Next MBP Ideas?

lifeguard90 said:

Back to possible ideas for updates: Ones I think will happen

Sandy Bridge processors ( whether January or not)- pretty much a given

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Yes, probably.

GPU refresh of some sort- better nvidia card, ATI card, and or option for 1G vram.- very likely, a gpu upgrade 90% time happens

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Yes.

Flash Memory or standard ssd- highly likely, based upon Steves comment on the current air being the future of "macbook"

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No, it would really drive the prices up. They'll wait a little longer till the prices go down.

Longer Battery life- highly likely

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Yes. But I don't think it will be a lot longer. Maybe an hour or so better.

Keep the optical drive- quite likely for now, people still use them often

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Yes. I think they'll be keeping those in them for a long time.

retina display- maybe

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No. They'll probably improve the screen resolution but they won't put something as good as the retina display in. It would cost too much and wouldn't really make sense.

- drop the white macbook all together

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I highly doubt it. It is the most sold model of the entire line.

My guess is that there will not be a superdrive in future MBP. Given the coming of Mac App store and media streaming, I wouldn't be surprised to see apple take the superdrive out and make room for something else.

I also see apple is experimenting with software-on-a-USB installation. From the point of view of manufacture and storing, USB stick is more space efficient and has a higher practical value (given that it can be used for something else) than a DVD. So we can probably see OS X Lion on a stick rather than in a disk when it is released. Furthermore, Apple might provide a software tool to load Lion onto any USB stick. But i am more likely to be wrong on this one.

That also implies a major update possibly before the release of Lion, and I'd put it somewhere in Feb and March. This upcoming MBP model should have no superdrive, combination of flash memory and HDD, 4GB ram, and higher than average CPU and dedicated GPU given the space for cooling/design. USB 3 is certainly not gonna be there even if Sandy Bridge is available. I also believe a major design update will be coming.

applepearpp said:

My guess is that there will not be a superdrive in future MBP. Given the coming of Mac App store and media streaming, I wouldn't be surprised to see apple take the superdrive out and make room for something else.

I also see apple is experimenting with software-on-a-USB installation. From the point of view of manufacture and storing, USB stick is more space efficient and has a higher practical value (given that it can be used for something else) than a DVD. So we can probably see OS X Lion on a stick rather than in a disk when it is released. Furthermore, Apple might provide a software tool to load Lion onto any USB stick. But i am more likely to be wrong on this one.

That also implies a major update possibly before the release of Lion, and I'd put it somewhere in Feb and March. This upcoming MBP model should have no superdrive, combination of flash memory and HDD, 4GB ram, and higher than average CPU and dedicated GPU given the space for cooling/design. USB 3 is certainly not gonna be there even if Sandy Bridge is available. I also believe a major design update will be coming.

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There will be a optical drive. There are millions of people out there that have cds and dvds that they still use. The reason why the optical drive wasn't included in the MBA is because then it would have been thicker and people could still use their cds on their primary computers.

I think it would be a huge mistake to cut out the optical drive. A lot of purchasers of the 13" Macbook Pro are students, and at least at my uni, a lot of the courseware is on DVDs.

They won't cut out the superdrive. The MBA doesnt have it because that is Apple's "netbook". It has to be thin and light, and as power efficient as possible. Physical disks use a lot more power than flash memory. Also, before ANY manufacturer should have gotten rid of an optical drive, they should have gotten some big game developers on board. It sucks to be tethered to an external optical drive just so i can have the disk in. (I realize no-cd cracks are a good option, but not every game has them available, and some games require "keys" as well as disks, like the Sims 3)

As for the design refresh, im not so sure about that one. I would LOVE to see them make an already beautiful product look even better, but that style is still relatively new. But i guess that one wouldnt surprise me if they do refresh it.

Sandy bridge and usb 3, more than likely no

SATA 6.0 gb/s that one is a maybe from my pov. It's been around and could be an easy upgrade for them.

BUT i see moving into the same memory chips as the MBA much more likely, Steve made it clear they wanted to move everything to flash, and they've got their new chips that will make it much cheaper than a standard ssd.

I just hope that the new one will have a ridiculous video card so i can play some sick games while i should be studying! ;p

applepearpp said:

USB 3 is certainly not gonna be there even if Sandy Bridge is available. I also believe a major design update will be coming.

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Did you bump your head?

By March even $600 laptops with their crap i3 processors will have USB 3.0
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