Apple Bumps MacBook Pro with Processor, Graphics, Storage Upgrades

[chadley_chad]

iMacs next?

Can anyone advise if its worth waiting a while to buy a new iMac following this announcement? I'm about to purchase (ideally a top spec i7) ... should I wait (assuming any changes will happen before feb 2012)?

 

[Chocolatemilty]

Oh man, I was waiting for this update and it looks rather pleasing.

Here's my dilemma - on my computer scholarship I can get a computer up to $1,700. Should I go ahead and the refreshed MBP 15 for $1,600+ educational pricing or cop the refurb (early '11) MBP 15 for $1,389+ & have a little leftover for Logic Express/mics maybe??

 

[50548]

Would be nice if they finally updated OS X Snow Leopard and Lion to include TRIM support seeing how theyve been selling SSD drives in macbooks for a number of years now.

NO EXCUSE at this point for omitting this.

I don't know what you're talking about...Apple HAS SUPPORTED TRIM on all its factory-mounted SSDs for quite a while now.

Not to mention that TRIM is not even necessary for most modern SSDs (equipped with SandForce or other hardware-level garbage collection), of course...

 

[duffmanth]

I really don't care if Apple does away with the unibody design or not, but whatever they release next spring better ditch these bargain bin hard drives and come with 8GB of ram right out of the box. This day and age for $2000+ for a laptop I want 8GB of ram, an SSD or flash storage, and a graphics card with 1GB of memory across the entire lineup.

 

[o0samotech0o]

These spec bumps are quite nice compared to what we had before. But then you think - oh, I got my MacBook white in 2007 and it has 4GB RAM, and a 2ghz dual core (not quad granted), and you think, 4 nearly FIVE years later, it's still roughly the same spec :S


I'm expecting the redesign to be revolutionary for computing, as the iPhone was for phones. So far Apple hasn't delivered such a wow factor for their Macs for a long time, imo

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Can anyone advise if its worth waiting a while to buy a new iMac following this announcement? I'm about to purchase (ideally a top spec i7) ... should I wait (assuming any changes will happen before feb 2012)?

I reckon the iMac updates will come in 3 to 4 months, most likely along side the redesigned MacBook Pros, so if you're willing to wait that long, then do

 

[daxomni]

I got my MacBook white in 2007 and it has 4GB RAM, and a 2ghz dual core (not quad granted), and you think, 4 nearly FIVE years later, it's still roughly the same spec I'm expecting the redesign to be revolutionary for computing, as the iPhone was for phones. So far Apple hasn't delivered such a wow factor for their Macs for a long time.

Agreed. I'm more of a Mac fan than an Apple fan and lately I haven't had much to get excited about. Yes the Air is cool idea but I want more options and interfaces than a generic Apple Macbook "Pro" not fewer. I'm also none too pleased with all the external adapters you have to carry around in order to coax Apple's unique ThunderBlunder port into doing something useful.

 

[pekkapee]

I guess I'll have to wait. All I want (or why I would upgrade from my ageing 2009 MacBook Pro 13") is if they release 13" with design like Air but with quad core. That's all I want in future MBP - Air design (with Air's 13" screen), Quad core and ThunderBolt.

I'm in the same MBP 2009 boat. Still having the 1280x800 resolution on 2011 13" MBP is ridiculous. If you want to top the current 13" MBA graphics you have to get MBP 15" with 1680x1050 Hi-Res Display, pay premium and double the weight. Doh.

$1199 13" with 1440x900 display would have been such a nice upgrade for ppl like me who prefer HD space over the SSD performance.

 

[Legion93]

128GB SSD for £80? That is cheap. Even for a crap Samsung SSD. Oh well, I'm happy with my vertex 3

 

[o0samotech0o]

Agreed. I'm more of a Mac fan than an Apple fan and lately I haven't had much to get excited about. Yes the Air is cool idea but I want more options and interfaces than a generic Apple Macbook "Pro" not fewer. I'm also none too pleased with all the external adapters you have to carry around in order to coax Apple's unique ThunderBlunder port into doing something useful.

I completely agree with you too, I've been annoyed at all their almost 'propriatery' ports on all their Macs. They're too busy trying to set a standard that isn't setting! The fact you don't even get the adapters when you buy a Mac makes me angry - I'm paying a premium for this computer anyway, why do I have to buy MORE to make it work?

Apple need to step up their game a little with the Macs. People who've been using them for a while are somewhat bored and unexcited for the Mac world, but all the newcomers love them, and their selling like hotcakes - so I guess why would Apple change it? Especially now steves not around to push innovation (although to be fair we haven't seen what Tim Cook can do yet..)

 

[oiuh151]

Well they could get rid of the optical drive in the 13" MacBook Pro. I would rather have a Radeon HD 6630M over that optical drive.

At the very least the entry 15" rids itself of the abysmal HD 6490M.

Agreed, the optical drive is as good as gone in the next refresh if they do a redesign and it'll be for the better. I would've bought a 13" MBP instead of my 15" if it had a 1440x900 resolution display and a GPU around that of a 6630M.

I think the next refresh will really separate the 13" MBP from the 13" MBA. The 13" MBP will be a quad core machine when they refresh with Ivy Bridge and if they remove the optical drive there will be room for a discrete GPU. Currently there aren't that many stand out reasons (at least in my opinion) to purchase a 13" MBP over a 13" MBA at the current time.

 

[MacSince1990]

Which must have an SSD standard as a start-up disc. And, I expect, a second hard drive for mass storage, and no super drive.

It's conceivable that we might lose the superdrive. SSD as standard isn't going to happen. Look at what they're asking for it.

Yea, they probably only make 30% profit on the notebooks vs 6% like the rest of the industry.

Last time I checked their profit margins were closer to 1%. Granted, that was years ago and things may have changed a little. But 30%? That's not even laughable... it's just stupid. Given that they sell what, 20 million macs a year (altogether), with an average price of around, let's say $1700, that would be $500 per mac times 20 million, at 10 billion dollars a year. Obviously that isn't happening, or they wouldn't have "only" 83 billion in the bank. Please find a brain and use it.

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I really don't care if Apple does away with the unibody design or not, but whatever they release next spring better ditch these bargain bin hard drives and come with 8GB of ram right out of the box. This day and age for $2000+ for a laptop I want 8GB of ram, an SSD or flash storage, and a graphics card with 1GB of memory across the entire lineup.

8 GB of RAM I'll give you.

But what are you going to do with 1 GB of VRAM?

And for the love of God, quit whining about SSDs. They're too expensive. A 512 GB SSD runs you $1,000, which is more than half the price of most of those machines. Most MBP users aren't going to be happy with only 256 GB of storage (...or less). I know I wouldn't. External storage can get annoying, especially if it becomes your main method of storage and not just backup.

"SSD or Flash storage"? You realize that's... well I'm not sure if I can call it redundant, but it's a bit stupid. SSD *IS* flash. Flash is solid-state. Why don't you learn a bit about technology before you complain about it on a forum where people are going to know you're just talking out of your [hat]?

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Oh man, I was waiting for this update and it looks rather pleasing.

Here's my dilemma - on my computer scholarship I can get a computer up to $1,700. Should I go ahead and the refreshed MBP 15 for $1,600+ educational pricing or cop the refurb (early '11) MBP 15 for $1,389+ & have a little leftover for Logic Express/mics maybe??

If the graphics card matters to you (i.e more VRAM for apps like Aperature, or more power for games), you want the refreshed MBP, as it replaced the 6490 (horribly slow) with the much faster 6750 with twice the VRAM. Other than that.... I'd save the money for mics and um.. borrow Logic Express.

 

[joecool99]

late 2011 2.5GHz

just ordered one
15" 2.5GHz, hi-res. i need every-bit of power i can get. it's my only computer and i use it as a workstation with external monitor for photo/video editing.

great update, considered it's minor, glad GPU was updated too.

 

[Stiksi]

Why? Apple computers have always needed less, and there isn't any software using 8GB at once. I kind of learned this by having sold Apple computers, and through a friend of mine who constantly renders high-end graphics for work. He never uses more than 3.something at once.

Your friend must not have updated his software in a while. I use Photoshop for a living and that 32 bit limitation was hell. When CS5 came with 64 bit support, it opened a new world. Actually using liquify without first making a separate image of the spot you want to transform, closing the main image and later merging the edited bit back in? Yeah, that's nice. All because of being able to use more than 3.something gigs of ram.

 

[Maschil]

doesnt matter since ur obviously not gonna buy the new one LLOL

douchbag...

 

[orbital~debris]

The rating for processsors is in Ghz not GB and the rating for cache is in MB!
GET IT RIGHT!! !!!!!!!!!





SOMEONE ELSE AS WELL, GET IT RIGHT YOU LOT!!!!! HARD DRIVES IN GB, PROCESSORS IN GHZ, CACHE IN MB, MEMORY IN GB!!!! !!!

Hey NEXUS2345, absolutely love your edit reason! big LOL
(do you think they know pillock over the pond though?)

 

[skier777]

I'm confused... how can the 17" have been "bumped up" to 2.5 GHz i7 maximum, when my 2010 17" MBP is 2.66 GHz i7?

Yours is no doubt a dual core. These are quad core. So each processor is slower, but there are more processors...

 

[Maschil]

Honestly, no, not at all. A Early 2011 13-inch owner in particular, should NOT feel bad about this update. This was a bit of a nice one as you don't have to feel like "wish I had that update." There was virtually no change in your model, .1 doesn't mean anything.

The upgrades you did are MUCH bigger upgrades than .1 on the processor. Therefore, you will continue to have a better Mac than those who buy that i5 model today. No worries!

for some reason i thought the base 13 inch had i7.... LOL nm.... .1 ghz is clearly insignificant,,,in this case

 

[mac jones]

Good. My 15 will retain it's value longer.

 

[skier777]

I think the next refresh will really separate the 13" MBP from the 13" MBA. The 13" MBP will be a quad core machine when they refresh with Ivy Bridge and if they remove the optical drive there will be room for a discrete GPU. Currently there aren't that many stand out reasons (at least in my opinion) to purchase a 13" MBP over a 13" MBA at the current time.

Ironically removing the disc drive would make the separation between the Air and the Pro smaller...

 

[Penn Jennings]

Why? Apple computers have always needed less, and there isn't any software using 8GB at once. I kind of learned this by having sold Apple computers, and through a friend of mine who constantly renders high-end graphics for work. He never uses more than 3.something at once.

I would like to point out 3 things:

One, while I would agree that very few single application use more than 2 -3 GB, the issue is that most people don't run a single application at a time. Most people want Safari open with numerous tabs and several applications. In these cases 4 GB really is not very much. Safari and photoshop alone will use 4 GB quickly.

Two, the memory footprint of application also increases over time. It's better to have and need it than need and not have it as long as memory prices are cheap... and they are.

 

[skier777]

Can anyone advise if its worth waiting a while to buy a new iMac following this announcement? I'm about to purchase (ideally a top spec i7) ... should I wait (assuming any changes will happen before feb 2012)?

If you can you probably should. Id guess they will refresh with the mac pros when intel refreshes their processors, probably mid february?

 

[thunng8]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Hah, totally called the bump to a 6770!

I'm really pleased that they switched up to a 512 MB 6750 on me low-end.. the 256 MB 6470 was just too anemic... it's a FAR more attractive computer now for the price. especially with a 10% speed bump and, I believe, a Turbo that's 20% higher.

No, the new base 2.2ghz model is using the new i7-2675qm chip which has a turbo of 3.1ghz which is 200mhz less than the previous 2.2ghz model's 3.3ghz turbo. So new low end 15" CPU is not the same as previous high end 15" CPU

 

[thekev]

The biggest disappointment of this bump was the optical drive, namely the fact that it's still there and you have to take it apart(which isn't allowed for a lot of company owned laptops....) in order to put two disk(ssd/hd) in there.....

First off this was a mid generation drop in type bump. It simply replaces a couple parts with their replacement versions offering slightly higher specs. If you expected a design change there you know nothing about Apple (I'm not sure any other company would go that route either on a mid generation bump). That aside I'd like you to consider that you may never see this change (ever). The rumor of the optical drive going away in a future revision related to the idea that Apple would do this to make them thinner, so an ssd will probably not fit.

If you look at the Air Apple doesn't even use a sata connection there anymore. They moved to mini pci instead.

I'm confused... how can the 17" have been "bumped up" to 2.5 GHz i7 maximum, when my 2010 17" MBP is 2.66 GHz i7?

Stating the clock speed as an absolute speed reference ended long ago. It gets confusing considering they've retained the i7 moniker here for another generation. Anyway you're using a model which employed a different cpu architecture. They all went to sandy bridge this year. Also yours is a dual core right?

Yours is no doubt a dual core. These are quad core. So each processor is slower, but there are more processors...

The 2011s use a newer architecture, so per core performance should still be higher. Using clock speed as a reference to actual speed tends to only work when you're comparing two models from a similar processor group. It doesn't work reliably when comparing between two significantly different cpu generations even if you're comparing single core performance.

 

[oiuh151]

Ironically removing the disc drive would make the separation between the Air and the Pro smaller...

No, it doesn't, because you're trading it off for something the MacBook Air doesn't have.

 

[skier777]

Why? Apple computers have always needed less, and there isn't any software using 8GB at once. I kind of learned this by having sold Apple computers, and through a friend of mine who constantly renders high-end graphics for work. He never uses more than 3.something at once.

I have iCal, Autocad, chrome, itunes, Adobe Illustrator, Mail, Safari, Spotify and Calculator open and I'm using 4.6... Mind, I'm browsing the web and cad and AI don't even have files that are open. Moral of the story, you shouldn't need more than 4GB but programmers are lazy and programs use a lot of memory these days, its too bad because really I shouldn't need 4.6GB of ram to browse the web with a few other programs running in the background, but i do.

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No, it doesn't, because you're trading it off for something the MacBook Air doesn't have.

True, I can imagine that we are going to see the line being blurred between these two models in the future. With Ivy Bridge the 13MBA could become a pretty powerful computer, and the market for the 13pro without a disc drive could be cannibalized by a fast air. I guess with the removal of the optical drive you could put a 13MBP on par with a 15 inch but would people buy it?