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Apple Launches MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt, Quad Core CPUs, AMD GPUs

400 bucks to upgrade from 15" to 17" screen, extra USB port, and PC card rather than SD? I'm not sure that's worth it for me. Disappointing, as I was hoping for a screen that can show 1080p. Oh well, probably better value to throw 400 bucks at a 22nm Intel SSD when they finally are available.

Still, I think it's hilarious how many people are disappointed by this update. Just because it's not Liquid Metal, and the 13" doesn't have discrete graphics??? Standard quads, a great GPU, and Light Peak (I refuse to call it by it's stupid new name) is an amazing update, and more than any sensible person would be expecting. Hell, Apple are actually using MODERN GPU TECH, and using high power draw CPUs!!! lolz.

BWAHAHAHA!!!!
 
andrewlgm said:
but with these updates I think I'll hold out another year. Or maybe will wait for the air at the end of the year, or even the white (if it's not discontinued) to see what they bring....
Click to expand...

Later in the Fall the update to the Air is likely going to make the same trade-off ( significantly faster processor for a backslide in high end graphics).

Unless, Apple jumps ships to an AMD Fusion solution the exact same issues will be present in the Air updates with the same engineering design org making them. Not sure why would think they are going to choose differently later if they don't get significantly different components to choose from. [ Not sure AMD is going to boost Zacate offerings enough to displace Intel in the line up. ]


Likewise on the MacBook. If they update it they will likely saddle it with a slower/cheaper i5 ( 2.1 ) and no thunderbolt ( along with no Firewire. ). What they did with the MBP 13" is probably a preview for that model too.
 
haha

you are so funny apple freaks - you simply buy all the s...

"I dont need high resolution... i dont like high resolution, I like the low apple resolution because the icons are bigger... bigger is better, I love big icons"

and "the sony z is too light, i like heavy products expecially heavy notebooks which i can carry every day... it is sooo cool to carry heavy macbooks"

😀
 
Mattsasa said:
that thing is:
thicker
Heavier
and much less battery life.

it also doesn't have:
multi touch trackpad
lightpeak,
HD webcam
aluminum unibody,
or MAC OS.

the 13" pro doesn't have discrete to save battery life, and costs.
Click to expand...
did you even follow the link and read any of it....
yes it doesn't have mac os (I even said that), it's not full aluminium (it's magnesium and aluminium) and doesn't have lightpeak (which technically the macbook pro doesn't have either - it has thunderbolt, the copper implementation of it) but
it's 24mm thick which is the same
it has a multi touch trackpad
it has a hd webcam
it's 1.8kg, the macbook pro is 2kg
has a battery life of 7 hours (or 14 with optional second battery)
it has usb 3.0 (so no great loss in regards to the likely expensive thunderbolt hardware) and the ati gpu

And you do realise that having switchable gpu's (ie like the larger models) wouldn't impact the maximum battery life of a laptop as it would be using the integrated one for these tests...
 
Always baffled by the whiners

As usual, Apple released an update to the MPB with the absolute latest intel has to offer and the same old naysayers come out in droves saying it is a bad update. I am always wondering what these people are expecting???? They are usually comparing the CPU to whatever the top of the line desktop machine has to offer of one of the ridiculous PC laptops that has a blazing desktop processor and an hour of battery life. I wish we had a way to sort out the folks that want a portable computer that they can move from place to place (but never far from an outlet) from those of us that use our machines all over town for many hours a day. For me, there is nothing that can replace battery life. The fact that I can drag my 17" i7 around all day on a single charge is simply amazing.
 
I'm looking at buying the high end 13' mbp and is just curious what everyonet thinks. I go to college so i use it for obvious reason (papers, presentations, surfing, etc) but i also dj (Djay program) and play one video game (SC2) and rip movies and do a little video editing. My question is what kind of hardware is most reasonable for this kind of use (RAM) (Hard Drive)? I defintely will go with a ssd but at what capacity is good enough? thanks for your guys imput im excited to take the pludge in the MAC world
 
In order to get the best performance out of Thunderbolt you would need to replace the 5400rpm drive from the MacBook Pro with one of the best SSDs in the market, which, currently, I think they are at 250MB/s. Also, you would need to buy an external SSD, also one of the best in the market.

Given this, you would have to spend more than a thousand dollars to get 250MB/s through Thunderbolt, and your SSDs would be very small in size, less than 200GB.

Is it worth it? I think its pretty useless right now. Oh, and you would need SATA III on both sides, because SATA II would be a bottleneck, and I think the MacBook Pros come with SATA II and not SATA III. Someone should try to check it out and confirm this.
 
LeviG said:
did you even follow the link and read any of it....
yes it doesn't have mac os (I even said that), it's not full aluminium (it's magnesium and aluminium) and doesn't have lightpeak (which technically the macbook pro doesn't have either - it has thunderbolt, the copper implementation of it) but
it's 24mm thick which is the same
it has a multi touch trackpad
it has a hd webcam
it's 1.8kg, the macbook pro is 2kg
has a battery life of 7 hours (or 14 with optional second battery)
it has usb 3.0 (so no great loss in regards to the likely expensive thunderbolt hardware) and the ati gpu

And you do realise that having switchable gpu's (ie like the larger models) wouldn't impact the maximum battery life of a laptop as it would be using the integrated one for these tests...
Click to expand...

that link wasnt working so I found the S series on sony's site. and followed there specs.

can you give me a new link,

and obviously it has lower battery when it switches to the discrete gpu yes I know
 
First of all, I'm not going to pretend to know everything and be a know-it-all. I read online tech stuff once or twice a day, but am not an expert about any of it. But, to everyone complaining: Why? This seems like a pretty decent update. Quad cores in the 15", and decent ones at that. We got Light Peak/Thunderbolt, and most of us before this week thought that'd be another cycle away. The GPU's are not top of the line, but relative to market standards, are much better than previous lines. Prices are just as high, which sucks for us, but it's pretty standard for apple, and when apple is posting astronomical profits, why should we expect them to lower prices just to be nice? We all know that the same hardware is less expensive for a PC. If you're buying a MBP, you just have to know you're paying a premium for the form factor (I do think they look nicer than any other laptop, subjectively) and OSX not hackentoshed. A update on the body would be nice, but seeing as how this was an update, not a overhaul, it's to be expected. Battery life is "only" 7-8 hours, which is still pretty solid given the hardware and industry standards.

The only thing i can really see people wanting that didn't happen is a resolution bump, especially on the 13". This may be enough for some people to not want it, but is it enough for people to flip out? I think not.

I'm not an apple fanboy, I may buy one when I get my tax returns, I may not. I only need this for the audio engineering that I used to do that I may get back into, which if I don't do, will move me towards the 13" Air. But I'll say for myself, I wasn't expecting a major update, so I was satisfied, even pleasently surprised, at the one we got, considering apple's recent update history.

Written from an aging generation 1 core2duo imac.
 
skmiller22 said:
Everyone keeps calling this the "early 2011" Mac Book pros and says wait for lion to be released, alluding to another mac book pro refresh this summer with lion. Does this rumor hold any water?
Click to expand...

Not really. The claim will be to look backwards to the long term buyer's guide trends. However over last couple of years, Intel and AMD have been merging to a processor update schedule that is about 12 months long ( with some minor updates ).

The other hand waving rationale is that "Dell/HP/generic PC vendor 23" updates 2 times a year Apple has to also. Yeah Apple's gotta ...... NOT. Those other vendors also have about 2-3 times as many product lines.

There is nothing wrong with once a year updates. It doesn't feed the rumor frenzy though. If it doesn't feed the latest spec craze.





Or do you think come summer it will be this same model with specs, just lion preloaded onto it?
Click to expand...

Once Apple releases the next OS they will pre-load the new OS on them.
The only way to get one with something old is to buy something that has been sitting in inventory a long time. ( usually Apple also gives free updates to folks who bought a couple weeks before too. )


Doesnt sound very Apple like to release two product refreshes in one year,
Click to expand...

3-5 years ago yes. Now no.


although they are rumoring the same thing with the Ipad saying there will be an ipad 3 come September.
Click to expand...

That one also is off-base and mainly wishful thinking. daringfirewalls rationale was basically they needed to release iPad with iPods. That's a pretty weak reason. If anything they could slide the iPad release to match that of the iPhone ( since they both have cell radio recievers in them. ). That is a shorter slide and aligns up the iOS releases also.

Apple's likely to have the same set of manufacturing problems as they had last year. even if the release iPad 2.0 in march it will not be till June/July till the kinks are worked out of world-wide distribution. Why would they turn around and kill off the iPad 2.0 2-3 months after finally getting it into full distribution? Makes zero sense.
 
evaporateddwarf said:
First of all, I'm not going to pretend to know everything and be a know-it-all. I read online tech stuff once or twice a day, but am not an expert about any of it. But, to everyone complaining: Why? This seems like a pretty decent update. Quad cores in the 15", and decent ones at that. We got Light Peak/Thunderbolt, and most of us before this week thought that'd be another cycle away. The GPU's are not top of the line, but relative to market standards, are much better than previous lines. Prices are just as high, which sucks for us, but it's pretty standard for apple, and when apple is posting astronomical profits, why should we expect them to lower prices just to be nice? A update on the body would be nice, but seeing as how this was an update, not a overhaul, it's to be expected. Battery life is "only" 7-8 hours, which is still pretty solid given the hardware and industry standards.

The only thing i can really see people wanting that didn't happen is a resolution bump, especially on the 13". This may be enough for some people to not want it, but is it enough for people to flip out? I think not.

I'm not an apple fanboy, I may buy one when I get my tax returns, I may not. But I'll say for myself, I wasn't expecting a major update, so I was satisfied, even pleasently surprised, at the one we got, considering apple's recent update history.

Written from an aging generation 1 core2duo imac.
Click to expand...

i found it reasonable too but what is apples recent update history
 
MacBallin22 said:
well in case, i only play sc2, will it be able to play that?
Click to expand...

Should be good for SC2 on low/medium (with some tweaks). 60fps almost on low.

ldellx3 said:
im happy with it..i mean the average pc gives you 3-4 and why would you need over 7 hours anyway?? i mean what will you be doing for so long that you wouldnt have a charger
Click to expand...

Agreed. I'm just sick of reading "ZOMG ZOMG ITS 7 INSTEAD OF 10 DONT BUY" when it's just because they changed the measurement metrics.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm looking at buying the high end 13' mbp and is just curious what everyonet thinks. I go to college so i use it for obvious reason (papers, presentations, surfing, etc) but i also dj (Djay program) and play one video game (SC2) and rip movies and do a little video editing. My question is what kind of hardware is most reasonable for this kind of use (RAM) (Hard Drive)? I defintely will go with a ssd but at what capacity is good enough? thanks for your guys imput im excited to take the pludge in the MAC world
 
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