MacBook Pro 15” Unboxing 2011

Last month I had the privilege to update my tool. The need to develop and test software across multiple operating systems and having to compile hundreds of times per day demands a very fast computer to be productive. So, I got my new MacBook Pro 15”.

I felt so comfortable with my first MacBook Pro that I decided to wait for the next generation of MacBook Pro’s of this year. After the launch, before making the online order I waited a week to see if the media published an article about problems with the equipment. No news are good news.

Two days later this monster machine was knocking at my door, the fastest I’ve ever used.

Tech Specs:

Model: MacBookPro8,2

Intel Core i7 (4 Cores) @ 2.3 GHz
256KB L2 Cache (per Core)
8MB L3 Cache

Memory: 8 GB (2 DIMM DDR3 4GB @ 1333 MHz)

Hard drive: 500.28 GB APPLE SSD TS512C, 6 Gigabit maximum link speed

Thunderbolt interface (aka LightPeak) 10 Gbit/s. This port provides 10 watts of power to devices connected to it. It is based on PCI Express and DisplayPort present in previous MacBooks generation. Bottomline, it is 21.3 times faster than USB (480 Mbit/s), but I haven’t connect yet the first device using this interface, by the moment I’m happy with the USB port and my Digital Passport (killer portable hardrive) . Right now,I’m using  this port to connect an external monitor.

15” screen (not that I do not like a big screen, but a laptop should be comfortable to carry in a bag, 15″ is my perfect form factor for portability and usability) with graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1GB VRAM.

Here’s a video comparing the speed of this generation of MacBook Pros respect to the previous version (not SSD).