Apple's 2009 MacBook Pro: Battery Life to Die For
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 12, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Other Hardware Changes
I was excited when Apple finally introduced an easily accessible drive bay for the MacBook Pro. Apparently that was short lived because it’s no longer there on the new unibody MacBook Pros.
The old removable battery and HDD bay, both gone
While the lack of any screwless removable panels makes the new MacBook Pro even more sturdy than its already herculean predecessor, it does mean that to swap hard drives you need to remove ten screws to get the bottom cover off then another two to get the hard drive out.
The base of the new MacBook Pro...just like the old MacBook Pro
The new MacBook Pro. Remove 10 screws and you can access everything. HDD (lower left), memory (center) and battery (lower right)
The integrated battery is actually very easy to remove, provided you have the right screwdriver. After you remove the bottom cover there are just two screws between you and removing the battery. There’s a big sticker telling you not to and doing so would probably void your warranty, but you can at least get to it if you’d like to. According to Apple, you wouldn’t have to for around 5 years though.
Two of these 5 tipped star screws hold the battery in place
The hardware hasn’t changed much since the Fall 2008 MacBook Pros. Apple ditched the ExpressCard/34 slot and replaced it with a SD card slot. The SD slot is nice but I do most of my shooting with a CF based DSLR, so I still need an external reader for my CF cards.
The old MacBook Pro
The new MacBook Pro, note the SD card slot.
All of the CPUs got a speed bump. The Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz used to be in the entry level 15-inch MacBook Pro, now it’s a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo. It’s barely more than a 5% increase in clock speed, so I wouldn’t expect anything more than a couple percentage points of a performance boost in apps. A quick sanity check on performance confirmed that; the new model is in the same league of performance as the old one. If you’d like to see how it stacks up to much older hardware, check out our review of the unibody MacBook Pro from last fall.
Apple did a number on its pricing. The cheapest 15-inch MacBook Pro dropped from $1999 down to $1699, and Apple only sacrificed two things: 1) the ExpressCard slot and 2) the GeForce 9600M.
The missing ExpressCard slot was mostly to make room for the SD card slot, but the 9600M was most definitely a cost saving omission. All of Apple’s unibody MacBook Pros use NVIDIA’s GeForce 9400M chipset; the chipset also has a GeForce 9400M graphics core in it. This was a significant upgrade over the Intel integrated graphics that had previously been used across Apple’s line.
The original unibody MacBook Pro had two GPUs, the 9400M integrated in the chipset and a GeForce 9600M. The latter was a separate GPU linked off of the PCIe bus and designed to be used if/when you needed the horsepower. The 9600M had its own frame buffer (either 256MB or 512MB of memory dedicated to the GPU) and was easily 2x the speed of the integrated 9400M. You could switch between GPUs in software under OS X.
For the most part, the 9600M was useless on the MacBook Pro unless you were gaming under Vista or did any heavy 3D accelerated work under OS X. I’m guessing the majority of MacBook Pro users didn’t do either and thus Apple canned the 9600M in the $1699 MBP. The 9600M is still present in the more expensive 15” models and is standard on the 17” MBP.
| Summer 2009 MacBook Pro 15" | Fall 2008 MacBook Pro 15" | Spring 2008 Penryn MacBook Pro 15" | 2007 Merom MacBook Pro 15" | |
| Dimensions | H: 0.95" W: 14.35" D: 9.82" | H: 0.95" W: 14.35" D: 9.82" | H: 1.0" W: 14.1" D: 9.6" | H: 1.0" W: 14.1" D: 9.6" |
| Weight | 5.5 lbs | 5.5 lbs | 5.4 lbs | 5.4 lbs |
| Screen Size/Resolution | 15.4" / 1440 x 900 (LED backlit) | 15.4" / 1440 x 900 (LED backlit) | 15.4" / 1440 x 900 (LED backlit) | 15.4" / 1440 x 900 (LED backlit) |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53GHz (3MB L2) 2.66GHz (3MB L2) 2.80GHz (6MB L2) 3.06GHz (6MB L2) 45nm Penryn, 1066MHz FSB | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, 2.53GHz or 2.80GHz (45nm Penryn, 1066MHz FSB) | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz - 2.6GHz (45nm Penryn, 800MHz FSB) | Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz - 2.6GHz (65nm Merom, 800MHz FSB) |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (mGPU) + optional GeForce 9600M GT dGPU (256MB or 512MB GDDR3) | NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (mGPU) + GeForce 9600M GT dGPU (256MB or 512MB GDDR3) | NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (256MB - 512MB) | NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (128MB - 256MB) |
| Memory | 4GB DDR3 1066 (up to 8GB supported) | 2GB - 4GB DDR3 1066 | 2GB - 4GB DDR2-667 | 2GB - 4GB DDR2-667 |
| HDD | 250GB - 500GB 2.5" 5400RPM SATA 320/500GB 7200RPM SATA 128/256GB SSD | 250GB - 320GB 2.5" 5400RPM SATA | 200 - 250GB 2.5" 5400RPM SATA 200GB 7200RPM SATA | 120 - 250GB 2.5" 5400RPM SATA 200GB 7200RPM SATA |
| Optical Drive | Integrated SuperDrive | Integrated SuperDrive | Integrated SuperDrive | Integrated SuperDrive |
| Networking | 802.11a/b/g/n 10/100/1000 Ethernet | 802.11a/b/g/n 10/100/1000 Ethernet | 802.11a/b/g/n 10/100/1000 Ethernet | 802.11a/b/g/n 10/100/1000 Ethernet |
| Built in iSight | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Inputs | 2 x USB 2.0 1 x FireWire 800 1 x SD Card 1 x Audio in 1 x Integrated mic | 2 x USB 2.0 1 x FireWire 800 1 x ExpressCard/34 1 x Audio in 1 x Integrated mic | 2 x USB 2.0 1 x FireWire 400 1 x FireWire 800 1 x ExpressCard/34 1 x Audio in 1 x Integrated mic | 2 x USB 2.0 1 x FireWire 400 1 x FireWire 800 1 x ExpressCard/34 1 x Audio in 1 x Integrated mic |
| Outputs | 1 x Audio 1 x Mini DisplayPort | 1 x Audio 1 x Mini DisplayPort | 1 x Audio 1 x dual-link DVI | 1 x Audio 1 x dual-link DVI |
| Battery | 73WHr | 50WHr | 60WHr | 60WHr |
| Price | $1699 | $1999 | $1999 | $1999 |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
113 Comments
View All Comments
JimmiG - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Yeah, a few quick battery tests under Windows would be nice. From what I've read, Macbooks only have excellent battery life under OSX. Under Windows, they are like any other PC with a 50 - 90whr battery.Sadly this seems to be one aspect Microsoft won't "fix" with Windows7 - although I guess it's mostly the fault of hardware manufacturers releasing poorly optimized drivers and firmwares...
solipsism - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
• The 13” MBP has a screen that is now equivalent to the 13” MBA. The change apparently happened a month or two ago, silently. People on some Apple-based forums were reporting that their new MB had a screen like their MBA/MBP or that it was unlike their previous MB. This is one reason that the rumour of the MB going Pro was likely.• The 60W power supply is indeed for the low-end 15” MBP with 9400M. Apple’s MBP tech specs list both for their 15” mode: "60W or 85W MagSafe Power Adapter with cable management system"
aliasfox - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
I haven't confirmed this, but at WWDC it was announced that the new 15" has 60% better color gamut than the old one, and that the new 13" MBP matches the new 15" screen. A 60% increase in color gamut suggests a move to RGB LED, same as the nice top end Dell and Acer screens that Anandtech reviewed a couple of months ago. The other reason the MBP is now "Pro" could be the re-inclusion of Firewire. Yay!iwodo - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
If, and only IF, they are using RGB LED ( which i highly doubt it, honestly )Then Macbook Pro would be a Bargain to buy for its price.
I also wonder why they aren't advertising RGB LED if they are indeed using it.
The only reason i think the increase of 60% Gamut may be of Better Panel. However i also know there are no Panel Tech that could increase Gamut by 60%...
Anybody shine some light on this?
PlasmaBomb - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
A site that reviews notebooks mentions the +60% Gamut, but doesn't mention RGB LED that I can see. Although the review is still ongoing.santala - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
I recently took apart an old Macbook white battery and it was already using these thin cells and not the traditional round ones. The battery was dead and at least a year old, more likely two or three, perhaps as old as the first Intel Macbooks.So the story about "new" technology is simply not true. I would argue that Macbooks have always used these thin battery cells, they're just able to cram more of them (or bigger ones) into the things once they don't have to worry about the part about the being removable.
santala - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
And obviously the old ones were Li-Ion.PlasmaBomb - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
You are confusing a rectangular battery with rectangular cells.I presume your battery looks like this -
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/PlasmaBomb/Mid_2006.J...">http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/PlasmaBomb/Mid_2006.J...
Which is indeed a rectangular lithium ion pack. It will however contain cylindrical cells. Also lithium ion != lithium polymer.
RikkiTikkiTavi - Friday, June 12, 2009 - link
Apple simply got their facts wrong here. Lithium ion batteries can be made in cylindrical forms, but are usually flat.Scientific explanation (from yours truly, an aerospace engineer with some, limited experience on the matter):
Conventional batteries (that is everything up to and including Ni-MH cells) work by dissolving metal in a solution, and then restoring it to recharge. While lithium has excellent properties to store energy, recharging wouldn't work, for reasons I will not elaborate upon here (ask if you really want to know).
So instead of forming a lithium metal grid, in the recharged state the lithium ions are stored in a different medium, often a porous Graphite grid.
Graphite is most easily cut into slim slices, and looses a lot of its ion-storing capacity when forced into a cylindrical form.
Even if you don't use Graphite, you still have the problem, that, in order to achieve sufficient power density to supply a laptop, you have to expand the working surface of your battery by forming layers. These have to be of equal capacity, or else the power density would drop before the unit is completely discharged. No problem with flat layers, but in a cylindrical cell, you'd have to make the inner layers thicker and the outer layers thinner, to keep the capacity constant, which creates numerous problems.
Yes, cylindrical Li-ion cells exist, but no, they are not common.
ncbill - Saturday, June 13, 2009 - link
Many popular li-ion cells are cylindrical.The 18500 Li-Ion cylindrical cell is very common and widely used.
For anything from laptop batteries to the Tesla Roadster.