It is over seven months since I bought my 2010 version of the MacBook Pro 13 inch. Maybe it is time to put up the photos of what was in the box!
Unlike other computer manufacturers who throw everything into plain brown cardboard, Apple always have an elaborately designed box. Their idea of user experience extends to the packaging. The outside of the box is minimalist in the usual Apple way. You get a photo of the MacBook Pro viewed from the front with the lid closed. The text says “13 inch LED-backlit widescreen notebook”. None of Steve Jobs’ usual hyperbole here!
On the back of the box is the MacBook viewed from the same angle, but with the screen opened.
The box is reasonably thick, and when you open it the first thing you see is the MacBook. Apple prefers you to view the main product first, rather than having to fish through cables, manuals and CDs to get to it. The inside top of the box is padded to make sure your MacBook gets to you in one piece!
Here’s a closer shot of the laptop. On the black label it says “Designed by Apple in California”. You can see another box which holds the power cord to the right.
After removing the MacBook you see the power brick with the cabled tied neatly and a mysterious black package.
First here is what is in the white box to the right. It is the power cord. As I bought this in the UK it has the usual three pin UK plug socket. You can choose either to have a long cord, or to have the power brick directly connected to the plug.
Here is a photo giving you a closer look at the power brick. It is very small and shiny compared to a usual laptop power brick.
And here is the power cable connected to the power brick to make a perfect square.
This photo gives you a closer look at the black package. Out of everything in the box, this part seems the least designed.
And this is what is inside. A manual and another CD sized folder.
Inside the CD sized folder you’ll find the Mac OS X install disk, and the application install DVD, as well as the warranty information and some Apple stickers.
Here is the final MacBook opened up and switched on.
Some parts of this review would be applicable for running Windows 7 on any Mac, but other parts may be specific to the 2010 MacBook Pro 13 inch.
Installing and setting up Windows 7
I installed the 32 bit edition of Windows 7 rather than the 64 bit version on the assumption that more 3rd party software and drivers would be compatible with the 32 bit version.
Installing and setting up Windows 7 using Boot Camp is simple and takes less than an hour (most of that time is take by Windows 7 installing and setting itself up).
By default the MacBook will boot into Mac OS X. If you hold down the ‘alt’ key when you turn it on you will get boot selection screen in about 10 seconds that will allow you to choose to boot from either the Mac OS X partition or the Windows 7 partition.
On choosing Windows 7 it then takes my month old install of Windows 7 48 seconds to reach the login screen. And once I’ve submitted my user details it takes another 15 seconds for the desktop to be fully loaded (with all the taskbar icons in place and for the mouse cursor to be idle).
Using the MacBook Pro track pad for Windows 7
The MacBook has a large multi-touch track pad and Apple have allowed some of the multi-touch functionality to be used in Windows.
Moving across the trackpad with a single finger moves the mouse cursor as you’d expect.
Moving up and down with two fingers will scroll the current page up and down.
As there are no left/right buttons on the trackpad you have to click with a single finger for left-click, and click using two fingers for right-click. You can also configure the track pad to accept a single click in either the bottom left, or bottom right of the screen for the right click.
No three or four fingered gestures are supported yet.
Using the MacBook Pro keyboard for Windows 7
The keyboard is large and feels good to type with, but it is with the keyboard that you may run into problems when you start using Windows 7. Many of the standard Windows keys that you are used to aren’t on the keyboard. For example there is no Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Print Screen, Del, or Windows key.
Here are the keyboard shortcuts that allow you to get the functionality of these keys on your MacBook Pro.
Home – fn + left arrow
End – fn + right arrow
Page Up – fn + up arrow
Page Down – fn + down arrow
Print Screen – fn + shift + F11 (and for just the current window fn+shift+alt+F11)
Del – fn + backspace
Windows key – cmd
Pause/Break – fn + esc (you can therefore bring up the system properties with cmd+fn+esc – normally Win+Pause with Windows keyboard)
Hash symbol (#) – ctrl + alt + 3
Ctrl-alt-del – ctrl + alt + fn + backspace
Apple have a larger list of keyboard mappings, but many of them are for other types of Macs and don’t work on the MacBook Pro. Wikipedia has a big list of keyboard shortcuts that you can try as well – but again many of them aren’t applicable to the MacBook Pro keyboard.
USB, display port, and other hardware
Apple have been quite stingy with their USB ports. There are only two. If you want to attach more devices you’ll need to plug in a hub. Also both ports are very close together, so if you plug in a USB device with a larger than specification plug, you might not be able to plug in a second USB device. There is a FireWire 800 port as well if you have any FireWire 800 devices to plug in.
You won’t find any PC standard VGA monitor plug on the MacBook Pro. There is a Mini DisplayPort instead, so if you want to plug in a VGA monitor, or projector you’ll need to pay extra for an adaptor like this one.
The DVD drive, web cam, and SD drive all work as expected on the MacBook Pro.
System properties – Windows Experience Score, usable RAM, and battery life
The Windows Experience Index of Windows 7 (with Aero) on the 13 inch MacBook Pro is 5.3. I put more details on my MacBook Pro Windows Experience score page.
When booted the usable RAM is 2.74 GB. This is because 32 bit versions of Windows can only address about 3.3GB of RAM. The reason it shows less than 3.3GB is because part of the address space is allocated to other parts of the system (mostly to the graphics card I’m guessing). Using the 64 bit version of Windows 7 would allow more of your RAM to be used by Windows, but I can’t tell you what the 64 bit version of Windows 7 is like as I haven’t tried it.
The battery life of the MacBook Pro when running Mac OS X is about 10 hours. When running Windows 7 it is about 4 hours. Still good for a Windows laptop, but it is a shame the battery life isn’t closer to the Mac OS X battery life.
Features such as hibernate and standby both work well. When hibernating you’ll have to make sure you select to boot from Windows on the boot partition selector if Mac OS X is your default OS.
Boot Camp control panel
In the Windows 7 taskbar (or from the Control Panel) you can access the Boot Camp control panel.
It will let you change settings relating to the keyboard mappings, and how the trackpad works. You can set how you activate the right-click for example. Right clicking on the taskbar icon gives you a ‘Restart in Mac OS X’ option.
Default boot partition
After installing Windows 7 via Boot Camp the default boot partition will probably be OS X. If you want to change it to be Windows 7, boot into OS X, go to the System Preferences, then Startup Disk, and choose the Boot Camp partition
Useful MacBook Pro utilities for Windows 7
If I find useful utility programs for Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro I’ll list them here.
TrackpadMagic – if you are playing a game using a mouse and keyboard, you may find that you accidently hit the trackpad. This free utility will allow you to enable or disable the trackpad easily. You can also configure it to automatically disable the trackpad when you plug in a mouse.
Windows 7 on MacBook Pro problems
When I got the MacBook Pro a few weeks after it was released there was a problem where no sound came out of the headphone jack in Windows 7 (the headphone socket worked fine on Mac OS X. Apple have now released a patch for this problem – here is the 32 bit version, and the 64 bit version.
Freezes in Windows 7 on MacBook Pro – Updated
The most serious problems that I have encountered are complete freezes of the Windows 7 OS. I know I’m not the only person having this problem with running on Windows 7 on Mac OS as a simple Google search will show.
In my case I can be using Windows 7 for many hours, and then without warning it will completely freeze. The mouse and keyboard will both stop responding. Sometimes the system will wake up briefly after a few minutes, only to freeze again seconds later. Once it has got into this frozen state I find I need a reboot to fix it.
I’ve looked into some of the proposed solutions, but many of them aren’t applicable to the 2010 MacBook Pro 13 inch. What I’m trying at the moment is running Windows 7 with Aero turned off (using the Windows Classic interface).
Update 7th July 2010: I’ve now been running Windows 7 with the Classic UI instead of Aero for a month. Since switching to the Classic UI I have had none of the regular freezes that I’d been getting before. It looks like the freeze problems are therefore due to Aero / graphics chip related issues. Fingers crossed that either Apple or Microsoft release an update soon that allows Aero to be used without problems on the MacBook Pro. In the mean time I’m sticking with the Classic UI.
Update 30th November 2010: I switched back to Aero 4 days ago and so far no freezes. Looks like the problem is fixed, but I’ll update this post if any more freezes occur.
The good and bad
Good points of running Windows 7 on the 2010 MacBook Pro 13 inch.
Windows 7 runs smoothly and fast (when it doesn’t freeze).
Great screen for Windows applications or video.
Much more attractive than any other Windows laptop.
Bad points with Windows 7 on the 2010 MacBook Pro 13 inch.
Expensive!
The OS freezes after a few hours of intensive use when using the Aero UI (see the above update for the latest details).
Some of the standard Windows keys are missing from the keyboard. You’ll need to learn the shortcuts, or use an external keyboard to access them.
No Windows standard display display out (e.g. no VGA).
Only two USB ports.
Here is a final photo. This is how I use my MacBook Pro at home. I have an external keyboard, USB hub and wireless mouse. With these extras it doesn’t look as neat, but it is much easier to use.
After buying a 2010 13 inch MacBook Pro, I wanted a protective sleeve to go with it. I bought this one from Amazon. It is a fairly basic one, cheaper than other versions. This is what it looks like with the MacBook inside.
If you read the reviews on Amazon you’ll see that someone has commented on the plastic smell. It does certainly smell, but not so bad that I had to leave it in a garage for a whole day as the Amazon reviewer did!
Here’s what it looks like open with the MacBook inside. You can see there are little straps that go over the corners of the MacBook. You might be able to see that the sleeve is fairly loose – it is not what I’d describe as a tight fit. The gap is probably about 1cm at the top.
This is what it looks like open and empty.
My verdict is that this is a perfectly adequate sleeve for the 13 inch MacBook Pro. It isn’t perfect – the size is slightly too big. But it is a lot cheaper than many other versions which might be a more perfect fit.
I was recently asked about the Windows 7 Experience Index scores for the 2010 MacBook Pro 13 inch.
This is a aluminium unibody MacBook Pro with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, an NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics chip, and a 250GB 5200 rpm hard drive.
I took a measurement of the score shortly after installing Windows 7 on my MacBook (which I did right after buying the laptop), and a few weeks later. The scores were identical.
I have left all the default Windows 7 settings in place – for instance I have Aero turned on, and all the visual effects which were enabled by default are still on. Here is a screenshot of the scores.
And in case you have images turned off here they are written down.
Processor – 5.9
Memory – 5.5
Graphics – 5.3
Gaming graphics – 6.0
Primary hard disk – 5.8
Therefore the overall base score is 5.3. The base score is determined by the lowest of all the scores.
If you can’t translate a score of 5.3 into real life, if means that the 2010 MacBook Pro 13 inch is a very good machine for running Windows 7. It is very responsive and quick, even with all the default Aero effects turned on. For more details read my Windows 7 on a MacBook Pro 13 inch review.
If you are configuring your Apple Macintosh to dual boot with Mac OS X and Windows there is a good guide on Apple’s website. However it doesn’t cover certain issues such as how to set up a third partition that can be read and written to by both Mac and Windows. And it doesn’t give help with how much space should be used for each OS.
My advice therefore relates to Mac OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard and Windows 7, but some of it may be applicable to other versions as well.
When going through the Boot Camp install process I chose to set my Windows 7 partition to 80GB as I wanted plenty of space for installing applications.
After completing the Windows 7 install I booted back into Mac OS X. I loaded up Disk Utility (in Applications / Utilities), selected the Macintosh HD partition and then resized the Mac partition to be 60GB by dragging the lower right corner of the partition. I chose this size to give me a good 100GB shared partition with the 250GB hard drive in my MacBook.
After resizing (which took less than a minute) the hard drive looked like this. You can see there is now a Mac partition, a Windows partition, and a big empty space.
Mac OS X 10.6.3 can shrink the Mac OS partition without destroying any of the drives data. However I can’t tell you if previous versions of Mac OS X support non-destructive partition shrinking.
Once you have shrunk the Mac OS partition you’ll now need to create your shared partition. If you want to be able to read and write to it from both operating systems you’ll need to set the partition type correctly.
Click the plus ‘+’ to add a partition. Set it to be the maximum size for the gap in your hard drive, and set the format to be MS-DOS (FAT). The actual format used will be FAT 32 even though it doesn’t specifically say this.
After you have created your shared partition test it from both Windows and Mac OS by writing a file into it from each operating system, and then checking you can read it from the other.
MacBook Pro three partition summary
In summary you now have three partitions:
Macintosh HD – This can be read/written to by Mac OS X. And Windows 7 can read from it. I set it to be 60GB. It is in the Mac HFS format.
Shared – Can be read/written to by both Mac OS X and Windows 7. I set it to be 100GB. It is a Fat 32 partition.
Bootcamp – Can be read/written to by Windows 7. And Mac OS X can read from it. I set it to be 80GB. This is an NTFS partition.
You can now use the Shared partition to store any data that you want to share between the two operating systems, such as photos, videos, music and documents.
Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6.3 install size
In case you are interested in how large each operating system is after install.
Mac OS X 10.6.3 – 15GB after first boot and installing security patches.
I’ve successfully upgraded to Lion without losing my Bootcamp install. I’ve read that a lot of people have had problems as Lion tries to add a recovery partition which can shift your Bootcamp partition up by one. Here is my pre-Lion partition table
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *250.1 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 61.8 GB disk0s2
3: Microsoft Basic Data SHARED 101.4 GB disk0s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 86.5 GB disk0s4
Lion tries to install the recovery partition after the Mac OS X drive (in my case #2) which shifts the Bootcamp partition to #5. You can prevent the recovery partition from being created by first installing Lion on a removable USB hard disk, and then upgrading the Snow Leopard Mac install. I followed the ‘Installing Lion on an external storage device’ and then ‘Install OS X Lion’ steps on Apple’s http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718 page.
