2011 MBP - 15"

M

michaelkahl

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
433
I just got my new MacBook Pro 15", early 2011 model, and I love it. The only other Mac I've owned or used was an old dual G5 pro that I picked up last summer. I consider this my first Mac since it's the first one I can use on a daily basis.

I've got most of my software installed without any issues. My only concern is on battery life. It's something I'm keeping an eye on, but I'm guessing any application that turns on the discrete graphics will cause the system to drain quickly.

I did update to 10.6.7, am finishing calibration of the battery right now (read a guide online, don't know if it's worth doing), transferred my iPhone to it, and really enjoy the overall experience.
 
Download gfxCardStatus, you'll be able to set the graphics to discrete or integrated manually, helps improve battery life significantly. :)
 
Wow, never knew about that program. Thanks for that.

Even with the OS managing this, I haven't had any issues with the battery in my 2011 MBP. Now that Apple has fixed the graphics in the 10.6.7 driver, I'm seriously happy with this machine. Sandy Bridge is ridiculously fast. A++ Highly Recommand
 
Which 15 did you get? I will probably be ordering a 2.2 with high-res/antiglare Monday. Just need to decide on 750gb/5400 or 500gb/7200. Looks like I can use my Dad's Military discount since he is both former military and retired federal employee.
 
I went with the 2.2 hr/ag with the 750gb @5400rpm. Trying to keep this as mobile as possible in terms of battery life. I don't find the SSD's to be worth the extra money.

Love this laptop. It's screaming fucking fast. I'm very pleased with my screen choice as well. I Came from an oldish '08 MBP with the glossy screen, and I have to say I prefer the anti-glare model.
 
I just got the MBP in my sig with the 500GB 7200RPM drive at the beginning of the month. I don't need the extra space but I wanted to give the extra speed a shot. As stated earlier GFXCardStatus is an absolute must. Some surprising things will trigger discrete graphics.

Oh, and this thing screams. I don't remember the exact number but my GeekBench score was over 10,000.
 
Alright you two, show me some disk benchmarks ;)

Or drive models!
 
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Blackforge said:
Alright you two, show me some disk benchmarks ;)

Or drive models!
Click to expand...

Just fired up xbench

Disk Test 50.08
Sequential 141.18
Uncached Write 178.60 109.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 183.91 104.05 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 79.84 23.37 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 209.63 105.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 30.44
Uncached Write 9.87 1.05 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 107.47 34.40 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 76.15 0.54 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 130.28 24.17 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Click to expand...

Hard drive is Hitachi HTS725050A9A362
 
I went with the high-res (glossy) 15" and 500GB HDD. I'll be putting in a next-gen SSD, and upgrading to 8GB of RAM very soon. The 6750m is leaps and bounds better than my old 9400m.
 
Thanks for the benchmark and model number, I found the model of someone's 750GB 5400 RPM (Toshiba MK7559GSXF) and compared the passmark between the two. Good bit of difference, of course they don't give the hard numbers you gave just an overall score. Not sure if I should get the 750GB 5400RPM to make it some external storage (possibly for time machine) and swap in a 750GB 7200RPM.

Saw a G.SKILL 8GB memory upgrade earlier for $72.99 at newegg after coupon code: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...C-032411-Index-_-LaptopMemory-_-20231342-L02C
 
I got the 2.2GHz Model with the 6750 gpu, 750GB hdd, and glossy 1400x900 screen. I'm very happy with it. My closest Apple store is over an hour away, so I went to BB where they told me before that they'd match my education discount. I work for a College and am a student at another University. I show up and the slacker at BB tells me that they won't honor that discount unless it's back-to-school season. I pretty much told him no. I didn't want to be a prick but he got snooty about it fast. He tried telling me that they only match brick-and-mortar and I pointed out the Apple store across the river. Then he said, "Apple isn't carrying that special right now." I said, "Yes they are, I just checked this morning!" He changed his toon and I got my discount. The girl at the counter was much nicer, but she almost gave me a $100 discount instead of $200. Thankfully my buddy caught it and she quickly corrected it(she was nice and I was nice...what a surprise :D ) I think the first guy was just upset because I didn't buy Black Tie protection from him. I know they don't sell on commission but I also know they have other perks and expectations. It's sales, they pressure their sales team to sell this crap. I'll be picking up an AppleCare for this and my new iPhone soon.

My battery life today was much improved. I went from 2pm to roughly 9pm on battery. It wasn't continuous use, but I used it most of the time. Downloaded a couple of GB over wifi, played some youtube videos, browsed the web, and that was about it.

I'll check out the app for switching graphics. Thanks for that tip.
 
This morning I noticed poor battery life again. I installed gfxCardStatus and notice that Firefox 4 initializes discrete graphics when it starts up. That's really sad :( I forced it to integrated, but don't want to micromanage. Maybe I'll use Safari or try Chrome.
 
I am trying to decide between the the 15" or 17" MBP
 
michaelkahl said:
This morning I noticed poor battery life again. I installed gfxCardStatus and notice that Firefox 4 initializes discrete graphics when it starts up. That's really sad :( I forced it to integrated, but don't want to micromanage. Maybe I'll use Safari or try Chrome.
Click to expand...

I had the same problem. It was quite aggravating seeing it use discrete graphics to load a blank page. I downgraded back to FF 3.6 and will wait for a FF4 fix.
 
A couple questions as I have been thinking of the new MBP and boot camping for games...
Anyone Boot Camping?
Anyone experiencing the lock up issue I have been hearing about?
 
zoobaby said:
A couple questions as I have been thinking of the new MBP and boot camping for games...
Anyone Boot Camping?
Anyone experiencing the lock up issue I have been hearing about?
Click to expand...

Which lockup issue? On OSX? There was one that was apparently fixed with the last update that went out this week: 10.6.7
 
michaelkahl said:
This morning I noticed poor battery life again. I installed gfxCardStatus and notice that Firefox 4 initializes discrete graphics when it starts up. That's really sad :( I forced it to integrated, but don't want to micromanage. Maybe I'll use Safari or try Chrome.
Click to expand...

From what I read, I believe Chrome may cause this as well.
 
Blackforge said:
Which lockup issue? On OSX? There was one that was apparently fixed with the last update that went out this week: 10.6.7
Click to expand...

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13284429

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2768351

http://www.google.com/search?q=MBP+...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

EDIT: Will add that this may be an Intel issue as I have heard of people using the "Fixed" Sandy Bridge running Windows experiencing a similar issue.
 
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Below are a list of apps I opened to see what triggered discrete graphics and which ones didn't. Some results were as expected but others were surprising. Twitter for example completely shocked me using discrete graphics. I imagine some of the apps like Quicktime and iTunes will turn on discrete graphics if needed.

Again, all these results are just from me opening the application. I did not load any files into any of these with the exception of Bibble Pro, it came up with my library, and CS5 Photoshop. I did actually remote desktop with the RDP app. I connected to my work PC over VPN.

Official Twitter App: Discrete
Chrome: Discrete
Firefox: Discrete
Safari: Integrated
Word 2011: Integrated
Excel 2011: Discrete
PowerPoint: Discrete
Bibble 5: Integrated
iMovie: Discrete
iPhoto: Discrete
Photobooth: Discrete
Garage Band: integrated / Discrete
Chess: Discrete
App Store: integrated
iChat: integrated
iWeb: Discrete
Preview: integrated
Microsoft RDP: integrated
VMWare Fusion (No VM setup): Integrated
Quicktime: integrated
iTunes: integrated
VLC: integrated
CS5 Premiere: Discrete
CS5 Photoshop: Integrated (just open) / Discrete with a JPG image loaded
CS5 Dreamweaver: Intergrated
 
One more...and it's a funny one.
Wimba Pronto (distance learning chat client for Blackboard) actually fires up discrete graphics. I was really surprised by this. Of course it does have web cam and application sharing abilities so that must be the culprit in this application.
 
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