By Michelle Thatcher
02/05/2006
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050495,39356103,00.htm

For years, the Mac vs. PC debate has been fueled mostly by subjective ranting; the platforms and the components were so different that it was impossible to compare fundamental characteristics such as performance. But now that Macs are migrating to Intel processors, analyzing Mac hardware versus PC hardware is a bit more like comparing (ahem) apples to apples. To that end, we're pitting the MacBook Pro against a number of PC competitors, stocking the laptops with Core Duo processors and a number of other high-end components and comparing them not only on performance and battery life but on characteristics such as design, features, and price. All to answer one fundamental question: If you configure a PC and a Mac with identical components, which laptop reigns supreme?

And now...let's introduce the competitors in our first bout.

In this corner, we have the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro running Mac OS 10.4 and equipped with a 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo (T2500) processor; 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM (666MHz); an ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 graphics card; and a 100GB hard drive spinning at 5,400rpm. (Note: this is a different configuration than the one we reviewed in March.) In the opposite corner, the Acer TravelMate 8200, running Windows XP Professional and equipped with a 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo (T2500) processor; 2GB of slightly slower DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz); an ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 graphics card; and a slightly larger 120GB hard drive spinning at 5,400rpm.

These two laptops are as evenly matched as any two you're going to find. Only one can win. Let's ring the bell, and let the fight begin!

Round 1: Design
Good looks aren't everything.

Proudly declaring "Designed by Apple in California" on all of its packaging, Apple has helped fetishize clean product design--and the MacBook Pro is no exception. With a sleek aluminum case and minimalist, white accents, the MacBook Pro (like the PowerBook) inspires a pica-like desire to lick it. That said, the TravelMate 8200 is no slouch in the aesthetics department; its matte-black case has silver accents that are reminiscent of automotive design, and its shiny lid features a cool, 3D lattice pattern.

But as any designer will tell you, good looks will get you only so far. In the case of laptops, a great design is one that's functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. Apple's dedication to simplicity and minimalism has resulted in some truly elegant innovations: a touch pad that lets you scroll through documents and Web pages by dragging two fingers down or across it; a backlit keyboard that adjusts to changes in ambient light levels; and the MagSafe power connector, which gracefully detaches from the laptop if you accidentally trip over the cord.

Though the TravelMate 8200 lacks these features, it does have a dedicated scroll button beneath its trackpad as well as a few elements that the MacBook Pro misses, such as quick-launch application buttons and external Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on/off switches. The TravelMate 8200 also features Acer's signature curved keyboard, which some people prefer for its ergonomic properties. Those touches are a plus, but they aren't enough to outweigh the Apple's design innovations.

The Apple completely undercuts the Acer in terms of physical dimensions, which is bad for boxers, but good for laptops. Though both models feature 15.4-inch widescreen displays, the MacBook Pro weighs a less than the TravelMate 8200 and has a more compact footprint. When you put them side by side, the TravelMate 8200 looks a bit pudgy.

The winner? The MacBook Pro, for its innovative usability features, stunning good looks, and compact profile. Does that make us shallow?

Round 2: Display
Which would you rather stare at for hours a day?

Though both contenders' screens measure 15.4 inches diagonally, the MacBook Pro's display has a 1,440 x 900 native resolution, while the Acer TravelMate 8200's native resolution is a finer 1,680 x 1,050. The sharper resolution means you'll have more screen real estate on the TravelMate 8200, but what about image quality? Using a modified version of CNET Labs' monitor testing methodology, we measured the screens' maximum brightness and analyzed the quality of text and color on each display.

Brightness
A brighter laptop display gives you greater flexibility for working in a variety of lighting conditions. We measured each laptop's maximum brightness using a Minolta LS-100 Luminance Meter on a blank document, with the screen brightness set to its maximum. The TravelMate 8200 scored a respectable 186 candelas per square meter (cd/m²), but the MacBook Pro was far brighter, measuring 269 cd/m². Advantage: Apple.

Text
We examined a text document (WordPad on the PC, TextEdit on the Mac) that included samples of various text styles and sizes, searching for letters that bled together or looked blurry. Text on the TravelMate 8200's screen was crisper and easier to read than on the MacBook Pro's, and we found that most letters on the MacBook Pro looked blurry, especially at lower font sizes. Advantage: Acer.

Color
We watched scenes 8, 15, and 16 of Kill Bill, Volume 1, analyzing the sharpness, the detail, and the color quality of DVD playback and looking for instances of ghosting or blurring. The MacBook Pro displayed amazing color saturation with sharp contrast and no bleeding or streaking. Details on fabrics and in the landscape were cleanly rendered. The TravelMate 8200, by contrast, exhibited merely average color saturation with some blurring during action scenes, and some detail was lost. Advantage: Apple.

Winner: The bright, beautiful MacBook Pro display takes this round, though its text rendering is not a knockout.

Round 3: Features
Connections are key.

If you believe the marketing hype, everything on a laptop is a feature, from the lid latch to the dock connector. But for comparison's sake, we've broken features down into three subcategories: Audio/video, storage and slots, and networking.

Audio/video Apple prides itself on its products' audiovisual capabilities (remember the "digital lifestyle hub"?). But the MacBook Pro includes the bare minimum of A/V features: A microphone and some pretty good speakers, DVI and VGA signal connections (the latter via an included adapter), one four-pin FireWire port, and only two USB 2.0 ports for connecting to external peripherals, such as a camera or a mouse. The TravelMate 8200 easily trumps the MacBook Pro with all of that plus an S-Video output, S/PDIF, and two additional USB 2.0 ports. And while both laptops include a built-in Webcam above their displays, the TravelMate 8200's camera can rotate 225 degrees, letting you snap shots in front of, above, or behind the laptop. Advantage: Acer.

Storage and slots If you have lots of MP3s or digital video, storage capacity matters, and the TravelMate 8200 provides an extra 20GB of storage space compared to our MacBook Pro test configuration. While both laptops are equipped with double-layer DVD burners and ExpressCard slots, the TravelMate 8200 accommodates some additional critical expansion features, including a more traditional Type II PC Card slot, a smart card reader, and a 5-in-1 flash media card reader that recognizes MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, and xD-PictureCard formats. Advantage: Acer.

Networking The MacBook Pro and the TravelMate 8200 both include Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), and Wi-Fi connectivity, but only the Acer TravelMate has a built-in 56Kbps modem (Apple sells an optional USB modem). Still, a 56Kbps modem isn't exactly a critical feature in 2006, so we'll let it slide. Advantage: Nil.

Winner: The TravelMate 8200 takes this round, overpowering the MacBook Pro with a profusion of ports, superfluity of slots, and competent connections.

Round 4: Performance
Who will win the multimedia drag race?

Just about any late-model laptop will do for basic tasks such as checking e-mail and surfing the Web, just like most any car will get you from point A to point B. But with dual-core processors, discrete graphics, and plenty of RAM, these souped-up hot rods are made for more than cruising blogs. We tested their speed on a variety of multimedia tasks to determine just how fine-tuned they are.

Image editing
We timed how long it took for Adobe Photoshop CS to execute our custom Action file on a collection of 15 JPEG and TIFF files, ranging in size from 1.83MB to 49.2MB. The Action file simulates a Web-image production work flow, converting color bit depths, resizing images, applying a number of Photoshop's built-in filters, and exporting the resulting images as moderately compressed JPEG files.



Clearly, the MacBook Pro running OS X suffers from the fact that Photoshop currently relies on the Rosetta translation program, resulting in performance that's more than three times slower than the TravelMate 8200's. After Apple released Boot Camp, we loaded Windows XP onto the MacBook Pro, ran the tests again, and got results that were just slightly faster than the Acer's. Still, achieving that performance requires you to shell out extra dough for a Windows XP license and the Windows version of Photoshop--not an ideal scenario. (We expect this performance discrepancy to shrink or disappear altogether once more universal binary apps--that is, Mac software built for the Intel platform--are released. Still, though Apple can boast of the hundreds of apps that do run natively on Intel-based Macs, Adobe's universal binary version of its next Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, is likely more than a year away.)

3D rendering
The Cinebench benchmark measures processor and graphics performance for rendering shaded images, taking advantage of a multithreaded, multicore processor, such as Intel's Core Duo.



The MacBook Pro running OS X crossed the finish line more than 11 seconds ahead of the TravelMate 8200.

MP3 encoding
Using iTunes, we timed how long it took to rip 19 audio tracks to 192Kbps MP3 files. To eliminate the optical drive as a potential bottleneck, we ripped WAV files already stored on the laptop's hard drive.

The TravelMate 8200 squeaked ahead of the MacBook Pro, but only by a few seconds.

Video encoding
Using our own custom project file, we timed how long it took Sorenson Squeeze to convert a 30-second DV AVI file (captured from a DV camera) to MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files.

As with Photoshop CS, the MacBook Pro has to translate Sorenson through Rosetta, significantly slowing the pace of encoding. The MacBook Pro running Windows XP performed more admirably, but still trailed behind the TravelMate 8200.

Gaming graphics performance:
Doom 3's lighting effects and shadows are generated in real time, so when the quality settings are cranked high, the game can be very demanding on the graphics subsystem. We ran our own custom demo of actual gameplay to generate an average frame rate score; a higher frame rate is better.

The TravelMate 8200 smoked the MacBook Pro, pushing nearly twice as many frames per second as its competitor. We were able to salvage some of the MacBook Pro's dignity, though, by using Boot Camp to run the benchmark on Windows XP. Though it was still no match for the Acer, the MacBook Pro running Windows turned in a more respectable 21.6 frames per second. The bottom line: Though PCs remain best for gaming, Boot Camp bridges the gap considerably.

Winner: For outrunning the MacBook Pro on every performance test but one, the Acer TravelMate 8200 takes the round.

Round 5: Battery life
Will the laptop last until you land?

Anyone who's been on a cross-country flight knows the desperation that comes after your laptop battery dies: Suddenly your activity choices consist of watching a tepid in-flight movie or flipping though the SkyMall catalog. We timed how long the MacBook Pro's and Acer TravelMate 8200's batteries lasted while playing a DVD movie with all sleep options and networking, including wireless, disabled. On the MacBook Pro, screen brightness was lowered to half and the power management was set at Better Battery Life. The TravelMate 8200's screen brightness was adjusted to 60cd/m² to 70cd/m² and, it was set to run in Windows XP's Portable/Laptop power scheme. If the movie ended before the battery died, we started it again from the beginning.



Winner: By a nose, the Acer TravelMate 8200, which held out 8 minutes longer than the MacBook Pro.

Round 6: Software
What can you do with it?

No matter what laptop you buy, you'll get a Web browser, a media player, and a few simple programs (calculator, text editor, and the like) bundled with the operating system. But most manufacturers add in a few more apps--ranging from antivirus to disc burning to productivity suites--to their software bundle so that you can get to work (or play) right away.

In addition to Windows XP Pro, the TravelMate 8200 comes with CyberLink Power DVD for watching movies and NTI CD & DVD Maker for burning discs. Aside from those, there are just a handful of helpful, though basic, Acer utilities for launching applications and managing system settings. The TravelMate 8200 lacks even a scaled-down productivity suite, such as Microsoft Works, or photo-management software.

Apple, on the other hand, includes more than your standard package of software with the MacBook Pro. The laptop comes preloaded with the excellent Mac OS 10.4, which includes the Spotlight embedded search tool as well as the useful Dashboard, a flashy interface accessed via hot key and populated by single-purpose mini applications (known as widgets). The Boot Camp utility also now comes standard, though you'll need to shell out for a copy of Windows XP to run it on your Mac (also note that Apple does not provide technical support for Boot Camp or for installing Windows XP on a Mac).

Apple throws in some great multimedia and productivity software in the form of the iLife '06 software suite, which has applications for burning discs as well as mixing music, editing movies and photos, and building Web pages. In addition, you get Front Row media center software that lets you browse videos, music tracks, DVDs, and photos from one program. Finally, there's QuickBooks accounting software and the OmniOutliner organizer app. In other words, the MacBook Pro has pretty much every piece of software you'll need right out of the box.

Winner: The MacBook Pro, which includes hundreds of dollars of equivalent PC software, easily takes the round.

Round 7: Warranty and support
Who's got your back?

It's all fun and games, until something breaks. Both Acer and Apple have you covered for parts and labor if you encounter problems within the first year--terms that adhere to the industry standard. But Apple grows stingy with the phone support, offering a paltry 90 days to call in toll-free. Acer's phone support lasts throughout the length of the warranty, but calls are answered only Monday through Friday from 7 am to 9 pm and on weekends from 8 am to 5 pm. Most other vendors, such as Dell and HP, offer 24/7 phone support during the entire warranty period.

Given the companies' sink-or-swim attitude toward phone support, a quality tech-support Web site is key to helping you solve problems solo. In this respect, Apple clearly tops Acer. The Apple support site is loaded with dozens of troubleshooting tips, exhaustive documentation, and firmware updates, while Acer's support site is difficult to navigate, and its online knowledge database has only eight articles relating to the TravelMate 8200.

Both companies offer warranty upgrades, but Acer offers a few more options. The Apple Care Protection Plan extends phone support and product coverage to three years for the steep price of S$618.45. Acer offers a range of options for upgrades which cost between S$249 and S$397.

Note that we opted to limit our evaluation to the terms of the support package and not the quality of support, which is highly subjective and can vary depending on the support issue.

Winner: Both laptops are backed by industry-standard one-year warranties, but Acer's support site is weak and Apple's phone support miserly. This round is a draw.

Round 8: Price
The contenders hit where it hurts: Your wallet.

Judging products strictly on price is a sticky proposition. Sure, the lowest price is a compelling selling point, but value (a.k.a. bang for the buck) is just as important. Due to the sheer volume of their market, PCs are nearly always less expensive than similarly configured Macs. Still, Apple computers come with a software package that would cost hundreds of dollars to purchase for a Windows system.

To help us focus, though, we return to our starting premise, which asks which laptop is better if you configure a PC and a Mac with identical components. From that perspective, the S$3,998 Acer TravelMate 8200 significantly undercuts the S$4,588 price tag on a MacBook Pro configured with the same processor, memory, and graphics card and a slightly smaller hard drive. (Apple fans can consider a S$3,688 version of the MacBook Pro, which has lesser specs--a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 512MB of memory, and an 80GB hard drive--but the same design and features profiled here.)

Winner: On price tag alone, the Acer TravelMate 8200 wins. Our test configuration cost S$590 less than the similarly configured MacBook Pro.

The winner is…
Though this is far from a knockout.

By winning four out of eight rounds (one was a draw), the Acer TravelMate 8200 manages a slim victory in this close contest.

The Acer pulled ahead with ample features and superior performance and battery life, then sealed the deal with its lower sticker price. If you're looking for the most connectivity and fastest performance for your dollar, the TravelMate 8200 is the laptop to buy.

The MacBook Pro's strengths clearly lie in aesthetics, from its lightweight, eye-pleasing design to its graphics-friendly display to its elegant operating system. And Apple's superior software package could be said to offset the price differential between the MacBook Pro and the TravelMate 8200. But in this fight at least, the MacBook Pro couldn't deliver a knockout performance.

Stay tuned for future battles, as we pit Apple laptops against more of the PC competition.