Here's a comparison of an upconverted dvd on a 7 inch netbook laptop sized screen, versus a blu ray on a 7 inch netbook laptop sized screen.
Source: http://forum.blu-ray.com/617171-post5.html
Apple recently claimed their next update will take the Macs to the next level.
What is your dream update that would bring the MBPs to the next level? For me, it would be Apple releasing their premium $2000 laptops with the cutting edge hardware that even $800 Windows laptops are offering.
This includes...
The Intel i5/i7 Processor
A Significantly Higher Resolution Screen (I would like to see the higher end 15" MBPs with both a Blu Ray Drive and 1920×1200 Resolution, Even if OSX has to be upgraded to render bigger text and icons at that resolution)
The ATI 5830 or 5850 GPU (Or any current gen (DirectX 11) mobile GPU with either GDDR5 Memory or a 256-bit Memory Bus. If this isn't feasible, an ATI 5830 at Minimum. All the Nvidia GPUs are two generations behind. The ATI 58XX series are the only half way decent laptop GPUs on the market.)
Updated Display Port With Audio Output Support and/or HDMI port
The improved battery tech Apple recently developed (Already used in the 17 inch MBP?)
An improved HD resolution iSight Video Camera with Bigger Better Light Sensors
An Optional Matte Screen for those who want it
An Optional multitouch possibly detachable or flip screen
A HDTV Tuner & PVR Functionality so everywhere you take your Macbook, you would also have a HDTV that picks up HD signals off the air.
Oleophobic coating on the screen or maybe even the whole laptop
A Premium Carbon Fiber Unibody Case Option (Significantly Lighter, and if used as it is in sports equipment, damn near indestructable.)
Either 120GB SSD Drives or the recent 750GB 7200 RPM Laptop HDDs
USB 3.0 & If Possible with Light Peak
But here is the upgrade that would be a dream come true and be a knock out killing blow to all other competing laptops...
Blu Ray
People don't want to buy and pay for the same movie twice. Tons of us have HDTV setups with 5.1 or 7.1 sound, blu ray players and blu ray movies to boot (Why wouldn't we, that whole setup costs less than a MBP)
And we don't want to have rebuy those exact same movies that we already own on blu ray, on iTunes in inferior quality (heavily compressed, 720p, stereo sound only and lossy audio), just to be able to watch those movies when we're out of the house or traveling/flying.
Yes Blu Ray is mainstream now esp among the type of high end consumers that buy $2000+ Apple computers. They offer fantastic backup options for video editors and othe professionals who have to store huge amounts of data. No one aside from Steve Jobs has the Gigabit Internet speeds needed to be able to stream or download in under four hours a 1080p resolution video from iTunes. There's 80 Million Players in the market already and every single year Blu Ray sales are increasing by 100% and now already stand at 10% of all video sales.
And by every indication, metered billing aka. internet caps are already implemented by several isps and is right on the horizon for the rest. The only reason that they haven't already become standard is because the average user still only uses a tiny bit of internet bandwidth. If more people start trying to download 25gb 1080p movies over the internet (legally or illegally), you can bet that ISPs will adopt metered billing and internet caps faster than you realize your internet bill is suddenly upwards of a $100.
Going back to Blu Ray, high end consumers are the lifeblood of Apple's profits. The average person buys the $1100 MBP if they want a laptop. It's the high end consumers that buy the $3000 MBP with everything maxed out. So it's those high end consumers that account for Apple's highest profit margins. And it's precisely those same consumers that are likely to have blu ray movies and want to be able to watch them on their laptops.
I'm such a consumer. I have a number of blu rays that I want to watch on the go. I'll be buying a $2000+ high end laptop this year and I won't even be considering a MBP if they don't feature the blu ray drive in the next update. I'm just waiting to see what the next update has in store but I'll likely be picking up the Sony Vaio Z if Apple fails to deliver.
Other: x3 USB2.0, x1 HDMI Out, VGA Out, 802.11 a/b/g/n, GB Ethernet, 2.1 Bluetooth, webcam, mic, SD, Expresscard, Memstick
The fact is, if Apple wants to sell high profit margins. If apple to attract the kinds of people that don't mind dropping $3000 on a laptop to get the specs maxed out. Then Apple needs to play ball and give those same high end consumers the features they desire. And yes, I guarentee that almost everyone of these high end consumers has a HDTV or two, atleast one blu ray player, and several blu ray movies that they want to be able watch on their laptop in 1080p when away from home.
Best Buy had been selling a Gateway with an i5 Processor, a high resolution screen, a dedicated graphics card and a Blu Ray Drive with a DVD Burner for $480 as the retail price starting at the third week of January!
I think the longer Apple goes without catching up to the technology offered in sub $500 laptops, the more bad press they're going to get from tech saavy consumers. Just think about it, I don't care if it is an Apple product, a $2500 product being outperformed by a sub $500 product is outragous.
Blu Ray Drives are dead cheap, they're now in the sub $50 price range for manufacturers buying in bulk. Blu Ray Movies are also dead cheap. Sony introducted a new pricing structure to lower the price of blu ray discs. Gohastings.com has been regularly selling brand new blu ray releases in mint condition for sub $12-15 prices. Netflix offers a blu ray version of all new releases these days. HDTVs are everywhere. And more and more consumers will be picking up Blu Rays as these lower prices propagate.
It's adamantly clear that the overwhelming majority of the people here WANT blu ray in their MBP, that they expect such a basic feature in a $2000+ machine, and that they don't like the lenghty periods of time and the huge chunk off of their bandwidth cap downloading a HD movie takes, and don't like being forced to repurchase blu ray movies they already own, all over again.
Rata911 summed it up well...
Now here's a premium laptop that is actually worth the premium price. Because it actually innovates, something Apple it seems has forgotten how to do..
http://translate.google.com/transla...ined-by-project-leader/&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&swap=1
Source: http://forum.blu-ray.com/617171-post5.html
Apple recently claimed their next update will take the Macs to the next level.
What is your dream update that would bring the MBPs to the next level? For me, it would be Apple releasing their premium $2000 laptops with the cutting edge hardware that even $800 Windows laptops are offering.
This includes...
The Intel i5/i7 Processor
A Significantly Higher Resolution Screen (I would like to see the higher end 15" MBPs with both a Blu Ray Drive and 1920×1200 Resolution, Even if OSX has to be upgraded to render bigger text and icons at that resolution)
The ATI 5830 or 5850 GPU (Or any current gen (DirectX 11) mobile GPU with either GDDR5 Memory or a 256-bit Memory Bus. If this isn't feasible, an ATI 5830 at Minimum. All the Nvidia GPUs are two generations behind. The ATI 58XX series are the only half way decent laptop GPUs on the market.)
Updated Display Port With Audio Output Support and/or HDMI port
The improved battery tech Apple recently developed (Already used in the 17 inch MBP?)
An improved HD resolution iSight Video Camera with Bigger Better Light Sensors
An Optional Matte Screen for those who want it
An Optional multitouch possibly detachable or flip screen
A HDTV Tuner & PVR Functionality so everywhere you take your Macbook, you would also have a HDTV that picks up HD signals off the air.
Oleophobic coating on the screen or maybe even the whole laptop
A Premium Carbon Fiber Unibody Case Option (Significantly Lighter, and if used as it is in sports equipment, damn near indestructable.)
Either 120GB SSD Drives or the recent 750GB 7200 RPM Laptop HDDs
USB 3.0 & If Possible with Light Peak
But here is the upgrade that would be a dream come true and be a knock out killing blow to all other competing laptops...
Blu Ray
People don't want to buy and pay for the same movie twice. Tons of us have HDTV setups with 5.1 or 7.1 sound, blu ray players and blu ray movies to boot (Why wouldn't we, that whole setup costs less than a MBP)
And we don't want to have rebuy those exact same movies that we already own on blu ray, on iTunes in inferior quality (heavily compressed, 720p, stereo sound only and lossy audio), just to be able to watch those movies when we're out of the house or traveling/flying.
Yes Blu Ray is mainstream now esp among the type of high end consumers that buy $2000+ Apple computers. They offer fantastic backup options for video editors and othe professionals who have to store huge amounts of data. No one aside from Steve Jobs has the Gigabit Internet speeds needed to be able to stream or download in under four hours a 1080p resolution video from iTunes. There's 80 Million Players in the market already and every single year Blu Ray sales are increasing by 100% and now already stand at 10% of all video sales.
And by every indication, metered billing aka. internet caps are already implemented by several isps and is right on the horizon for the rest. The only reason that they haven't already become standard is because the average user still only uses a tiny bit of internet bandwidth. If more people start trying to download 25gb 1080p movies over the internet (legally or illegally), you can bet that ISPs will adopt metered billing and internet caps faster than you realize your internet bill is suddenly upwards of a $100.
so after using my parents macbook pro and my hp envy i got it price matched at 1799 canadian and the pro was 2199(2.66) here are the specs of the envy
Intel Core i7-720QM 1.6
6gb ddr3 ram
500gb 7200rpm
ati 5830
15 cells of battery 6 cell plus 9 cell slice
build quality is excellent on par with the mac, mine doesnt feel cheap at all but id still give the edge to apple because its the original
screen WOW, the envy at 1080p destroys the macbook pro, at its lowest brightness its equivelent to the pro at 3-4 notches, best laptop screen ive ever used and i really hope apple goes 16:9 the form factor is so much sleeker
performance well in everything the hp feels much faster, the i7 is an amazing processor
heating- some review units have been getting hot, note that this were rev 1, mines a rev 2 and it has no cooling issues, it does get mildly hot tho but hp has done a good job on cooling
keyboard- its great no backlight but they both feel identical no flex at all.
battery. heres where the pro shines but this is due to the i7 and the gpu, on the 6 cell i get 3 hours and with 15 cells i get around 6 hours, the pro gets 7 hours, here brightness is at half and office with web browsing.
Speakers- hp destroys although not as loud as the pro the sound is so much richer and has less distortion
Im glad i went with the envy, its the best laptop ive ever had and i strongly reccomend it those willing to use windows 7. Also i find it rather odd that my laptop has better specs than the 27 inch imac
Going back to Blu Ray, high end consumers are the lifeblood of Apple's profits. The average person buys the $1100 MBP if they want a laptop. It's the high end consumers that buy the $3000 MBP with everything maxed out. So it's those high end consumers that account for Apple's highest profit margins. And it's precisely those same consumers that are likely to have blu ray movies and want to be able to watch them on their laptops.
I'm such a consumer. I have a number of blu rays that I want to watch on the go. I'll be buying a $2000+ high end laptop this year and I won't even be considering a MBP if they don't feature the blu ray drive in the next update. I'm just waiting to see what the next update has in store but I'll likely be picking up the Sony Vaio Z if Apple fails to deliver.
Sony Vaio Z
Design: Aluminium + Carbon Fiber Unibody
Weight: 3.07lbs
Screen: 13.1", 1920 x 1080 Resolution
CPU: Core i7-620M. 3.33GHz Turbo. 35W TDP. 4MB L2 Cache
RAM: 8GB DDR3
SDD: 512GB Solid State Harddrive (Configurable With Up to Four Solid State Raid 0 Drives)
Graphics: Nvidia 330M GT 1GB GDDR3 and Intel HD integrated - switchable
Battery: Sony: 6 Hours (8-10 hrs when used in the Stamina Mode)
Optical Drive: Blu-Ray Burner/DVD Burner
Other: x3 USB2.0, x1 HDMI Out, VGA Out, 802.11 a/b/g/n, GB Ethernet, 2.1 Bluetooth, webcam, mic, SD, Expresscard, Memstick
Other: x3 USB2.0, x1 HDMI Out, VGA Out, 802.11 a/b/g/n, GB Ethernet, 2.1 Bluetooth, webcam, mic, SD, Expresscard, Memstick
The fact is, if Apple wants to sell high profit margins. If apple to attract the kinds of people that don't mind dropping $3000 on a laptop to get the specs maxed out. Then Apple needs to play ball and give those same high end consumers the features they desire. And yes, I guarentee that almost everyone of these high end consumers has a HDTV or two, atleast one blu ray player, and several blu ray movies that they want to be able watch on their laptop in 1080p when away from home.
Best Buy had been selling a Gateway with an i5 Processor, a high resolution screen, a dedicated graphics card and a Blu Ray Drive with a DVD Burner for $480 as the retail price starting at the third week of January!
I think the longer Apple goes without catching up to the technology offered in sub $500 laptops, the more bad press they're going to get from tech saavy consumers. Just think about it, I don't care if it is an Apple product, a $2500 product being outperformed by a sub $500 product is outragous.
Blu Ray Drives are dead cheap, they're now in the sub $50 price range for manufacturers buying in bulk. Blu Ray Movies are also dead cheap. Sony introducted a new pricing structure to lower the price of blu ray discs. Gohastings.com has been regularly selling brand new blu ray releases in mint condition for sub $12-15 prices. Netflix offers a blu ray version of all new releases these days. HDTVs are everywhere. And more and more consumers will be picking up Blu Rays as these lower prices propagate.
It's adamantly clear that the overwhelming majority of the people here WANT blu ray in their MBP, that they expect such a basic feature in a $2000+ machine, and that they don't like the lenghty periods of time and the huge chunk off of their bandwidth cap downloading a HD movie takes, and don't like being forced to repurchase blu ray movies they already own, all over again.
Rata911 summed it up well...
Now here's a premium laptop that is actually worth the premium price. Because it actually innovates, something Apple it seems has forgotten how to do..
http://translate.google.com/transla...ined-by-project-leader/&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&swap=1
