New MacBook Pros
 

I can't keep up, lol. I bought mine about a month ago. 2.16 ghz. Looks like the rumor sites were right--a week before WWDC.

heath

i'm so excited. this is the one i've been waiting for...now if they would just release the new OS, i could give them a big pile of my money...

Yeah, they are nice. The processors are not much faster, but the ability to get the 1920x1200 in a 17" notebook is awesome. The graphics card also is only slightly better. You can now get 4 Gigs of Ram which is nice, but overall this was a minor upgrade, but welcomed.

I am waiting for the new iMac's. They are going to be upgraded soon, likely WWDC, but I am hoping for a overhaul in design. I do not just want the Santa Rosa chips in them, I really am hoping to see a Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 in the 24". That would be sweet.

Leopard ships in October this year.

heath

ps-The native size of the 17" isn't 1920 x 1080 yet, which kinda stinks. That would be nice, but sacrificing text, etc., isn't worth it until maybe Apple comes out, if they ever do, with a bigger laptop.

heath

The Native size of the 17" is 1920x1200 (16x10) if you opt for it...as for the size of the screen, yes, I imagine that Apple will likely make a 19" or something to that efffect eventually.

Looks like an interim update. Finally fixing the sub-standard and splotchy screens, which is good. I suspect an entire upgrade in another 6 months or so. Check the Apple store for good deals on prev gen Macbook Pros in the coming weeks.




ash =o)

I didn't see that:

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html

It says "1680 by 1050 (native)" though it looks like you can pay for the 1920 x 1200 option. I stand corrected. :-)

heath

Yep Heath,

You pay an extra $100 for the higher rez screen but that higher rez AUTOMATICALLY makes regular text smaller and somewhat harder to read at least with the current OS.

The big OS rev scheduled for October is said to include a resolution independent desktop.

So the current high rez option is for those who need to edit High Rez stuff RIGHT NOW and are purpose buying the machine for primarily that kind of work.

FWIW

Dell and a few other companies have had notebooks at this resolution for about 5 years now at 15.4" and 17". I'm surprised it's taken Apple this long to finally catch up. Now they just need to release a couple of tablet notebooks.

From what I understand though, the font sizes get so small, that might explain why Apple waited so long.

heath

We have a few of the 15" Dell laptops at work, and I have to agree with Heath and Bill. These machines are used for regular "office stuff" like spreadsheets, word processing, etc. and the default fonts are really difficult to read.

I've been developing a pretty sophisticated database which runs the production department here at the Opera Company. It looks good on my Macs, and fine under XP on most PC's. But on those Dell laptops it's just about impossible to read 9 point text. I wouldn't want a laptop with that fine of a dot pitch myself...

Quadcore iMac would be wonderful but knowing Apple I'm hesitant. Just bought a 24" 2.16 Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 GB of RAM and its wonderful this past November. Although I have no money nor desire for another Mac, can't wait to see where the iMac is going. Its beautiful now, its amazing when you think you can't make it better, Apple somehow finds a way.

not impressed yet
 

until they put in a blue ray hdv burner I am not interested apple is just buying time this upgrade should have had more in it hdv burner, quadcore, ect....

I'm pretty sure you cna get an internal blue-ray burner for the 17" from fastmac.com of course I think that in addition to a 1920x1200 screen brings the total cost up near 5k, which, uh, is a lot.

I'd love a quadcore MacBook Pro.

heath

I'd have to disagree there. My Dell Inspiron 5150 which is about 4 years old now has a 15" screen that's 1600x1200. Much the same as a 1920x1200 15.4" widescreen. It's a very high quality screen, and to be honest the text is no more difficult to read than any book or newspaper. But having that extra resolution really makes a difference for video, audio editing or graphics releated programs.

and if u are buying the 15" model, do you really want to pay extra $420+ to get 128 meg additional VRAM? All macbook pro should come stock with 256 VRAM.

Quad-Core Laptop would be nice but finding a place to put a 2nd CPU would force them to redesign the entire MBP system. I think they'll wait a little bit. While the new MBP's are nice, its not that much faster...not enough to feel bad if you own a previous gen. one. I think I read on macrumors forums that the speed difference is like 6% and maybe 10% in extreme cases.

- Kyle

HD DVD vs. Blue Ray
 

Is Blue Ray going to out do HD DVD? I have not been keeping up.
I know with cassettes 8 tracks went out and were obsolete real quick.

If I were 2 invest in a $600 Blue Ray DVD burner to go with my MacBook Pro 17 in, would that be the same mistake as buying an 8 track player back when they came out?

By the way that would be SWEET if they had a blue ray burner in the MacBook Pro!!!!