Macbook Pro Late 2011

[OuchMyFaceyHole]

After reading through BrandonTheCat's 2012 Macbook Air review (Which you can read here), I decided to do a review of my Macbook Pro. 

 

Intro :

I love this laptop. It is beyond and away the best laptop I have ever owned (Albeit the only other one I have owned was the 2003 Powerbook G4 which I could do a review of at a later date if wished). This review will be in this order : Aesthetics, Hardware, OS, Performance. I hope this won't be a too biased review and there will be a good bit of not too positive language in the Hardware and Performance sections. Now I bought this laptop on christmas of 2012 for $1,400 US off of the referb portion of the Apple Store. What I wanted to it to be was a midrange gaming laptop and be a workhorse machine at the same time. Now yes, at the time there were better and cheaper alternatives to the Pro. But what I want out of my laptops is great build quality, something that was not really seen at the time and price range. 

 

Aesthetics :

This thing is drop dead gorgeous. I am a sucker for build quality and damn does this scream it.

Everything on the outside of it is made from aluminum with lots of smooth edges that are so pleasing to the eye. 

 

Hardware :

The specs of this machine are in the description. Now this is where I am sitting loving it and hating it. The CPU is amazing. Like holy shit this thing is fast. When a laptop CPU beats your overclocked desktop you know you have a winner on your hands. The there is the GPU. Apple you know how to make one sexy looking machine but damn are you stupid for putting a low-mid range GPU in this thing. Why! You have a top of the line mobile CPU and then strap a turd to it. Now it could be worse as some of these laptops came with the terrible integrated HD 3000 graphics that are barely good enough for minesweeper. In reality it isn't awful chip but it sure as hell could have been better. The screen is a TN panel with alright viewing angles and a ok 1440x900 resolution that I feel is good enough to get by. I don't feel it is bad but I don't feel it is exceptional either. The keyboard is probably the one of the best keyboards on the market for laptops even today. Holy shit it is just amazing. I have typed on many different laptops but this keyboard is far and away the best. It isn't one of those annoying ass keyboards that try to shove a keypad on it that just screws with the alignment of the keys, but one that is put perfectly where I want it to type. The trackpad is a damn feat of engineering. Absolutely, by far, the best trackpad I have ever used and as always the best on the market. Apple please don't fuck up your amazing trackpad. Don't do anything to it as it needs nothing to be changed. The speakers are alright. Nothing you want to listen for too long to but aren't something you want to pick up and throw either. 

 

OS :

Now here is where I believe I will get most of the hate on this review. Mac OS is the better OS if you are doing office things and web browsing. If Apple would open up a little and games would come over I would have no reason to use Windows on this laptop. I honestly don't believe windows is the better OS other than for gaming. Mac looks great, runs absolutely fantastic, and just seems to be much more intuitive at this point in time. Now I currently have a HDD in this machine and once the OS is loaded it runs so very similar to my desktop that has an SSD in it. Man Windows could take some pointers from mac. I also IME have seen that mac runs better and better the more ram you throw at it. My powerbook G4 went from old and slow to running alright with 2gb of ram. This Mac came with 8 and I immediately put 16 in it and the difference was more or less invisible. 

 

Performance :

Now I am going to get my rant out right now. Who the fuck created this excuse for a cooling system. Both the CPU and the GPU on the same heat pipe?!? Are you serious?!? When running games on this thing it sounds like a 747 going off with the fans moving at 6100 rpm trying to cool this thing off. One part gets hot the other gets hot. And who the hell put the thermal paste on these chips? Its like you were trying to insulate it from how cold space is. After I replaced the paste I got a decrease of around 5-10 degrees C. Absolutely ridiculous. End Rant.

Although this thing gets super hot and loud it actually does run alright. I can get away with low to medium settings at 1440x900 at 30-60 fps. I never intended for this machine to be a great gaming machine. Just a stop gap solution for when I am not at my house which it does plenty well.

I can generally with a light work load get 8 hours out of it doing coding and web surfing. I have yet to replace the battery but is most likely due to the fact I am generally connected to power. 

 

Conclusion | TLDR :

This laptop is a fantastic work machine that is drop dead gorgeous and runs absolutely fantastic. Once you start gaming or doing anything intensive it sounds like a ICBM taking off. A great laptop that I would, if I had a chance, definitely buy again. My vote is a solid 8/10 with some improvements wanted being a better cooling solution (How is this system still in the new MacBooks?) and a better GPU to go with the monster CPU.

[brokencross]

Yep. It's a Macbook. It's the finest laptop money can ever buy.

Changing the thermal paste will definitely help with the cooling btw.

[OuchMyFaceyHole]

Yep. It's a Macbook. It's the finest laptop money can ever buy.

Changing the thermal paste will definitely help with the cooling btw.

It was in the rant. I got a 5-10c drop in temperatures after doing that which is just a bit on the stupid/ridiculous side.

[brokencross]

It was in the rant. I got a 5-10c drop in temperatures after doing that which is just a bit on the stupid/ridiculous side.

Completely missed it out.

Yeah, let's just say they don't really know how to apply thermal paste in China.

[Mew]

Completely missed it out.

Yeah, let's just say they don't really know how to apply thermal paste in China.

But pretty much every prebuilt desktop, laptop, and graphics card has too much thermal compound.

[OuchMyFaceyHole]

But pretty much every prebuilt desktop, laptop, and graphics card has too much thermal compound.

They just generally do not tend to put the whole damn container on it.

[Mew]

They just generally do not tend to put the whole damn container on it.

In an industry where the mindset is more is better, it's hard to teach them otherwise

[flibberdipper]

I would love me a modern Macbook Pro. Even baseline model (baseline with an SSD would be clutch). Anything with OS X and an SSD at least 128GB in size makes me happy.

[BrandonTheCat]

Aww thanks for the shoutout!

 

For the review, I actually agree with the cooling system. It's REALLY bad for all macs. But for me, I never even expected to game on this macbook, and if I did, I would use Steams Gamestreaming thing or buy a Nvidia Shield for portable use. Yours is different though, being a macbook pro, its designed for heavy workloads. So... I don't know. I'll never buy a mac desktop, and I'll never buy a PC laptop. 

 

Everything else, I completely agree with

[brokencross]

Aww thanks for the shoutout!

 

For the review, I actually agree with the cooling system. It's REALLY bad for all macs. But for me, I never even expected to game on this macbook, and if I did, I would use Steams Gamestreaming thing or buy a Nvidia Shield for portable use. Yours is different though, being a macbook pro, its designed for heavy workloads. So... I don't know. I'll never buy a mac desktop, and I'll never buy a PC laptop. 

 

Everything else, I completely agree with

This, pretty much. Although I must say I had a mid 2011 iMac and that shit hauled ass with an i5 quad and 12GB on heavy workloads.

And that IPS panel was simply gorgeous.