My MacBook Pro Sucks

September 10th, 2006 Filed in: Reviews, Mac Jump to comments

I recently bought a new MacBook Pro (my first Apple computer). Yes, I am one of the switchers. I have been a PC user for a while until Apple introduced Intel-based Mac notebook. I was tempted by the MacBook Pro and brought a 15.4-inch display, 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo, with 2GB of RAM (upgraded from 1GB). After couple hours of fun playing around with the Mac OS X, I installed Adobe CS2 and did couple test runs. I was so disappointed on its performance. It even runs slower than my old PC laptop (1.5GHz Centrino with 1GB RAM). That is impossible since the new MacBook has 2.16GHz CPU with 2GB of RAM. I thought it could be my Adobe software issue. So I went to install Macromedia Studio 8 to see how it perform. Same result - slow.

I got frustrated and did a quick search on Google. I found this review from MacWorld. Apparently, neither Adobe CS2 nor Macromedia Studio 8 supports Intel-based Macs (running on Rosetta) yet. Fortunately, Adobe has announced that they will fix this issue to support Intel-based Mac computers in the next versions. So, if you are planning to get a MacBook Pro as your work computer, you’ll be better off waiting until Adobe release the next version of Creative Suite.

Note: Universal application like Safari, iLife and Mail are running fine and smoothy on my MacBook.

Update

June 6, 2007
I’m now using Adobe CS3 on my MacBook and they run very nice. However, I still have problem with the heat issues (extremely hot when charging). I heard the second generation released in Oct 2006 is faster than my first generation and the heat issue is resolved.

PAULOs

# 59

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:33 pm

yo
Im very tempted by the new mac book, not the pro, the standard version. Im a wannabe ’switcher’ but am a little concerned by a few of these comments. Im am a graphic designer who travels a lot and i need a laptop that can run photoshop and illustrator without any problems, will the standard mac book with a gig of ram be the right purchase?

Would appreciate your advice….

# 58

December 30th, 2006 at 12:51 am

You will also notice Apple does not call the MacBook a laptop but a notebook due to the heat issues. There are a few apps out there to help you control the fan speed and cool your Mac a little better. A coolpad can also help with the heat problem.
I have a dual Intel iMac with 2g memory, no problems yet in PS2. It is about as fast as my 17″ 1.67ghz ppc Powerbook g4 with 1.5g of memory. Dreamweaver 8 is buggy with larger php files on the Intel though.

Joe

# 57

December 29th, 2006 at 2:41 pm

The problem is that it’s a PPC binary that was ported over to the x86 architecture, hence the optimizations that were once there for the PPC are now gone and you’ll get something that’ll run slower than the builds intended for Windows (patched vs native). It’s not the macbook, it’s the software.

SINNED DESIGN

# 56

December 28th, 2006 at 3:03 pm

Ok, honestly if you wanna bad mouth the Mac Probook, you might want to also start listing the personal problems you might have. I’ll start you off
1. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The Probook is a blessing. If god exsisted he would say, hey where is my probook i wanna photoshop this photo of baby jesus. OH there it is. Hey it gets hot, oh wait it’s fn’ machine. It only gets hot with the battery. Pay your electric bill and plug the adapter in, hey that helps. Oh your hand is so fat it collaspes the dvd drive. That can be fixed by not being so fat.

Simply enough your problems can be solved by being part of that whole” PCs are better than Macs” yahoo group where losers go to swallow all there dreams of ever being someone who can acknowledge the good. The more haters the better. Only they make the smarter people in this shallow exsistance of humanity relize how right we are.

Erik Carlisle

# 55

December 25th, 2006 at 4:40 pm

macbook pro 15. bought nov 15
this thing is the biggest peice of crap i’ve ever seen.
1.Case is bent down above the dvd drive; from the weight of my hand?
2. screen has very blotchy back lighting.
3. some times wont sleep or wont wake up or wakes up in my computer bag nice and hot. wish it would catch something on fire so i could sue the bastards.
4. needless to say it runs very hot.
5. random mooing noises.
complete joke dont buy. email me with complaints encarlisle@gmail.com

ahmed atef

# 54

December 25th, 2006 at 1:11 pm

I am one of the switchers my self just like u whe they mad the new mac book pro. i have the same problem with the cs2 but i was told that the cs2 is not compatable with my mac sistem sure coz it wasn’t made for intel based mac. but the other applications are very fast and stable so i believed that the problem was with cs2 but GUESS WHAT!!! CS3 ROOKS

Jackassery at Nhabit

# 53

December 24th, 2006 at 4:13 pm

[…] We’d been at Apple the day before and I was still enjoying some post pitch euphoria. I’d had enough of talking about and selling the tools, I wanted to simply use them - connect, collaborate, create. So I fired up my Mac Book Pro, launched Skype’s video Chat and called Paul (my brother in Idaho). Free call, free wireless and free video. […]