MacBook Pro (aluminium 2008 edition)

The MacBook Pro -- for so long the final word in high-end multimedia laptops -- is back. It now sports a new aluminium chassis and twin graphics cards, and promises significantly better performance than its predecessors. Prices for the entry-level machine start at £1,399, while the slightly faster model retails for £1,749.

Design

Our first impression of the MacBook Pro, apart from noticing how pretty it is, was that it seems more solid than the vast majority of laptops -- its predecessor included. That's because it uses a new 'unibody' enclosure forged from a single piece of aluminium. This pretty much eliminates the flexing you get in laptops built from multiple panels and gives the Pro an almost indestructible feel.
Despite the use of metal, the MacBook Pro is relatively thin and light. Both new 15.4-inch models tip the scales at just 2.49 kilos and measure 364mm by 249mm by 25mm. That's just 450g heavier than the 13.3-inch standard MacBook.
As ever, all the MacBook Pro's ports are positioned on the left side in a logical arrangement. Going from left to right, you'll find a Magsafe power AC connector, which allows easier and safer connection of the power source. Next to that there's a Gigabit Ethernet port, FireWire 800, two USB ports, a MiniDisplayPort connector, audio in and out, ExpressCard/34 and a side-mounted battery indicator light.
It all sounds pretty straightforward in principle, but it isn't. Our main gripe is that the Mini DisplayPort is such an unusual -- and largely unsupported -- connector. We can't think of a many monitors that directly support it, even those made by Apple. Those who wish to connect the laptop to an external display of up to 24 inches in size will need to spend an extra £20 in the Apple store on a Mini DisplayPort to DVI adaptor. Those who want to go larger will need to buy an adaptor costing £69.
While we're complaining, we should also mention that the MacBook Pro also lacks many of the features we take for granted on ordinary desktop replacement laptops. There's no memory card reader, it has fewer USB ports than a netbook, there's no dedicated numerical keypad, no hardware wireless switch to turn the Wi-Fi off in a hurry, no status LEDs and no emergency power-fail disc eject feature.
On the surface, it's really rather basic, but there are also touches you won't get on a Windows-based laptop The keyboard is backlit, which makes it easy to use in the dark; the enormous mouse trackpad has a silky, smooth feel to it and supports gesture inputs, which can make it easier to navigate. Our only gripe is that it has no buttons -- instead, the entire trackpad can be depressed and used as a selector. You'll almost certainly grow to hate it when you're dragging and dropping files and find your finger has reached the edge of the trackpad, but the cursor is still some way from where you want it to be. Lifting your finger means releasing the button and cancelling the drag and drop operating.

Features

There are three versions of the MacBook Pro on offer -- a 17-inch model that uses the old chassis and two new aluminium 'unibody' versions. The entry-level 15.4-inch version uses a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM and has a 250GB hard drive -- all for a rather pricey £1,399. The high-end 15.4-inch model gets a slightly faster 2.54GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive, although you'll have to pay a whopping £1,749 for the privilege.
The graphics adaptors in the two new MacBooks bring the most surprises. Instead of just a single card, they now come with two. The first is an Nvidia GeForce 9400M card that's integrated on the MacBook Pro's Nvidia chipset. That's paired with a more potent Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT card, which on the entry-level machine has 256MB of dedicated memory, and on the top-end model, 512MB of dedicated memory.
Visit the settings menu in the operating system and you'll see two power options: high performance or longer battery life. Selecting high performance switches the 9600M GT card on, while selecting longer battery life turns it off. Annoyingly, switching between modes requires you to log out and log back in again, which involves closing applications and saving any open files.

Like the standard MacBooks, the new Pros can be customised at the time of purchase. Using the entry-level MacBook as an example, you can add up to 4GB of RAM (£100), a 7,200RPM 320GB drive (£105), or a 128GB solid state drive (£420). Software includes Time Machine for creating backups, Mail, iChat, the Safari browser, Photo Booth, Front Row, Boot Camp (for installing Windows XP in addition to OS X), and the iLife '08 suite.

Performance

The MacBook Pro has always been a strong performer, and a long-time favourite of video editing professionals. If you fit that bracket, you'll be pleased to learn the new models are, on the whole, just as quick as those that came before it.
The 2.53GHz MacBook Pro completed our multimedia multitasking test in 402 seconds. That's around 67 seconds quicker than the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro from the previous generation, and 29 seconds quicker than the current generation MacBook we reviewed recently.
Graphics performance was solid, too. With the single GeForce 9400M card enabled, it ran Quake IV at 55.7 frames per second. With the two running in tandem, this jumped to 84.9 frames per second. Don't get too excited, though: we hardly noticed any difference in desktop graphics applications when running the two cards simultaneously.
With the two cards enabled, the MacBook Pro lasted 3 hours and 16 minutes in our video playback test, which isn't bad for a laptop of this size. With just the integrated 9400M enabled, it lasted a more impressive 4 hours and 5 minutes. That's not quite the 5 hours claimed by Apple, but it's impressive nonetheless.

Conclusion

The MacBook Pro is an excellent laptop, but we find it difficult to recommend. It's great in its own right, but it offers relatively little in comparison to the standard MacBook, except perhaps in gaming terms. If you can afford it and can live with its numerous foibles, it'll be fine, but given the price, our money's with its little brother.

Advent 6441

Once hideously expensive, Blu-ray drives have now come down in price, and, as Advent demonstrates with the 6441, you can pick one up in a laptop for under £500.
The 6441 also comes furnished with a large, 17-inch display and full Qwerty keyboard. But has Advent skimped on quality to achieve the low price?

Design

The glossy lid and its contoured lines certainly make a good first impression -- but it doesn't last long. Open the 6441 up and you're greeted with a plastic chassis that both looks and feels cheap.
The keyboard and numeric keypad have flat keys with very little spacing, which makes typing more difficult than it should be, given the amount of room Advent had to play with. The keys are also of a very poor quality, wobbling when pressed, and we're not sold on the layout -- the delete key is stuck in between the insert and page-up keys, while the function key sits where the left Ctrl key should be. Worse still, it's far too easy, when typing, to bash your thumbs against the ridge next to the space bar.
We were also left unimpressed with the trackpad buttons, which you have to depress with far too much force to activate. The fact that there's no scroll section on the trackpad is nothing less than bewildering.
On the plus side, the 17-inch screen is reasonably bright, but only if you look at it straight on. Despite the glossy coating, colours looked a little washed-out.
There's no FireWire, but you do get a multi-format card reader, 54mm ExpressCard slot and three USB ports. Two of the USB ports are sat on the left, while the third is at the rear and doubles up as an eSATA port -- useful if you want to expand on the 160GB hard drive.

Features

Despite costing under £500, Advent has managed to find room in the budget for a Blu-ray drive. As expected, it's read-only (although it can write DVDs and CDs).

The DVI output at the rear is HDCP-compatible, so you can use it to pump protected HD movies to a TV (assuming it also has an HDCP-compatible DVI port). For some reason, though, Advent opted not to include an HDMI output. There is, however, a digital S/PDIF audio output, so you can divert sound away from the rather tinny built-in speakers to your monster surround-sound system.
Powering the 6441 is an Intel Pentium dual-core T3200 processor running at 2GHz. Compared to Core 2 CPUs, it's a little lethargic and won't be up to much more than basic tasks. A total of 4GB RAM is installed but, as always, the 32-bit Vista Home Premium means you'll only get to use 3GB of this.
Graphics are taken care of by Intel's integrated GMA 4500MHD chip, which will be enough to persuade gamers to look elsewhere.

Performance

Given the relatively slow processor and graphics, it should come as no surprise that the 6441 struggled in both the PCMark05 and 3DMark06 benchmarks, returning scores of 3,926 and 796 respectively. So, while older games at low resolutions will just about be playable, you can cast aside any thoughts of playing modern 3D titles.
Although battery life isn't hugely important with a desktop replacement such as this, we were hoping for more than 48 minutes in Battery Eater's Classic test and just over two hours in the less-demanding Reader's test.

Conclusion

Advent has clearly gone all out to sell a Blu-ray laptop for as little as possible. Although it's commendable that the price tag is under £500, the keyboard and trackpad are woeful. You could always attach an external keyboard and mouse, but that rather defeats the point of a desktop replacement.
Ultimately, you're better off buying a stand-alone Blu-ray player for your TV and opting for the cheaper HP Compaq Presario CQ70-116, which has similar specs but no Blu-ray drive.