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< Martin Fowler names RIFE's API approach: Fluent Interface   Model-driven visual RIFE plugin for Eclipse in the works >
Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no

A lot of notebook manufacturers are jumping onto the new Intel Core Duo processor. Apple's announcement of the MacBook Pro is no exception and many people seem to have rushed towards the Apple Store to buy one.

I admit it, I almost felt bad considering that I just bought a new Acer Ferrari 4005. However, I had no choice since I had to book in some expenses last year.

I did weep a moment when I stumbled into the announcement of the Acer Travelmate 8200. This is one seriously amazing machine that beats the new Apple at almost everything ... for the same price (or a lot cheaper in Europe).

People that were considering to get the new Intel Apple laptop for multi-boot with Windows should also reconsider. I turns out that it doesn't use the standard PC BIOS, but EFI instead. Only Windows Vista will support EFFI, so your current Windows XP copies are useless. As far as Linux support goes, the Airport Extreme card doesn't work which makes it pretty useless in many settings considering that you can't even dial-up if you don't get an external modem!

I'm also much more confident that OpenSolaris will run soon on it since the Acer Ferrari 4005 seems to have been widely adopted inside Sun and the Travelmate 8200 is a logical follow-up. The chassis is even almost the same.

Maybe a next revision of the MacBook Pro might tempt me, but currently it's again underpowered (this seems to be a trend in Apple notebooks) and doesn't support anything but MacOSX and only a couple of applications correctly.

   Acer Travelmate 8200    Apple MacBook Pro
(1.83GHz version)
CPU Intel Core Duo 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz
Memory 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM 1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Screen 15.4" 1680 x 1050 15.4" 1440 x 900
Video ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256MB
Video out VGA, DVI and S-video TV-out    DVI
Hard drive 120GB SATA 5400 rpm 100GB SATA 5400 rpm
CD/DVD DVD+R dual-layer, DVD-R, CD-RW DVD+R, DVD-R, CD-RW
Modem Built-in Optional USB external
Ports 4x USB2, 1x Firewire 400, FIR (fast infrared), docking station connector 2x USB2, 1x Firewire 400, FIR (fast infrared)
Networking Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g 54Mbps, Gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
Audio Integrated microphone, stereo speakers, combined optical digital input/audio line in, combined optical digital output/headphone out
Conferencing Voice and video over IP with integrated 1.3 megapixel CMOS camera, with 225-degree swivel, and Bluetooth VoIP phone    Integrated fixed iSight camera
Battery life 3.5 hours with main nine-cell + 2 hours with secondary six-cell not specified
Card slots ExpressCard/34 slot, Type II PC card, 5-in-1 card reader, Smart card ExpressCard/34 slot
Remote none Apple Remote
Size 14.3" (364.0mm) W
10.7" (271.0mm) D
1.0" (26.3mm) H		 14.1" (357.0mm) W
9.6" (243.0mm) D
0.96" (24.3mm) H
Weight 6.6 pounds (3 kg) 5.6 pounds (2.54 kg)
Price $2499 - €2230 $2499 - €2729
posted by Geert Bevin in Computing on Jan 12, 2006 9:49 AM : 14 comments [permalink]
 

Comments
I recommend a Medion(TM) laptop
It's funny you're considering the MacBook Pro for running Linux, OpenSolaris and Windows. I agree there's probably better hardware than a Mac for doing this.

The reason I'm going to buy the MacBook Pro is quite the contrary: I want to run Mac OS X, because it's "the world's most advanced operating system" and it happens to be where I feel at home.
posted by Anonymous on Jan 12, 2006 10:09 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
Well, since I do cross-platform development, being able to run as much operating systems on my Laptop as possible is very attractive. I have a PowerBook G4 1GHz and a PowerMac dual G5 2.5GHz which have been my main computers for quite a while. Being the MacBook Pro seems silly to me since only very little applications are running natively on Intel and Rosetta has its limitations. Even Jobs admits that using Photoshop on it is ok for casual use, but not for professionals.

Beside all that, I'm a bit frustrated about the Java support on Mac lately. Performance has been really bad compared to Windows, Linux and OpenSolaris. Time will tell if Java 1.5 for MacOSX x86 will be faster, I sure hope so, otherwise there really isn't a reason for me to buy a Mac anymore.
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 12, 2006 10:15 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
Weight: 6.6 lbs......HONK! Guaranteed, the Apple sports a brighter screen than the Acer. While Acer brags about a higher resolution, you have to remember that Apple's native resolution was picked for easy visibility. Enjoy reading with a magnifying glass... The difference in CPU speed isn't going to be noticeable from the 1.83GHz.

The S-Video is nice...I'm marginally upset that Apple left it out. The dual-layer DVD is no biggie....most people don't need that functionality. Reports from Macworld indicate that the demo Macbook (running at 100% power and not yet optimized for battery life) read "4 hours battery remaining" onscreen.

But the most important difference here you neglected to mention: the Mac OS. I am a Windows GURU and a forensic accounting & technology consultant with a major accounting firm. Mac is the superior OS. Mac has the superior aesthetics. It's an easy choice.
posted by David on Jan 12, 2006 5:55 PM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
it's the operating system, stupid!
posted by pfig on Jan 13, 2006 12:10 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
I ordered a MacBook Pro already however, this article made me question my purchase. The EFI problem plus Acer's better specs made me think twice. However, I then remembered that Acer has a long history of making cheap and flimsy consumer hardware that feels like a toy, not a tool. Apple is the opposite. They make machines with excellent construction quality. Finally, don't forget that OS X is solid BSD Unix, and Windows is a tangled mess. I'm keeping my MacBook Pro.
posted by Anonymous on Jan 13, 2006 12:25 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
Yeah, Acer, like Toshiba, makes junk hardware, it doesn't matter what the specs are if it breaks, and Acers do, frequently.
posted by Anonymous on Jan 13, 2006 12:29 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
How come the prices in dollars are the same but in Euros, they are different?
posted by Paul Brown on Jan 13, 2006 5:19 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
Paul, you tell me, we Europeans always have to pay a hefty tax on Apple products. That never felt good to me.
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 13, 2006 7:12 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
Mr.Anonymous, my powerbook has already been under repair twice and I hardly carry it around. It spends most of its time on my desk. Broken screen, superdrive, firewire port and airport. Now the applecare is over and everything is starting to break down again. This is as bad as with a Dell laptop I had before. I just bought and Acer Ferrari 4005 and the build quality seems excellent, as is how everything is integrated.
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 13, 2006 7:18 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
There are lemons with any manufacturer. I have a Titanium 667 and I've *used* that puppy every day for almost 3 1/2 years. My first of two problems occurred at 2 1/2 years when the left hinge broke. The right one broke 6 months later. Looking at the material, yes, I see why. Looking at the new Macs, I see that they use a different hinge now. They learned and I learned. But, of all the things that could go wrong, the only thing that I would expect to do go wrong did...because I surf from the kitchen table, couch, bed, etc. Being a parent requires mobility :-) So, I used the hell out of the openning and closing aspect. Incidentally, the right hinge break severed the video cable, so I have a LCD mirrored out of it with USB keyboard/mouse. I'm not too upset, since I will bump it upstairs to replace the aged PowerMac 5400 for the kids to use in the same state.

Understanding that laptops take more of a beating, when I order my Macbook Pro, I will get the 3-year warranty. I don't like spending 15% more for that, but I understand it is a higher risk piece of hardware.

As some of the recent posts comment, it really is the operating system. I've been working with computers since 1980 and have used nearly every operating system under the sun (yes, that one too :-). I simply love the unix mesh with GUI overlay. It gives me my unix tools that I desire (I've developed many security tools that way) while satisfying my convenience needs (I don't really need to remember how to do a search/sort from within mutt every 4 days or so, although I really loved the color scheme that I had :-)

It is complex when I need it to be and oh so easy to use the rest of the time. Moving to a BSD kernel was the best thing Apple has done. Forcing Steve Jobs out was the worst -- they delayed their advancements. Of course, it didn't seem to matter since M$ is still clinging to that heinous thing they call the registry. The symptoms of their problems if you ask me. The only reason they're still using it is because they're the monopoly.

Now, I'm just about ready to make some kick-*ss DVDs...
posted by Anonymous on Jan 16, 2006 7:00 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
geert: isn't the ferrari an AMD64 laptop? How will the new acer compare against the amd chip for day-to-day development work? I'm a Java developer and I never use my laptop for gaming, in fact the only non-development work I do is use firefox/thunderbird/winamp.

How do you find the 4005 for development?
posted by analogueboy on Jan 16, 2006 3:22 PM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
Hi analogueboy, the Ferrari 4005 is indeed an AMD64 laptop. It's a real pleasure to use and kicks ass for Java development. It's actually running our RIFE testsuite 40% faster than my PowerMac Dual G5 2.5 Ghz! However, if I would buy a laptop now (I had to buy one last year for tax write-of reasons), I'd wait and buy the Acer TravelMate 8200.
posted by Geert Bevin on Jan 16, 2006 3:31 PM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
I looked at both and would have bought the MacBook if Java on OS X experience (Eclipse in particular) was not as irritating and VMware was available. So I was going to order the 8204 but several people reported screen quality problems (too dim, blurry, headaches, etc.). I think Acer has quality control problem with 8204 LCD.

I am going to wait for that problem is resolved before making the purchase. Maybe the price will drop by then also ;)
posted by Don Park on Feb 21, 2006 12:47 AM
Re: Acer trumps Apple : MacBook Pro is a no-no
look at all the macfags attack your article
posted by Anonymous on Aug 7, 2007 4:36 PM

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