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Sandy Bridge Laptops starting to appear

Pentad

Pentad

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 26, 2003
986
99
Indiana
As we approach CES and a new quarter, many manufactures are starting to release information about their Sandy Bridge notebooks.

We are looking at new notebooks for 2011 budget and HP, Toshiba, Acer, and ASUS all have some very nice Sandy Bridge notebooks poised for the coming year.

Apple will have to introduce something more than a speed bump and a GPU upgrade to stay competitive.

Based on these other manufacturers, you can start to see what they are standardizing on: USB 3, BR support, 8 GB of memory, decent GPU. The TDP varies depending on the CPU/GPU combo which will vary battery life, however, it appears that USB 3, BR support, and 8 GB of memory all going to be the norm across different manufacturers.

Apple is going to have to move from a puny 4 GB offering to a minimum of 8GB and some how answer USB 3.0. FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 just can't compete with USB 3. I don't really care about BR but Windows Fanbois will hammer the crap out of Apple if they don't support even being able to read BR discs.

Having said that I don't care about BR (I really don't), I would not like to find myself in a position where I would need to read a BR disc for some reason. So far that hasn't happened, but I would *hate* to come across a disc I need to read (data) and having to explain that our $2500 MBPs can't read BR when a $900 HP can...

Light Peak is a fine competitor to USB 3 but it actually has to ship. USB 3 seems to be gaining ground very rapidly now. I would not like to see Apple pick Light Peak and the rest of the world go USB 3. LP is better than USB 3 but so was FireWire vs USB and we all know who won there...

Apple, I hope you are taking notes.

-P
 
Highly unlikely that Apple will support USB 3 until Intel includes it in their chipset. Since Sandy Bridge doesn't have it, don't expect to see it in an Apple laptop.

Blu-ray is a dead horse. Apple will never support it, that much is clear. I can't say I blame them. I don't know anyone who is seriously using blu-ray in their laptops, and the people who do use it have constant problems, even just playing a legitimate movie.
 
Pentad said:
I don't really care about BR but Windows Fanbois will hammer the crap out of Apple if they don't support even being able to read BR discs.
Click to expand...

This in itself should tell you the direction Apple will go/has gone. Steve scoffs at BR. It's an intermediate technology that never took off and will die soon enough.

Apple, I hope you are taking notes.
Click to expand...
Interesting to note that Apple's failure to "take notes" hasn't seemed to hinder their success. Indeed, I'd say this is the reason for *that* success.

Couple this with the fact that iApple has no intention of ever going head-to-head with the PC. The mac will always be targeted for a niche (cult) market and Apple will be always be satisfied with minuscule gains.

Really... comparing Macs to Windows PC's is laughable just based on market share. They aren't even in the same league.
 
zhenya said:
Highly unlikely that Apple will support USB 3 until Intel includes it in their chipset. Since Sandy Bridge doesn't have it, don't expect to see it in an Apple laptop.

Blu-ray is a dead horse. Apple will never support it, that much is clear. I can't say I blame them. I don't know anyone who is seriously using blu-ray in their laptops, and the people who do use it have constant problems, even just playing a legitimate movie.
Click to expand...

What you mean intel that doesn't supports it. There are so many laptops now that have USB 3.0 and Intel CPU's. USB 3.0 works with Intel CPU's.
 
mark28 said:
What you mean intel that doesn't supports it. There are so many laptops now that have USB 3.0 and Intel CPU's. USB 3.0 works with Intel CPU's.
Click to expand...
It's not certain if the future MBP processors (Sandy Bridge) will support USB 3.0 natively though.

(I think).
 
Die hard fanbois will always support Apple's direction, even if it defies logic. The rest of us just scratch our heads and ponder why a company that makes good laptops would elect to market a machine with less capabilities than budget machines by other manufacturers for half or less the price.

I certainly don't understand it, but I also don't really care about BR, or USB 3.0. It's very rare for me to use an optical disc in my computer, and almost as rare for me to use USB enough to really be affected by the speed.
 
A lot of makers are going to be holding off from putting quad core Sandy Bridge CPUs in their notebooks for practical reasons. Furthermore, Ivy Bridge, which could come out as early as 2nd Q 2011 will have more features catered to notebooks. If any company, including Apple, doesn't dive right into Sandy Bridge, don't be too disappointed as spend the R&D on SB may not be financially worth it given the forthcoming advertised superiority of IB.
 
mark28 said:
What you mean intel that doesn't supports it. There are so many laptops now that have USB 3.0 and Intel CPU's. USB 3.0 works with Intel CPU's.
Click to expand...

I didn't say Intel doesn't support it. I said it's not included in their chipset. To get USB 3.0, even with Sandy Bridge, you must use an add-on card, and that's just not Apple's way.
 
zhenya said:
I didn't say Intel doesn't support it. I said it's not included in their chipset. To get USB 3.0, even with Sandy Bridge, you must use an add-on card, and that's just not Apple's way.
Click to expand...

Exactly right.

I would say that this is probably an intentional move by Intel, and that USB 3 won't get the mass support it needs to become a standard until Intel starts incorporating it natively into their chips.

So USB 3 has an uphill battle, much like Firewire did, where Intel could muscle LightPeak (a superior technology, though one that is a little later to the party than USB 3) into being the standard.
 
NickZac said:
A lot of makers are going to be holding off from putting quad core Sandy Bridge CPUs in their notebooks for practical reasons. Furthermore, Ivy Bridge, which could come out as early as 2nd Q 2011 will have more features catered to notebooks. If any company, including Apple, doesn't dive right into Sandy Bridge, don't be too disappointed as spend the R&D on SB may not be financially worth it given the forthcoming advertised superiority of IB.
Click to expand...

SB will bring to us much more than IB.
IB is a decent speed bump + DirectX 11 native support :apple:
(which doesn't matter for me, because OpenGL is better than DirectX)
 
I was under the impression that Ivy Bridge will be bringing lower voltage quad cores and will make quad cores a standard in most cases?
 
what keeps me from getting a MBP is the puny hard drive. i can buy an $600 laptop with a 500GB hard drive
 
the point is that i don't want to spend over $2000 on a laptop just to get a 500GB hard drive. i have a lot of photos, steam games, and iphone apps and other media where i need the space.

i don't really need 7 hours of battery life. so it's either an iMac or a PC laptop

for $700 i can buy a PC laptop with twice the storage of an MBP. i know the build quality is not up to par as an MBP but i can buy a new one every year for 3 years and still come in at the same price as one MBP
 
alent1234 said:
the point is that i don't want to spend over $2000 on a laptop just to get a 500GB hard drive. i have a lot of photos, steam games, and iphone apps and other media where i need the space.

i don't really need 7 hours of battery life. so it's either an iMac or a PC laptop
Click to expand...

Again, swapping it out is trivial. Buy the Mac you want with the smallest hard disk they offer. For $50-$100 you can upgrade it to any size drive you like, and have a spare drive for backups, or sell it to make the cost even less.

Saying you wouldn't buy a Mac laptop because of the disk sizes they offer is like saying you wouldn't buy a car because you don't like the hubcaps.
 
Pentad said:
As we approach CES and a new quarter, many manufactures are starting to release information about their Sandy Bridge notebooks.

We are looking at new notebooks for 2011 budget and HP, Toshiba, Acer, and ASUS all have some very nice Sandy Bridge notebooks poised for the coming year.

Apple will have to introduce something more than a speed bump and a GPU upgrade to stay competitive.

Based on these other manufacturers, you can start to see what they are standardizing on: USB 3, BR support, 8 GB of memory, decent GPU. The TDP varies depending on the CPU/GPU combo which will vary battery life, however, it appears that USB 3, BR support, and 8 GB of memory all going to be the norm across different manufacturers.

Apple is going to have to move from a puny 4 GB offering to a minimum of 8GB and some how answer USB 3.0. FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 just can't compete with USB 3. I don't really care about BR but Windows Fanbois will hammer the crap out of Apple if they don't support even being able to read BR discs.

Having said that I don't care about BR (I really don't), I would not like to find myself in a position where I would need to read a BR disc for some reason. So far that hasn't happened, but I would *hate* to come across a disc I need to read (data) and having to explain that our $2500 MBPs can't read BR when a $900 HP can...

Light Peak is a fine competitor to USB 3 but it actually has to ship. USB 3 seems to be gaining ground very rapidly now. I would not like to see Apple pick Light Peak and the rest of the world go USB 3. LP is better than USB 3 but so was FireWire vs USB and we all know who won there...

Apple, I hope you are taking notes.

-P
Click to expand...

The sad part is no they won't.

As long as the MBP looks good it will continue to sell. Take the 13" for example, its their most popular model yet it still uses C2D and . Apple could continue selling their computers and remaining "competitive" without doing much of anything. I'm in no way saying that apple shouldn't update it big time (i'm really hoping for a good GPU bump mainly) but just saying that apple has never really needed to stay with the rest of the pack technology wise to sell a lot of computers.
 
alent1234 said:
the point is that i don't want to spend over $2000 on a laptop just to get a 500GB hard drive. i have a lot of photos, steam games, and iphone apps and other media where i need the space.

i don't really need 7 hours of battery life. so it's either an iMac or a PC laptop

for $700 i can buy a PC laptop with twice the storage of an MBP. i know the build quality is not up to par as an MBP but i can buy a new one every year for 3 years and still come in at the same price as one MBP
Click to expand...

Sounds like you want a Windows laptop... and nobody's stopping you.:p

Can't see what the big deal over HD size is. Most Windows laptops in the same or similar class as the MBP also offer similar (if not the same) HD sizes as standard.

Generally speaking, the more data one holds the less likely one is likely to use it. Hence the importance of an archiving solution.
 
wct097 said:
Die hard fanbois will always support Apple's direction, even if it defies logic. The rest of us just scratch our heads and ponder why a company that makes good laptops would elect to market a machine with less capabilities than budget machines by other manufacturers for half or less the price.

I certainly don't understand it, but I also don't really care about BR, or USB 3.0. It's very rare for me to use an optical disc in my computer, and almost as rare for me to use USB enough to really be affected by the speed.
Click to expand...
^ I could not have and would not have said it better myself.
 
alent1234 said:
the point is that i don't want to spend over $2000 on a laptop just to get a 500GB hard drive. i have a lot of photos, steam games, and iphone apps and other media where i need the space.

i don't really need 7 hours of battery life. so it's either an iMac or a PC laptop

for $700 i can buy a PC laptop with twice the storage of an MBP. i know the build quality is not up to par as an MBP but i can buy a new one every year for 3 years and still come in at the same price as one MBP
Click to expand...

Just get a pc laptop bro. Sounds like it'll suit your needs better. Asus makes some very nice gaming machines. Not as nice looking as macs but they have their charm. Brother has an asus g73 I think. Don't remember the exact name but its a big sect powerful beast and it cost him a little over a grand.

I'll still wait for the new mbp 13 to release :D. I'm into buying sexy
 
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