but I didn't see anything about a flash drive. Did you see it listed on the page prior to purchase (and then not see it in the cart/on the checkout page?). If so, apparently some people who had seen the flash drive listed as being included, but then not included in the cart, have been able to contact Newegg's Live Chat and get $5 refunded back from the purchase price. I saw the flash drive listed, but it wasn't in my cart, so right now I'm in queue for live chat waiting for a CSR. If i end up being able to get a credit back I'll let you know. KidDynamite posted:It's actually not the same ram. So does anyone know if that matters? That 10666 DDR3 would almost certainly be down-clocked in to 10600 anyway, so either set of RAM should work fine.
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Aug 3, 2011 20:47
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SourKraut posted:I saw the flash drive listed, but it wasn't in my cart, so right now I'm in queue for live chat waiting for a CSR. If i end up being able to get a credit back I'll let you know. And... no such luck in getting the order discounted slightly or the flash drive sent in the future.
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Aug 3, 2011 21:07
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MrEnigma posted:Also, I saw the page said I was supposed to get the flash drive, but it wasn't added to my order. In talking to the live chat person, she said I can contact them when the flash drives come back in stock, and I'll get them.
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Aug 4, 2011 01:05
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Corbet posted:I think we paid close to $2500 for our 333 MHz Pentium 2 with 4GB of hard drive space and a DVD drive. If that's the PowerBook G3 as I recall, it's around 1999/2000.
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Aug 4, 2011 05:09
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:I'd much rather carry my new 13" Air when I go shooting instead of my old 15" MBP. My bag's already loaded down with lenses, lighting, a tripod, and other miscellaneous crap. Every pound saved is precious to me if I'm going to be wearing it all day. Should have been a geologist, that'd have gotten you used to carrying heavy loads all day.  But seriously, both the 11" and 13" Airs are so much lighter than even the 13" MBP, at least when I lift each up. The 13" Air did tempt me... e: Admittedly, pretty much any of them are lighter compared to the 17" Dell XPS I used to carry around. What really sucked about that was that the battery would only last for 2- 2 1/2 hours, so if I was going to be out longer than that (which usually I was), I had to bring the adapter with, and that weighed a decent bit too.
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Aug 4, 2011 19:30
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Shin-chan posted:Yeah, considering my SSD was only a $5 difference for 6Gb/s over 3Gb/s. I think he's referring to a mechanical HDD for the $80 more at 6 GB/s comment. As others have mentioned, a traditional HDD can't even saturate 3 GB/s, much less 6 GB/s, so it's an unnecessary upgrade.
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Aug 5, 2011 22:44
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:Those drives usually have other benefits than just negotiation speed: longer warranty, more cache, etc. That's true, though the only 2.5-inch 6 GB/s HDDs I could find are enterprise-level, which from what I can tell wouldn't even likely fit in his MBP. I'm really curious now to see what drives he was looking at too. Shin-chan posted:I understand this, that's why I commented what I did. If it's only a $5 difference on an SSD, I can't believe it would add $80 to a HDD.
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Aug 5, 2011 22:53
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Shin-chan posted:^What he said. There is literally no "these two drives are identical, except one is 3 GB/s and the other 6 GB/s" for 2.5-inch mechanical drives, and thus you can't make the same comparison as you did with your SSD. The closest it appears you can get is the Seagate consumer-focused Momentus line to that of the Seagate Constellation line, but the Constellation line offers double the cache, 6 GB/s thoroughput, etc. Ultimately, all of the enterprise-class drives are more expensive because they offer other benefits besides "SATA-II vs. SATA-III". There simply aren't two identical-except-SATA speed drives for the argument to be comparative.
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Aug 5, 2011 23:31
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MrEnigma posted:So my kindle with special offers just gave me a 20% off laptops code at amazon, was planning on selling it but the terms of it forbid it, so does this mean I should buy a low end macbook air? Can you try it on one of the newer systems? I read that some were able to with success.
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Aug 6, 2011 02:52
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wolffenstein posted:Lion will only run on Core 2 Duo and Core i-series processors.
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Aug 7, 2011 02:00
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japtor posted:They took out nearly all the 32-bitness so I imagine it'd be a massive pain in the rear end at this point...now if you were talking about upgrading the CPU on it, then yeah that works. It's a big enough pain in the rear end that I'd suggest just paying a bit more for a C2D model. Edit - Hmm, yeah, there may be limitations on this actually... Canned Sunshine fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Aug 7, 2011 |
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Aug 7, 2011 04:16
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I really, really hope a Thunderbolt ViDock does get released. It'd be great to use it with my 13" MBP when I have it connected to an external display.
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Aug 7, 2011 07:58
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El Jackalope posted:I'm going to assume this is hardware related: It appears your iMac is too old, as this AirDrop support page on Apple's site seems to indicate that only iMacs from early 2009 or newer are supported.
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Aug 8, 2011 08:05
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DEUCE SLUICE posted:As an aside, has anyone compared the 24" or 27" ACD's to the equivalent Dell side by side? I'm not terribly confident that Apple will be able to fix the issue with thunderbolt macs on the 24" ACD (as it's been around since the first thunderbolt Macbooks Pro,) so I'm considering just selling the ACD and picking up a U2412M (and a webcam, I guess.) In this case the "equivalent" Dell to your 24" ACD (if it's the 24" LED ACD) would probably be the U2410, as both are H-IPS panels and appear to be slight variations of an LG panel: LM240WU4-SLB1 in the Dell U2410, and LM240WU6-SDA1 in the 24" ACD. The Dell U2412M is now their more budget-focused model, as it uses an e-IPS display (and a 6-bit panel with FRC). It just came out, so not sure how easy it is to find someone who can compare the two.
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Aug 9, 2011 18:55
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movax posted:I just read that earlier today, very good and in-depth review, yet another reason why I'll stick with Anand for reviews. Smart choice on Apple's part to move to modular PCIe cards; they can really save on PCB costs and just keep upgrading the module. The only issue I have with Anand's reviews is that it seemed like he often down-played issues that, had it been another company, he'd have railed on them for. For example, he lightly commented on what is essentially a lack of QuickSync support when Apple moved the MBP's to Sandy Bridge, even though it'd be perfect for something such as iMovie, and didn't really mark Apple off for it. Or not really being concerned with how Apple implemented the special connectors for hard drives in the iMac to prevent users from adding in additional drives, etc. Other than that though, I do typically like his reviews, and in all fairness since he's been having the reviews be worked on by multiple people (including himself), I think they've been more objective.
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Aug 10, 2011 01:55
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Chemmy posted:I'll live without BF3, I have an Xbox. I'll probably buy an Air tomorrow on the way home from work. I know everyone has kinda already touted the "Air" horn since, well, it's the new sparkling thing to want, but out of curiosity: how long would you likely keep it, and does portability come into effect at all? If you do plan on keeping it awhile, and portability isn't a concern, I would almost say go with the refurb 15" Sandy Bridge MBP. The quad-core i7 will likely last a decent-bit longer performance wise into the future than the i5 or i7 available for the 13" Air, and while it's not the greatest, the performance of the discrete GPU (Radeon 6490M) in the entry-level 15" MBP is still quite a bit ahead of the HD3000. Plus, you can always either swap out the existing HDD for an SSD, or even remove the optical drive and put an SSD in for a SSD+ HDD combo. Also throw in the ability to double the RAM to 8 GB (versus being fixed at 4 GB with the Air), and if you do plan on having it for any lengthy period of time, personally that's what I'd go with. If however it's mostly just for a year or two, yeah, go with the Air.
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Aug 10, 2011 05:10
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Chemmy posted:Portability's not a huge deal in that I drive to work and have an iPad to travel light. Honestly since portability doesn't matter at all, I would advocate going with one of the refurb 15" MBPs if possible. The high res 15" MBP does have more pixels, but is that something you'd specifically want, or is the standard option acceptable? Ultimately, I would almost say just replace the optical drive with a 128 GB SSD for the OS and applications, use the included HDD as a media/storage drive, and take comfort in that the system will last a rather long time in terms of new OS X releases and such.
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Aug 10, 2011 06:02
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Evil Granny posted:It's that strange DVI/Firewire/USB2/DC power tentacled beast. An ADC connector?
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Aug 11, 2011 02:01
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japtor posted:Pretty sure it's just dual link DVI. Yeah, you're right. It's just that combo dual link DVI cable. In that case, I'd imagine a simple DVI switch would work well enough?
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Aug 11, 2011 02:14
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:Just catching up with this since I wanted to reply but didn't want to type it all out on my phone. If I cared about specs that much or price-performance optimization, I generally wouldn't be buying a Mac. I had a 15.4" i7 MBP before the new Air, so I know what I gave up. To me, the portability is way more useful than the extra horsepower. I have a quad-core iMac for the heavy lifting. The Air is never going to be in the sweetspot of the price/performance ratio, but that's because you're paying for subjective qualities like portability. Chemmy though seemed to alude to keeping machines for awhile, so if it's 2-3 years+, wouldn't the 15" quad i7 MBP be better, especially with the limited (but greater than the Air) options for expandability? Plus he mentioned having an iPad for light traveling usage. Edit - Oh, and I think he mentioned whatever system he buys will be his primary machine outside of work. Canned Sunshine fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Aug 11, 2011 |
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Aug 11, 2011 02:44
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movax posted:I have the high-res 15" matte, I think it's criminal to get the 15" at its stock resolution. If you have a fruit stand nearby, ask them to show you the high-res side-by-side with the regular screen so you can make the best decision. For Chemmy (and anyone else who's been considering it): 2011 15" MBPs with the upgraded screen appeared today in the Apple Store's Refurb list at a cost of $1,649.00. I'd have directly linked it but not sure if that's allowed.
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Aug 11, 2011 03:48
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:Why wouldn't it be? Oh in the past I've seen where people were concerned about linking to SA Mart pages where they were selling stuff, so wasn't sure if it was against rules or such. Good to know for the future that it's ok! Oh hey, one question for you (and anyone else), since I didn't see it really get answered earlier: is the i7 upgrade in the 13" MacBook Pro worth it over the i5? Canned Sunshine fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Aug 11, 2011 |
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Aug 11, 2011 05:27
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japtor posted:I figure it's debatable if you need as much CPU as possible. More cache along with ~17% faster base and turbo clock (2.9 vs 3.4ghz), and 1.3 vs 1.2ghz GPU clock according to Intel. There's also some other CPU features but I'm not sure how many matter for the Mac (right now at least) except AES, which is used to accelerate FileVault drive encryption if you plan to use that. Thanks for the link! That's a nice featureset comparison. Yeah, I had picked up a refurb 13" MBP, but haven't opened the box yet because I've seen the i7 13" come up a few times for about $250 more, so debating as to whether return the i5 and get the i7 instead.
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Aug 11, 2011 06:30
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qbert posted:Edit: Nevermind, I was thinking of the Airs. Yeah, from Anand and others' reviews of the Airs, if I were getting a MBA I'd definitely go for the i7 given the performance increase. But it's been really difficult to track down a decent comparison between the i5 and i7 in the 13" MBP. Anand's review last March of the 13" and 15" MBPs used a i7-equipped MBP but no i5.
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Aug 11, 2011 08:11
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KidDynamite posted:Why not just get the i7 13" MBA? It's only $100 more and is probably quicker because of the SSD. I'd like to upgrade it to 8 GB of RAM (already have the RAM as well), which also boosts up the HD3000 GPU to 512MB shared. My plan was to initially swap out the default HDD for either the 500 GB Scorpio Black or the Hitachi Travelstar 500 GB 7200 RPM, then later this year put an optibay in with an SSD as the OS/application drive. With regards to the screen, it's my understanding that while the 13" MBP's resolution is lower, the quality of the screen itself is a good bit superior to the MacBook Airs'.
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Aug 11, 2011 09:31
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movax posted:Hm, I hadn't heard that. They're all TN panels Yeah, I've seen Anand and others mention it in their reviews. Anand's review, for example: Anandtech posted:Where the Air stops filling its bigger brother's shoes is in viewing angles and color gamut. The MacBook Air uses a lower quality TN panel than what's in the MacBook Pro, causing viewing angles to suffer. I went to one of the Apple stores to take a look, and I could see the difference in both the viewing angles (easily noticeable) and color (not quite so much). Apparently though the Air had to use a cheaper TN panel to help keep costs down.
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Aug 11, 2011 18:39
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but at least the 13" MBA panels deliver a resolution appropriate for their size.
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Evil Granny posted:Started looking into this, and was really floored by the prices. The cheapest DVI switcher I found that supports 2560x1600 is $347. (!!!) Didn't realize they'd be so expensive. As long as you're careful each time, unplugging and replugging should be ok. What about an HDMI switch? I think those can be had for fairly cheap (such as $10-20), and you could simply use HDMI-> DVI adapters for connecting them?
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Aug 11, 2011 19:56
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