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

[Kristenn]

Okay, I’m going for another none whining post about the MBP update.

In February 2009, I got the late 08 MBP.

Specs & Price:

OS: Mac OS X 10.5.6

4GB DDR3 RAM

250GB 7200-rpm

Nvidia Geforce 9400M 256MB vRAM

Nvidia Geforce 9800M GT 512MB vRAM

2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

15-inch 1400x900 display

5 hour battery life

Apple Remote

iWork ’09

Price – 2,517.00 (Free Shipping)

The new MBP?

I could get the high end 15 inch again for this price and specs below.

OS: Mac OS X 10.6.6

4GB DDR3

500GB 7200-rpm

Intel HD Graphics 3000

AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1GB vRAM

2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 (Quad Core)

15-inch High Resulution Display 1680x1050

7 hour battery life

Apple Remote

Office for Macintosh 2011 Home and Student

Price - $237.95 (Free Shipping)


I remember posting something similar about last years update. My point? This one smokes my MBP for almost $300 less and the battery life is still more. Sure, last years had the 9 hour but it DID NOT have Quad Core!

And to prove my point even more. I threw in Office as the productivity Suite for $119 instead of iWork ’09 for $49. Which makes this MBP even cheaper than mine for double the speed.

I am surprised people are giving Apple such a hard time! Remember how long it took them in the past to adopt the latest Intel Processors right away? Did anyone care to notice that the AMD graphics card is THIS GENERATION? It was released January 4th 2011. That’s right, 2011!

As for it being expensive, what else is new? It’s a Macintosh!

My point? A great update! And still cheaper than my top of the line 15 inch was two years ago.


/post



EDIT: Not to mention, the new MBP has thunderbolt/LP

Technology costs money, people!

 

[DrAmy]

trying to figure out how to configure

I was disappointed to see the "OS on a separate SSD to boot faster" rumor didn't turn out to be true, and am not sure now whether I should be spending more to get a smaller SSD instead of the hard drive?

I'm not a techie but do need some reasonably serious computing power. I'm an academic so I need to be able to run stats programs and switch from them between multiple Office products-- e.g. take output to make a graph in Excel and then put that in a Powerpoint presentation-- and run Parallels to use some obscure stats programs that don't have mac versions. I don't carry a laptop every day but it does come with me for conferences, so if there's a weight-power tradeoff I'm ok with something a little heavier (I have no idea if this is even a factor with the SSD vs hard drive decision? As noted... not a techie!)

I would appreciate suggestions on how to configure a 15"-- in particular, whether I should be considering an SSD upgrade??

 

[cmaier]

A little sad with the downgrade in battery life, 7 hours? It's on par with pc laptops now...

Supposedly that's just a change in how they report the battery life, and in actual usage the battery life didn't go down. I don't have one in hand so I can't verify.

512GB SSD is definitely good, provided you can afford it. However, at this moment in time, the 512GB SSDs generally cost way too much that it is not really a best bang for the buck option IMHO.

Yep. But I'll be getting one. If you need speed and capacity, that's the way to go (I also need the optical drive, so I can't swap it out).

 

[APMacLover]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Are the laptops available in stores now?

 

[clibinarius]

Hmm

My complaint is we know its fast. Seriously, we do. But with Apple's large cash reserves combined with great purchasing power, we think this could have come down in price-significantly.

For instance, I just bought a maxed out Macbook Air. I do not believe that the chip in the i7 is THAT much more expensive to justify that a 15 incher with the same monitor resolution, a faster processor and graphics card to be sure, should cost that much more. It seems that given the price of components, this is ridiculously high. And that we can get similarly specked machines for $1000 less. That's the complaint. And the fact Apple's sitting on so much cash and we like OS X so much only makes it more frustrating.

People tend to forget that technology hasn't maxed out in terms of production and is therefore a deflationary force. The fact that Apple is charging the same prices that they'd charge ten years ago if the technology was around is why there's so much negativity.

I mean, I complain about Nehalem, but you have to at some point ask yourself the question-how fast can you snap your fingers? For games the C2D is good enough still. So I don't see how you can get away with charging $1800 for this. Sorry. Some people will pay it, but I honestly think that unless the iMac is considerably cheaper, this should end Apple's Mac growth as-aside from just liking apple-I can't see why anyone would buy a Macbook Pro at that price in this economy.

 

[Kristenn]

Supposedly that's just a change in how they report the battery life, and in actual usage the battery life didn't go down. I don't have one in hand so I can't verify.



Yep. But I'll be getting one. If you need speed and capacity, that's the way to go (I also need the optical drive, so I can't swap it out).

It makes you wonder how many Quad Core laptops get 7 hour battery life though. Still more than my dual core gets, which is 5 hours. Granted its a 08 and not an 09 or 010

 

[ldellx3]

questions regarding the "low" end macbook pro? I am planning on buying this because i do not want to spend more money for a little bit faster. is there a big difference between these 2 models?

edit: im talking about the 15 inch

 

[MattInOz]

wait so just wondering is applecare worth it

It's a gamble like any insurance....
on average I'd say yes for a laptop for sure. They are rarely used the ideal way so tend to see a few more issues.
For iMac's and Desktops well it's much cheaper but there is much lower risk so it's more 50/50. If we didn't get a discount on it as a sweeter to keep us buying from the same shop then we might give it a miss.

 

[edifyingGerbil]

Well, I'm convinced! Tomorrow I'm going to go to the Apple Store and return my 2.4ghz MBP and get the vastly updated one released yesterday (GMT).

It'll only cost an extra £10 or so, what with my education discount and all.

I'm a new Mac user too, I know everyone is complaining about the price but I have to say they're an absolute joy to use. I feel as though I've wasted my life on PCs...

However, I do think they're overpriced a tad, even taking the price of aluminium into account. For those who have trouble affording one, just buy one via a student and you'll get 15% (at least in the UK) off plus ~£200 off Apple Care and a rebate on a new printer.

That makes it more worth it, I think.

 

[DrJohnnyN]

I would appreciate suggestions on how to configure a 15"-- in particular, whether I should be considering an SSD upgrade??

I'm not a techie either. I believe a base model 15" with upgraded memory will suffice for your needs.

 

[Erasmus]

Help! I just nerdgasmed all over my MBP, and now it won't turn on!

What should I do???



OK, no I didn't. If they came with blade SSDs as well as the 750GB HDD, I would have. But it was a close thing despite.

P.S. Sorry for the crudeness, but I have a dirty mind, and couldn't help myself.

 

[mastreck]

For those of you thinking this is not much of an upgrade. . . They are faster than last years iMacs and Mac Pro's

New MacBook Pros get GeekBenched. Outrunning last year’s Mac Pros

Some lucky people out there in Internetland are Geekbenching their new MacBook Pros Quad i7s with average Geekbench scores coming up right around 10,000



The 2.0 GHz Quads coming in a little lower obviously at around 8000 while the new dual core i7s hit about 6000. Interestingly, that’s a lot higher than last year’s top end models which were closer ro 5000 (below)! In fact, have a look at where these new laptops fit in Apple’s lineup:

 

[edifyingGerbil]

Help! I just nerdgasmed all over my MBP, and now it won't turn on!

What should I do???



OK, no I didn't. If they came with blade SSDs as well as the 750GB HDD, I would have. But it was a close thing despite.

P.S. Sorry for the crudeness, but I have a dirty mind, and couldn't help myself.

Hmm... You could always run away to Holland and become a priest?

Oh wait, that's been done already

 

[Erasmus]

Some lucky people out there in Internetland are Geekbenching their new MacBook Pros Quad i7s with average Geekbench scores coming up right around 10,000

My old 2.2GHz SR MBP doesn't even hit 3100.

I need it now.

 

[DrJohnnyN]

For those of you thinking this is not much of an upgrade. . . They are faster than last years iMacs and Mac Pro's

Who would have thought? Newer/better technology = faster Mac.

 

[ColeHarris]

Okay, I’m going for another none whining post about the MBP update.

In February 2009, I got the late 08 MBP.

Specs & Price:

OS: Mac OS X 10.5.6

4GB DDR3 RAM

250GB 7200-rpm

Nvidia Geforce 9400M 256MB vRAM

Nvidia Geforce 9800M GT 512MB vRAM

2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

15-inch 1400x900 display

5 hour battery life

Apple Remote

iWork ’09

Price – 2,517.00 (Free Shipping)

The new MBP?

I could get the high end 15 inch again for this price and specs below.

OS: Mac OS X 10.6.6

4GB DDR3

500GB 7200-rpm

Intel HD Graphics 3000

AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1GB vRAM

2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 (Quad Core)

15-inch High Resulution Display 1680x1050

7 hour battery life

Apple Remote

Office for Macintosh 2011 Home and Student

Price - $237.95 (Free Shipping)


I remember posting something similar about last years update. My point? This one smokes my MBP for almost $300 less and the battery life is still more. Sure, last years had the 9 hour but it DID NOT have Quad Core!

And to prove my point even more. I threw in Office as the productivity Suite for $119 instead of iWork ’09 for $49. Which makes this MBP even cheaper than mine for double the speed.

I am surprised people are giving Apple such a hard time! Remember how long it took them in the past to adopt the latest Intel Processors right away? Did anyone care to notice that the AMD graphics card is THIS GENERATION? It was released January 4th 2011. That’s right, 2011!

As for it being expensive, what else is new? It’s a Macintosh!

My point? A great update! And still cheaper than my top of the line 15 inch was two years ago.


/post



EDIT: Not to mention, the new MBP has thunderbolt/LP

Technology costs money, people!

Yeah I agree I got a 27in iMac in August and I just looked at the benchmarks of the new Macbook Pros and its pretty depressing that they out perform my iMac and they cost almost the same.

 

[Mattsasa]

questions regarding the "low" end macbook pro? I am planning on buying this because i do not want to spend more money for a little bit faster. is there a big difference between these 2 models?

edit: im talking about the 15 inch

well the higher end has much better graphics, so if you plan to play video games go with the higher one. otherwise I would see the weaker one is plenty good

 

[Buck987]

questions regarding the "low" end macbook pro? I am planning on buying this because i do not want to spend more money for a little bit faster. is there a big difference between these 2 models?

edit: im talking about the 15 inch

yes

what is geekbenching..

you got it...right?

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Are the laptops available in stores now?

yes...in most apple stores but you might want to call first

 

[Erasmus]

questions regarding the "low" end macbook pro? I am planning on buying this because i do not want to spend more money for a little bit faster. is there a big difference between these 2 models?

edit: im talking about the 15 inch

No.

Unless you play games, in which case very yes.

 

[Buck987]

I just got a new MBP 13" about 2 months ago due to a theft of my prior MB. It's the starter 13" with duo core, 4GB and 250GB HD. Is it worth selling the new one to get this latest edition? I'm excited about the new processors and larger hard drive for the same cost I paid. Not sure the Thunderbolt will benefit me though. Any thoughts?

depends on what you use it for...basic stuff?

then no it is not worth it.

 

[ldellx3]

well the higher end has much better graphics, so if you plan to play video games go with the higher one. otherwise I would see the weaker one is plenty good

how much better with graphics though? the only video game i really play is sims 3. mostly i need it for college so word processing power points internet facebook average things but then i will also need photoshop because i am going to be a graphic design major as well as illustrator exc.

 

[intelgrande]

I bought the high end 15" with anti-glare. Let me just say: it's awesome. I'm going to put an SSD in when some of the newer SandForce drives come out, but even at 5400rpm this thing is "blazing fast."

 

[Buck987]

I bought the high end 15" with anti-glare. Let me just say: it's awesome. I'm going to put an SSD in when some of the newer SandForce drives come out, but even at 5400rpm this thing is "blazing fast."

can I ask what was the damage...you got it in an apple store...no?

 

[Erasmus]

how much better with graphics though? the only video game i really play is sims 3. mostly i need it for college so word processing power points internet facebook average things but then i will also need photoshop because i am going to be a graphic design major as well as illustrator exc.

If you want to run Sims 3 on the highest graphics settings, you should probably go for the high end 15" model. If you just want to be able to play it, and don't mind knocking the graphics down to medium-low, then the base model is fine.

EDIT: I'm just assuming about the graphics levels, as I don't know how demanding Sims 3 is.

 

[Buck987]

lord i still have 4 months until i can get my beautiful 15 inch

that sux..oh well