Apple MacBook Pro 13in (2011) review
Of the three new models, it’s the MacBook Pro 13in that’s sure to elicit most interest from the Apple-curious mainstream. That’s partly due to its beautiful design – now with much faster components inside – but it’s just as likely to be down to its price. Starting at £999 inc VAT, it’s at least approaching affordability.
It’s a truly remarkable piece of engineering. With a 13.3in glossy screen overlooking a precision-hewn aluminium body, it’s the tightest, most impressive of the three new MacBook Pros, and the one on which the keyboard and touchpad feel perfectly sized. The keys are a joy to type on, as ever, and that large, responsive touchpad features the usual range of gestures that work perfectly even in Windows.
The ports are limited, as we’ve come to expect, but there’s just about enough here for the travelling worker. Two USB 2 ports sit on the left flank, next to FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet and an SDXC card reader, and they’re all joined by the new and as-yet-untested Thunderbolt port. You’ll be limited to hooking up your DisplayPort monitor until peripherals arrive.
We’re a little disappointed to find the screen resolution is still at 1,280 x 800, with not even a single upgrade option. That said, the quality is just glorious: with our colorimeter we measured a maximum brightness of 312cd/m2 and a contrast ratio of 650:1, with an average Delta E rating of just 3.6 – about as colour-accurate as we’ve seen from any laptop display. Blacks are deep, whites are sparkling and vibrant tones leap out from every video and image.
The screen is superb, but what’s inside impresses even more. We have on test the dearer of the two 13in specifications, available for £1,299, and it packs quite a punch. It has a dual-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M and 4GB of DDR3, which powered it to an overall score of 0.70 in our new benchmarks. To put that in perspective, this 13in laptop is only around 20% slower than the top-end quad-core MacBook Pro 17in.
The difference is most evident in the Multitasking test, where a score of 0.54 can’t compete with the bigger quad-core models; still, stick to one intensive task at a time, and this laptop really flies. Despite being restricted to the processor’s integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics, a result of 30fps in our Low quality Crysis test shows you can say hello to a bit of light gaming too.
Having run our tests, we can also forgive the non-removable battery. In Mac OS X, following a script to replicate general web browsing, it lasted a phenomenal 10hrs 12mins away from the mains. Considering the power crammed into such a small chassis that’s remarkable, even if switching to our heavy-use test reduced that to a minimum of 1hr 26mins.
That last test highlighted the one major issue with the MacBook Pro 13in’s design. Under full load the processor quickly rose to 93°C, and that’s despite the CPU’s Turbo Boost mode not kicking in at all [update: this issue only affects Windows]. As you’d imagine, the chassis also gets exceedingly hot underneath. Having investigated the issue in some detail, we're a little concerned about the laptop overheating when pushed very hard.
That’s not enough for us to advise against buying the MacBook Pro 13in – most day-to-day activities won't push it hard enough to reach such temperatures. But it does highlight just how difficult it must have been to squeeze such a powerful processor into such a sleek chassis.
It’s not quite the tiny workstation it could have been then, but use it more as an everyday laptop with a bit of raw power and we really can’t see anything else not to like about the MacBook Pro 13in. We'd lean towards the cheaper £999 model out of the two, as its Core i5 processor and 320GB hard disk are easily outweighed by the £300 saving. And that combination of battery life and performance is something very few competitors can even hope to match while keeping the design so sleek. It’s an impressive slice of engineering.
Price when reviewed: £1,083 (£1,300 inc VAT)
