with the latest version of the operating system - OS X Lion. There is no change in the physical design or
construction - which is a good thing. It still has an aluminium unibody casing in silver and a 13.3-inch LED IPS
display. The display has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and it offers excellent colours, brightness and viewing
angles.
Like earlier MacBook screens, even this one suffers from the issue of being highly reflective. If there is a light
source behind you, you have no other option but to use the screen at a fairly high brightness level (which affects
battery).
On the right side is the slot loading DVD drive while all other ports - two USBs, Ethernet, FireWire, Thunderbolt,
a card reader, 3.5mm/line in combo jack and a battery indicator - are on the left. Despite the smaller size, the
13-inch Pro still comes with a full size backlit keyboard.
The keyboard offers excellent feedback and is comfortable to use for long durations. The glass multi-touch trackpad
is superb in response and as OS X Lion relies heavily on trackpad gestures, the large size of the trackpad is an
added benefit.
The new Pro still uses a second generation Intel Core i series processor with 4GB RAM and Intel HD 3000 graphics
(with 384MB shared memory). The only difference from the previous generation is that the current i7 processor runs
at 2.8Ghz instead of 2.7Ghz and storage now is 750GB as opposed to 500GB. The 2.8Ghz core i7 is the fastest dual
core processor available and can go up to 3.5Ghz with Turbo Boost.
As impressive as that sounds on paper, with day-to-day usage, we did not notice any difference in performance
between the two models - be it gaming or image/video editing. With normal usage, the MacBook Pro 13 stayed at about
45-degrees Celsius - normal for most notebooks. However, when we stressed the processor by converting HD videos and
editing heavy RAW image files, temperatures rose to 70 degrees Celsius.
The palm rest also gets a bit too warm for comfortable use. When using with a notebook cooler, there was a drop in
temperature of around 5 degrees in both conditions. What really impressed is the speed at which the notebook cooled
back down after the process was finished/quit. Within 5 minutes, the temperature came down to 60 degrees and after
15 minutes it dropped down to the normal 45-50 degree range.
Audio output from the speakers is exceptionally loud for a 13.3-inch notebook with the maximum volume good enough
for a small room. The default QuickTime player is capable of working with selected formats only, however once VLC
Media Player is installed, the machine offers a great video watching experience.
good review
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