As you may know I recently upgraded my late 2008 Macbook Pro 2.4Ghz Unibody Laptop to the Mid 2010 i7 based Macbook Pro. I’ve written about this unit previously in these articles:

Early 2010 Macbook Pro i7

Early 2010 Macbook Pro - Battery Life Poor?

Firstly, I’ve noted that the more common terminology for this unit is ‘Mid 2010’ rather than ‘early 2010’ as I originally envisaged. The unit was released in April so I assumed early. Never mind.

This wiki is great at enabling you to identify the specs of the various model types.

I’ve now used the unit for a while in anger as it were, so I thought it would be useful to review how I’m finding it.

Which model do I have?

I thought it best to start by qualifying what is in my laptop. The unit I have is the 2.66Ghz Core i7 model. This uses a dual-core 620M processor with 4MB on-board L3 cache.

Note that while it is dual-core it is hyper-threading so in effect you see 4 processors available in Activity Monitor:

The processors on the i7 iMac by the way is a quad-core i7 with hyper-threading so it shows up to 8 virtual cores. The iMac is significantly faster than the MBP i7.

The base i7 MBP comes with the following specification:

2.66Ghz Core i7 Processor with 4MB L3 Cache

4Gb RAM 1066Mhz

500Gb Hard Disk Drive

DVD SuperDrive

Glossy 1440x900 screen

Click here for detailed specs.

After receiving the above unit, I upgraded it as follows:

Upgraded the RAM to 8Gb using memory modules from Crucial

installed a Crucial M225 128Gb SSD for OS & Apps

Removed the DVD and installed an MCE OptiBay unit

The MCE contained a 640Gb Western Digital 2.5” Hard Disk

In terms of performance obviously the SSD will make a big difference. The RAM will only really come in to play if you use RAM heavy applications - I do as I spend most of my time running virutalised server operating systems in VMWare Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop 5.0.

With these upgrades it really is quite an awesome machine. Let’s look at the Xbench stats for this unit:

Very impressive although obviously the above is slighted by the presence of the SSD.

Is the performance improvement real? By real, I mean does it offer up real performance benefits in day to day use? The answer for me is a most definitely yes. The unit is worlds apart in terms of performance for what I use it for. It’s far quicker to launch my virtual machines. The operation of my Windows 7 ‘normal’ workstation is fantastic - you really wouldn’t realise it’s virtual. In fact have a look at the Windows Experience Index while running under Parallels:

Simply stunning in my opinion. Now, what about doing day to day stuff for non-intensive users? If your use is more restricted than mine - say for example you spent your days doing things like:

:- Web browsing

:- Word/Excel documents

:- Some video in iMovie

:- Photos in iPhoto

etc. then, quite frankly, I’d be surprised if you’d notice the difference from a C2D unit. Seriously - the performance in those apps just seems to be similar. I’m sure you’ll knock some time off of video encoding in iMovie for example, but do you seriously sit and watch that encode or do you just get on with something else?

If you run processor intensive stuff you’ll see the benefits. If you don’t, well, then I’d be surprised if you noticed the difference. Not rocket science that bit is it?

Ease of Upgrading the components

My previous unit had replaceable batteries in it - under the cover for the battery you’d also have the hard disk exposed making upgrade of the hard drive easy. Upgrading of the RAM in the previous involved unscrewing the back plate and removing it.

This unit is a closed system and does not have a removable battery. Upgrading the RAM, or the hard drive, involves removing multiple screws on the back of the laptop to remove the back plate. Very similar to the 2008 unit in fact. Upgrading the hard drive & RAM does not invalidate your warranty by the way, unless of course you damage something in the process of upgrading.

Really, working on the unit is much the same as any previous ones. You need a normal cross-head screwdriver to remove the back plate, you do not need TORX units.

Fitting the optibay was a little more fiddly than previous models as there’s an extra plastic component near the DVD drive, however the unit fitted in perfectly.

Screen

The screen is the same glossy type found on previous models. They now offer up a higher resolution non-glossy option. I’ve never really had a problem with the glossy unit although I hear some people do?

Battery Life

This is where it gets interesting. The unit specs quote 8 to 9 hours of use. Of course this is with the screen brightness turned down, no Flash etc. When I first used the unit I saw battery usage along this kind of time however it then roughly halved. I wrote about this issue here:

Early 2010 Macbook Pro - Battery Life Poor?

Essentially the automatic graphic switching between the lower power integrated Intel chip and the higher-power NVIDIA chipset was causing the battery to run down. Numerous apps have been identified that cause this issue on the auto-graphic switching. I really am hoping that Apple bring out a way to ‘fix’ yourself to using one of the graphics chips and allowing you to choose - much like you could with the previous generations.

It’s interesting how people used to bemoan the missing automatic graphic switching in previous models (you had to logout/in again), but now it’s here it’s causing even more issues! Go figure.

With general use but on the NVIDIA I get around 4 hours battery life. If I’m careful and avoid apps that force switching to the NVIDIA I get nearer 7 to 8 - this is fine for me.

Costing

Let’s look at costs. The laptop to the specification I have it, I.e. with 8Gb of RAM, can be bought from Apple CTO for GBP2,119. In addition, I added the following components:

Crucial M225 128Gb SSD: GBP309

OptiBay: GBP120

WD 640Gb SATA: GBP89

This takes the total for this laptop to GBP2637. That’s loads for a laptop. For state-side readers this figure includes UK Sales tax (VAT) @ 17.5%. Pre-tax it would be GBP2244.

That’s a lot for a laptop nowadays isn’t it?

To counter this however, I was amazed that my late 2008 2.4Ghz C2D unit with 4Gb of RAM and a 500Gb hard disk sold, via Ebay, for GBP850! Astonishing really considering the unit was GBP1369 when it was launched. I was quite impressed with that - Apple gear holds its pricing really well doesn’t it?

Summary

There’s not an awful lot to review about this unit that doesn’t apply to previous models - and therefore has been reviewed heavily all over the t’interweb already. The only major differentiator here is the processor, and the pesky pricing.

Is it a worthwhile upgrade? Well, in terms of performance for my usage that’s a big yes. The MBP is my hub of operation for pretty much all of my day to day work and it’s often running 3 or 4 virtual server operating systems alongside my Win7 apps and my native OSX ones. I drive my laptop pretty hard. I’ve found on this unit I don’t have to shut down VMs so often to let other stuff run etc. My working day is easier with this unit.

The cost against this increase though is a hard one to bear. Fortunately, VAT is recoverable for me, and the unit is paid from pre-tax money so the price is significantly reduced. I’m not sure I could stomach this cost if I were paying out of my own after-tax income. GBP2.5k is a lot for a laptop isn’t it?

On the other hand, most people wouldn’t be putting in 8Gb of RAM, an SSD, and an additional hard disk would they? So the price would be the GBP1799 (or GBP1531+VAT) so this is more manageable. It’s still a lot of money though isn’t it?

If I spec up a roughly equivalent Dell for example:

Dell Studio 15 (15.6” Screen)

i7 2.66Ghz 620M 4MB Cache
4Gb RAM

500Gb Hard Disk

Web Cam

Wireless .n Networking

DVD Drive

Bluetooth

Higher-capacity battery.

...then it comes to a wopping GBP974.02 (or GBP828+VAT). That’s a lot, lot cheaper. To be fair doesn’t have the graphics power of the MBP, or arguably the build quality. I’m not sure that equates to the price differentiation though?

The price differentiation is for build quality, graphics switching, and OSX then? is that worth it? Well that’s a difficult question for somebody else to answer for you isn’t it?

It is worth it for me, but then mine is purchased via a business. I also like the performance benefits of virtualisation that I perceive on this platform. I say perceive because obviously some people may think that Windows does it as well and/or better than OSX & Fusion/Parallels. I suppose a lot of that is personal preference?

I’m incredibly happy the unit. It’s very fast, and works with everything I can throw at it.