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November 4, 2008

Apple MacBook Pro 2.4GHz (Late 2008) review

Product Code: MB470B/A

Apple's MacBook Pro laptops have retained essentially the same form factor since before the Intel processor transition, using the aluminium PowerBook G4 as a template. Now five years on, Apple has updated the line with a wholly new approach to laptop construction.

As with the MacBook reviewed last month, the MacBook Pro takes the unibody idea, with the main chassis of the machine precision-carved out of a solid extrusion of aluminium.

Aside from the improvements in rigidity, heat dissipation and overall durability, it embues the new machines with a laptop build quality that's untouched anywhere else in the world. You might see this quality of engineering on a high-end professional camera - but never before on a consumer notebook computer.

And while Apple would have you believe that this is a professional notebook, we can't see many design professionals or photographers being impressed with the high-gloss screen that Apple now fits as standard on its 13in and 15in laptops. In low-light conditions, it may be easier to be impressed by the saturated colours. But take the MacBook Pro into a well-lit room, and you'll have trouble seeing beyond your own reflection or that of windows and room lights.

Apple MacBook Pro

The spec is almost identical to the MacBook 2.4GHz we tested, but aside from preserving the latter's lost FireWire port (although previous model actually had two), it adds a second nVidia graphics card for more demanding 3D visuals such as gaming.

To switch between cards, you're required to log out first, although a speedier solution is rumoured for the next OS update. Less certain is whether you'll then be able to combine the two GPUs together to further augment performance, as some Windows laptops have promised when using Intel's latest Centrino 2 chips.

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Independent customer reviews from

Apple MacBook Pro 2.4GHz (Late 2008) scored:
8.9 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 11 reviews:

19 Nov 2008 Anonymous verified purchaser

9

Good Points

Beautifully designed piece of kit

Bad Points

Still quite expensive

05 Mar 2009 Andrew Martin, Dublin

10

Good Points

Incredibly well designed; Apple's unibody laptops (this includes the newer MBPs released a couple of weeks ago) are vastly superior to their previous models. The case just feels rock solid (but in no way bulky or clunky). The screen is beautiful, everything (webcam, audio, etc) just works out of the box (without a million annoying task bar icons to make them all run), the battery lasts a respectable 4ish hours under normal use (I spend most of my time programming, which would be roughly the same as word processing or browsing the internet in terms of battery usage).

Bad Points

It does run windows, but the mouse pad isn't very optimised for it - it can be a little jumpy (it's perfect under OS X). Also, under Windows, the slower graphics chip is completely disabled, and the faster one can get extremely hot. Neither of these affect OS X, or even Windows running inside VMWare or Parallels on top of OS X, so I'd consider them minor issues. The only reason I have to boot into fully native Windows is for gaming, where I'd usually be using an external mouse and the faster graphics anyway. It's not cheap as computers go, but you do get what you pay for - high quality.

See more Apple MacBook Pro 2.4GHz (Late 2008) reviews on Reevoo.com

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