Digital Trends

Apple MacBook Pro 2.33GHz

December 17th, 2006 | by Jason Tomczak

MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo Setup and Use

For experienced Mac users, there's nothing new to setting up a MacBook Pro. Everything you need to use the system is right in the box - laptop, power cord, restore DVDs, video adapter, Front Row remote and documentation.

For those who are new to Mac computers, setting up the MacBook Pro is a memorable experience - powerful in its simplicity. As soon as I got my new MBP home, I opened the box and set the MacBook Pro on a desk, plugged in the MagSafe power adapter and pressed the power button.

The 'select language' screen appeared in 1 minute 32 seconds. The flashy OS X "Welcome" screen appeared at 2 mins 13 seconds. By the time I'd successfully entered my wireless network's password, a mere 3 minutes 08 seconds had passed. My user account was then created by 4 mins 19 seconds. OS X was set up and running by the time 5 mins 54 seconds passed.

Of course, no system setup is complete without downloading and installing all the software updates. With my many previous Windows systems, this often took an hour or more. On the MacBook Pro C2D, my OS X updates were completed and fully installed in about 7 minutes. Total setup and config time - from the MBP being in it's retail box to my running a fully updated OS X system - took less than 13 minutes.

Once the system was fully updated, I opened a few pre-installed apps like iPhoto, GarageBand, Safari and iCal. I was surprised to actually notice an obvious increase in speed over the previous 1.83GHz MacBook Pro Core Duo. I then installed a few Universal Binary applications like Transmit 3, Firefox 2 and Aperture 1.5. All apps ran lightning fast, as expected.

Rosetta apps like MS Word, Photoshop and Adobe Acrobat Pro are known to be slower on the Intel-based Macs. PPC-optimized programs have often required 2-4 times as long to open and run specific functions. Photoshop CS2 has generally been the worst of the bunch. However, with the most recent 10.4.8 software update for OS X, Rosetta apps now operate much faster. Based on numerous speed tests, I saw that Photoshop ran faster on the MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo than on my G5 iMac.

Photoshop CS2 - OS X 10.4.8 on G5 iMac (1.5GB RAM)
Photoshop initialized then opened the 2.1MB image in 22.7 seconds.

Photoshop CS2 - OS X 10.4.8 on MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (2GB RAM)
Photoshop initialized and then opened the 2.1MB image in 16.9 seconds.
*Note that the MacBook Pro 1.83GHz Core Duo took 52.2 seconds to open the same file!

Thanks to 10.4.8 and the incredible nature of the Core 2 Duo processor, Rosetta is no longer the drag it used to be. Still, Adobe and Microsoft need to get off the pot and deliver some Universal Binary versions of their software.