Apple MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Sandy Bridge 13.3″ Review (2011 Model)

Initial Configuration and Boot Camp

To initially configure the MacBook Pro, simply press the power button and the operating system will help user configure their new unit. This is the first screen they will see when they push the power button.

First screen upon booting up the new MacBook Pro. We will use English as our primary language.

Cool intro movie before going to next configuration screen.

Welcome screen – We selected United States.

That was it for configuration I guess. They also have some handy icons for setting up back-up options, browsing files, setting up e-mail, video chatting, and configuring your workflow. Or you can press Go to get to the main OSX desktop.

Main OSX desktop with standard wallpaper

About This Mac main screen

Hardware Overview Screen

Optical drive configuration

System memory configuration

Thunderbolt bus configuration

Onboard graphics configuration

Available power after initial bootup – approximately 5 hours (After attaching the power adapter and bringing the battery to 100 percent, we noticed we actually had around 8 hours and 25 minutes of battery life at stock power settings)

We also configured our MacBook to run Windows 7 using the Boot Camp Assistant. The first step was to create a partition on the hard drive for Windows files.

After successfully creating a partition, we rebooted to our Windows 7 installation disc and selected the new partition to install Windows.

After installing Windows 7, we ran the Windows support disc we created that included all the drivers and other files we would need to dual boot the MacBook Pro into both Windows and OSX.

After we updated all our drivers and other support files, we were ready to use our MacBook Pro in both OSX and Windows environments.

Here’s a quick shot of the initial bootup screen users will see when they want to choose which OS to boot into. To get to this screen, users will need to hold down the command key after they click the power button upon initial booting the system.