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Apple Releases 17'' MacBook Pro

ZigFilm said:
Thanks - I'll definitely keep you posted when I get it. I can't wait!
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Be sure to let us know if you experience any of the problems that plagued (perhaps thats too much of a strong word) the 15". I'm especially curious to see if Apple have resolved the dreaded whine (I'm sure the heat will be less of a problem than the 15", due to the larger area to dissipate it)...

As a design student the 17" has definately become a more desirable option for me, especially with its price compared to a maxed out 15" (and the lovely student discount).

Fingers crossed it's all worked out...
 
matticus008 said:
Bus-powering a 3.5" hard drive (presumably on battery power, otherwise what difference does it make?) is a bad idea. The typical desktop hard drive sits at around 11-12W. Firewire in theory peaks at 15W, in practice somewhat less. That leaves you very little overhead, not to mention the strain on your notebook's battery (which raises the temperature--enter fans, etc...). A typical notebook computer consumes 30W altogether (17" MBP maybe slightly more) when active, so you can see that you stand to lose more than 1/3 of your battery life by running a desktop hard drive (by comparison, you'd be looking at roughly 5W for a 2.5" hard drive). Of course this is a bit simplified for brevity's sake.

Yes, it's possible, but no, it's not advisable unless you plan on recharging every two hours or less, which consequently shortens your battery's life as well--500 power cycles is going to come around a lot faster. If you plan on taking full size hard drives on the road, buy a spare battery and expect to replace them relatively often.
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Nice and useful information. I knew the Firewire buses unlike USB buses allowed for this possibility, but didn't know about the specific details nor the available solutions. The only thing that worries me is the issue of the narrow overhead, what exactly could this mean to the HDD, is this a potential risk factor that could damage the HDD?

I don't agree at all though that using buspowered 3.5" HDDs on battery power is a bad idea. It all depends on what you're using the HDD for. If you're simply using it as an external storage unit from/to which you occasionally transfer files, then you only keep it buspowered for the time it takes to transfer a certain file and no longer...

I also think you're underestimating the benefits of not having to use additional power bricks for external HDDs, even when the laptop is AC powered. It's a matter of convenience of being able to position the HDDs freely any way you like not having to deal with additional cable clutter. There are many people who choose external 2.5" HDDs over external 3.5" HDDs not primarily because of their smaller footprint but because they don't require a separate AC adapter when in use...
 
Happy with my last rev 17" PB but waiting for the Intel version of PowerMac. It is going to be incredible!
 
+1 (for a friend I've been telling to wait since March thinking it would happen on April 1st or the following week for their 30th anniversary. Unfortunately another one couldn't wait any longer and gave into a 14" iBook but got it for a good deal, $850 so I can understand/sympathize)
 
17" is too small

Bern said:
17" ??? Get an external monitor for goodness sake. :p
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I use my 17" G$PowerBook with my 30" LCD Display much of the time. I only wish that the 17" screen would be larger, like 20" or even 23". I used to carry a 50 lb computer setup before I got my first PowerBook a few years ago. To me 10 lbs would be an ok weight for a 20-23" model. That would give enough room for larger battery or two, maybe a second hard drive, a numeric keypad (wanted most after a larger screen), an eSATA port, or many other items.

Everybody does not want a small portable. Many want & need more desktop space. About all that will come in my size wants & needs is the 20" iMac or a Mac Mini with a 23" screen. But they both do not have a Pro Speed connection like: FW800 or eSATA or both.. No PC Card or equivilant expansion capabilities.

I'm for bigger screens, so I could say why only 17"!

Bill the TaxMan
 
bgd78 said:
Nice and useful information. [...] The only thing that worries me is the issue of the narrow overhead, what exactly could this mean to the HDD, is this a potential risk factor that could damage the HDD?
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Glad to be of assistance. What it means is that if for some reason your computer requires more power than normal (say the fans kick in, the internal hard drive spins up, you're burning a DVD and the display is on full brightness), and you plug in the hard drive, you can potentially overload the battery and cause your computer to shut down. Also, if your Firewire bus happens to deliver insufficient power (for example if you try to connect anything other than that one hard drive) at the wrong moment, it can cause data loss on the hard drive if it's doing a write operation at the time.

I don't agree at all though that using buspowered 3.5" HDDs on battery power is a bad idea. It all depends on what you're using the HDD for.
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True, but I was assuming that the only reason to buy a 3.5" bus-powered enclosure was because a 2.5" didn't offer enough storage space, in which case you would need the drive connected at all times to use the data on that drive (large video projects, for example).

I also think you're underestimating the benefits of not having to use additional power bricks for external HDDs, even when the laptop is AC powered.
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Not at all. Bus-powered drives are very convenient. 3.5" bus powered drives, however, are not. For one, they're large and bulky. Also, giving up the power cable is impractical. I'm all for wireless keyboards and mice and I think wireless webcams are not far off, but anything that requires more than a few watts and doesn't have a hardcore battery should be plugged in. I've never found that I'm limited in my hard drive placement because of cables (4ft power cable, 3ft data cable roughly matches the length of my PowerBook cable with the extension bit (which I generally don't need anyway). For people who want minimal clutter, a 2.5" drive is great. But if you need the storage of a big drive, it's best to put up with that one extra cable for the sake of reliability.
 
matticus008 said:
Also, if your Firewire bus happens to deliver insufficient power (for example if you try to connect anything other than that one hard drive) at the wrong moment, it can cause data loss on the hard drive if it's doing a write operation at the time.
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I assume you mean that can happen by daisy-chaining several Firewire peripherals through the same Firewire port? However, am I right in assuming that there should be no problem with using two bus powered external 3.5" HDDs simultaneously on the 17" MBP, one through the FW800 port and the other through the FW400 port considering that they are powered by separate controller chips? Let's suppose the laptop is on AC power in this setup ;)
 
Multimedia said:
You do understand that DVD-HD will be the winner right? Industry analysts believe that DVD-HD will occupy 67% of the high density DVD market by the end of 2007. Blu-Ray will be the losing format. Why? Simple economics. DVD-HD is about 50% Cheaper on all fronts.
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See, I think it's the complete opposite, HD-DVD will lose and lose badly.

Sure, it has more support in the computer camp and got to market first, and it's easier to manufacture. It has computer friendly options like a legal rip option.

However, Blu-Ray has the support of more movie studios, including many who were formerly only in the HD-DVD camp. In other words, many of the HD-DVD studios are hedging their bets and supporting Blu-Ray too. The reverse cannot be said. On the movie front, it looks like Blu-Ray has already won. Also IIRC Blu-Ray can store up to 50 GB per disc while HD-DVD is limited to 30 GB. Finally, there's the adoption rate and how the next-gen consoles fit into this. Microsoft has claimed it will support HD-DVD through an upgrade for the X-Box 360 at some point and at extra cost; Sony's Playstation 3 will have Blu-Ray support at launch. Given the $500-$1000 cost for the first wave of players, I'd say game consoles will be the trojan horse that speeds adoption of HD discs.

From my point of view, HD-DVD has already lost.
 
bgd78 said:
I assume you mean that can happen by daisy-chaining several Firewire peripherals through the same Firewire port? However, am I right in assuming that there should be no problem with using two bus powered external 3.5" HDDs simultaneously on the 17" MBP, one through the FW800 port and the other through the FW400 port considering that they are powered by separate controller chips? Let's suppose the laptop is on AC power in this setup ;)
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I'm not entirely sure how Apple implements its FireWire bus on the MBP, but it's highly likely that FW800 and FW400 are on the same bus and subject to the same power limits (this is the case for the PowerBooks). It wouldn't make sense to provide 30W of FW power on a notebook--that's almost as much as the entire MBP itself uses. So no, it would not be possible to power multiple 3.5" hard drives, even on AC power. On AC power, you're limited by the power adapter (I think they're 80W on the PowerBook/MBP line) overall, but the FW bus still can't exceed 15W.
 
How do we not know the smaller or budget Mac laptops will not use the ATI X700, 800, or even 1300 series chips or something? *wishes for the X1300 128mb with DDR2 or# ATI now has an X1800 series out and I am suprised the 17" doesn't use this chip.
 
bloodycape said:
How do we not know the smaller or budget Mac laptops will not use the ATI X700, 800, or even 1300 series chips or something? *wishes for the X1300 128mb with DDR2 or# ATI now has an X1800 series out and I am suprised the 17" doesn't use this chip.
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i was too, until i considered that they underclocked the x1600 in the 15"
 
Surreal said:
i was too, until i considered that they underclocked the x1600 in the 15"
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I wonder if there will eventually be a way to overclock it.
 
jaydub said:
I wonder if there will eventually be a way to overclock it.
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If you can do it on a windows pc fairly simple with some software mods, so hopefully the rght hacker/programer will come along and bring out some oc software. I have seen such a software for the current i and p books.
 
I would be very careful about over-clocking anything in a chassis built to such exacting close tolerances.

Not only will you immediately void your warranty, but the additional heat created could damage your logic board and then you're in deep cow pies.
 
Surreal said:
heh, so you mean bring it up to it's stock speed?
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hehe precisely. I'd surely be too chicken to do it, especially in a $2800 laptop, but I had no qualms about chip overclocking my old G3 back in the day!
 
FFTT said:
I would be very careful about over-clocking anything in a chassis built to such exacting close tolerances.

Not only will you immediately void your warranty, but the additional heat created could damage your logic board and then you're in deep cow pies.
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Windows users do it all the time with out a worry or a problem. I currently have my AMD cpu and ram oced(bios settings), my ATI(software) card oced and my ibook's ATI card(software) oced with out a worry. I think if you know what you are doing, have proper cooling, and dont' go overboard you should be fine and at a safe level.
 
FFTT said:
I would be very careful about over-clocking anything in a chassis built to such exacting close tolerances.

Not only will you immediately void your warranty, but the additional heat created could damage your logic board and then you're in deep cow pies.
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I don't know about the voiding warranty part, or how exactly they'd prove it or what extents they'd go to to prove it... That being said, I personally wouldn't do it because I wouldn't want to risk it - even if AppleCare covered any damage caused, it would still be a hassle to be without my computer and what comes with the process. Also I wouldn't do it because from what I've read in forums and articles of people who have done it, it decreases battery life by about 30 minutes (which when you're getting 3.5 hours in a MacBook Pro is a pretty substantial amount in my opinion, maybe not so much if the 17" really does get 5.5 - but I have a feeling it'll be more around 4.5 hours at most with regular usage for most people). Besides battery life, it does kick the fans on much faster and makes your near-silent-MBP (unless of course you have one of the many known whines from screen, processor, or other) much louder then it needs to be and then apple intended it to be. So personally, besides the risk and really no-need for me to do it (maybe if you were a serious PC gamer, and even then you'd probably be in Boot Camp overclocking it with the windows software that's out there) but otherwise no real point. I am fine with the GPU as it is, it could even be weaker and I'd probably still be fine. I like max battery life and as quiet/cool as possible, and as hot as it already gets (and I doubt the 17" will be much different, at least underneath the battery and processor) I can do without more heat, worse battery, and more fan-noise. Then again maybe that fan noise is a welcome change to drown out the many whines? Personally I'm not going to do it, and even if I had need to do it, I'd still be pretty hessitant to try - even if the tools for OSX were there to do it... That's my View, and it's much better then Starr Jones'! ;)
 
rxse7en said:
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Found the potential pricing and release info quite interesting. Really, we could be seeing the Merom bump by June/July at the very earliest.

B
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Merom chips by the end of May (according to that article)? Blimey, that is way WAY earlier than I'd heard before. Wishful thinking perhaps. Still, I would LOVE a 15"/17" 2.33Ghz Merom MBP by June...
 
zenvision said:
Merom chips by the end of May (according to that article)? Blimey, that is way WAY earlier than I'd heard before. Wishful thinking perhaps. Still, I would LOVE a 15"/17" 2.33Ghz Merom MBP by June...
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It isn't just wishful thinking, it's fanciful thinking... and a bit off. This is Apple, a chip price cut only means more profit for them. Also the 2.23 (or whatever) Yonah chip is due in June. Though Merom is RUMORED to be early, it's coming fall early, not early summer early.
 
Photorun said:
It isn't just wishful thinking, it's fanciful thinking... and a bit off. This is Apple, a chip price cut only means more profit for them. Also the 2.23 (or whatever) Yonah chip is due in June. Though Merom is RUMORED to be early, it's coming fall early, not early summer early.
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September for Merom? Lots of conflicting release dates out there. I'm assuming a September Merom en masse release, with smaller amounts released earlier for prototyping/testing. I'm thinkin' a September release of Merom 'Books. Another article I just read assumes the Merom laptops (15" with dual hard drives) running for 5.5 hours on battery.
 
hey guys

apple is charging me tommorrow. (my available balance just went down the price of the MBP 17". if it ships tommorrow...

this can only be good news.
 
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