Samsung Upgrades Series 7 Notebook with Ivy Bridge
... is a 17.3-inch laptop wrapped in a sleek and skinny aluminum shell.
... and weighing a whopping 3.81 Kg (ouch!).
BTW, if I the skimmed over the information correctly, it supports Blu-Ray (not just DVD). It also has big vents at the back, which is what I would expect from a gaming "laptop".
The latter is IMHO a big practical advantage over the MBP. The MBP hasn't done well in many of the reviews I've seen from a heat and noise standpoint. Other manufacturers, which have fewer (or no) qualms about building in clearly visible intake and exhaust vents are obviously at an advantage here. This is also borne out by reports from several users relating to how they managed to reduce the operating temperatures significantly by drilling a few well-placed holes in the casing.
Assuming that (clearly) visible vents remain an apparent taboo for Apple, there are several possible shimmers of light on the horizon in the temperature/noise stakes, should Apple elect to go that way.
Firstly, Ivy Bridge runs significantly more (power) efficiently that Sandy Bridge. This may make the new MBPs quieter than the existing models for fixed workloads (e.g., playing YouTube videos or running high resolution external monitors). However, Intel has left the TDPs for the mobile CPUs unchanged with respect to Sandy Bridge, so if the CPU/GPU are maxed out, the noise levels would not be expected to change significantly (all other things being equal that is, which they most probably won't be
).
Secondly, as has been much-discussed, they could remove the ODD. This would improve the air flow and increase the effective internal volume of the enclosure to the extent that the cooling may even be more effective even if the external dimensions are reduced (which would then be very likely).
Thirdly, they could go over to using mSATA SSD modules, such as those used on the Air. It seems that these are becoming more popular, with several new manufacturers jumping on the band wagon (e.g., Samsung, with the
PM830). However, unlike with the the Air, I would strongly argue that the MBP should then support
two such modules, to allow users to buy in to the MBP line relatively cheaply and upgrade by adding a second SSD module later. As with removal of the ODD, using mSATA SSDs would increase the effective internal volume of the enclosure and improve air flow.
Fourthly, Apple could make use of configurable TDP, which would allow air intake from
unreliable sources. For example, if some of the air intake is designed to come via the keyboard and/or from the ports on the side of the casing, then the TDP could be automatically reduced to prevent overheating if the MBP is used in clamshell mode or if the relevant ports are occupied. Maybe the end user will also be able to reduce the TDP manually. There are probably many users out there who would often elect to sacrifice (say) 5% performance by running their 15" or 17" MBP at 35W TDP instead of the usual 45W in order to significantly reduce fan noise.
In any case, it's going to be interesting in the next few weeks to see which road Apple has chosen to go down. Hopefully, they won't disappoint us again and just give us a spec bump.
