Apple Releases Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro

[shecky]

Don't see any sign of the MacBook easy access HD Bay design. That's a big disappointment to me.

i was waiting to see you on here with that exact sentiment - it would have been nice. tho as of this moment it has NOT been 100% confirmed this is true yet. i am waiting for apple to post the user manual/technology overview to see for sure.

 

[milo]

In terms of specs, here's what you can get in an HP Pavilion dv6000t for $1263:

Windows XP Media Center
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor T7200 (2.00 GHz)

Right there, that's a slower machine, and HP charges $350 just to go from 1.8 to 2Ghz. If they offered a 2.16 it would be hundreds more, so not really a valid comparison.

Agreed about the lack of 7200HD options, sucks for music on the go, esp. using ableton live. Though an external FW800 drive will help bridge the gap.

Internal drives suck for music. Period. I doubt you'd see much difference in performance.

I have been waiting for this new macbook to buy and whats funny is that I walked into the Mac Store yesterday, the guy new everything about the product but seemed a little too clueless about the product cycle.

You seriously expect the guy in the store to tell you what future release dates are? If apple let them give that info out, it would sort of defeat the whole purpose of product announcements, wouldn't it?

I could have used this this past summer. Took forever to come out.

And I could use a Core 7 Octo now...why is it taking so long to come out?

If CD I would return in immediately, preferably unopened...

Thats what I hate about this update policy. Yesterdays investment is losing suddenly 30% of its value. Apple should really address this by lowering prices before such an update...

If you bought "yesterday" (last 10 or 14 days I believe), apple DOES address this. If you decide not to return it, they'll give you a price break, just call them up.

 

[robbieduncan]

I have, cars are mostly upgraded once every year.

I think he was refering to the fact that by simply driving the car out of the dealers you were taking around 30% depreciation.

 

[clintob]

I don't get the fascination in these forums with HD space? What are you doing with your computer that you NEED a local disk with 160GB of storage at 7200rpm?

100GB is MORE than enough to run any number of Pro Apps you might use, and if you store a lot of large video or audio files, etc, you should be using an external firewire drive anyway.

It's a notebook... please don't forget that. It's not supposed to have tons of storage - that's why they make external drives. If you want tons of storage, get a desktop.

This is a great upgrade all things considered. Nice processor, great RAM bump, increased cache (highly underrated). All for the same money. Buy one, enjoy it, and quit quibbling over unreasonable features.

 

[Next Tuesday]

Morning all and congrats to everyone who waited. Definately was worth it when you look at those 2.16GHz Core Duo base comparisons. Way faster not just a little faster.

Almost looks like a processor drop in. I expected 2.33GHz standard. Glad to see that. The return of the FW800 port to the 15" is welcome news. Now the 15" model is on par with the old PowerBook G4 port layout.

Anyone know howe well the 4200rpm 200GB HD performs? Could be just as fast as faster smaller drives due to plate density no?

Don't see any sign of the MacBook easy access HD Bay design. That's a big disappointment to me. No change to the screen resolutions offered either. Thought this time they might offer a 1920x1200 screen option on the 17" at least - even if we had to pay more for it.

Ok, so the new mbp's are out. But i dont see any heat ventilation fix or easy access hard drive bay. Im holding off for a few weeks to see how the new ones perform as far as heatwise and other such stuff.

 

[TheSith]

When can we get these in store please? How long must we wait? What's the fastest way?

 

[iJaz]

I think he was refering to the fact that by simply driving the car out of the dealers you were taking around 30% depreciation.

I thought he was refering to upgrades and that you suddenly have an old model. Whatever, seems like a silly comparison to me.

 

[ChrisA]

There is not update to a car when frome one day to the other you suddenly get to double your mileage, get a 30% bigger engine, 50 % more trunk space, etc. for the same money.

I am not talking about the fact that as soon as you buy something it looses some of its value. The same is true for the C2D MBP.
I am complaining that if you went to the store yesterday and today - todays money suddenly buys you so much more value that you feel ripped off by yesterdays prices...

I once paid $250 for a simple calculator. Just add, subtract, divide, multiply and square root. Of course now they are giving these away. Did I get ripped off? No, It was worth paying the premium price just for the one year of chemistry and physics classes Next year they were seling at about $100. I paid a bit over $3K for an original IBM PC the 4Mhz 8-bit model with a monochrome screen and no hard drive. That was a very good investment

 

[gugy]

so glad this is over.
I could not take those whiners anymore.
Wait a second, now they will whine because Apple update the MBPs!

 

[wildmac]

Don't see any sign of the MacBook easy access HD Bay design. That's a big disappointment to me. No change to the screen resolutions offered either. Thought this time they might offer a 1920x1200 screen option on the 17" at least - even if we had to pay more for it.

The easy HD access would have been nice, but, how often do you really change the HD anyway?.. (That change for the MB was more likely due to the redesign of the keyboard structure, ease of access was just a bonus).

1920x1200 on a 17"???... you must have really good eyes...

This is really the revB MBP that I've been waiting for. If the MB isn't updated next Tuesday, a MMP will be ordered fortwith.

 

[MonkeyClaw]

There is not update to a car when frome one day to the other you suddenly get to double your mileage, get a 30% bigger engine, 50 % more trunk space, etc. for the same money.

I am not talking about the fact that as soon as you buy something it looses some of its value. The same is true for the C2D MBP.

I am complaining that if you went to the store yesterday and today - todays money suddenly buys you so much more value that you feel ripped off by yesterdays prices...

But if you bought one yesterday, you can go back to Apple and get a new one, no questions asked. They do have a 14 day hardware/software return policy...

 

[aafuss1]

No service manuals for both on Service Source yet for AASP's.

 

[wildmac]

I don't get the fascination in these forums with HD space? What are you doing with your computer that you NEED a local disk with 160GB of storage at 7200rpm?

Digital Photography on the road. Lots of raw-format files. I can chew up that space quickly.

 

[wildmac]

I thought he was refering to upgrades and that you suddenly have an old model. Whatever, seems like a silly comparison to me.

I think it was really both. But EVERYONE knew these were coming. It was just a matter of which week.

 

[animenick65]

Damn....now seems to be the time to buy refurbished. Some serious savings there on the duo models. Suprising that apple dropped the price...they usually don't drop the prices much on refurbs just because of new models....e.g. the powermac g5 price still being $2000 when a new mac pro can be had for a few hundred more.

 

[Butthead]

Isn't anyone bold enough to start the official "C2D MBP/Napa platform upgrade blows/big disappointment! thread?

I told you so, time and time again on the mega 3.6k posts 'MBP Merom upgrade by the Holidays' thread. It simply had to do with Apple's inability to get sufficient quantities of the higher speed Merom chips, once they decided to put the majority of their allotment into the iMac 1st.

One would have to suppose that Apple already had committed to all of the other parts, had the systems mostly already built, and just dropped the C2D into them when enough became available from Intel. But then, would they not also have commited to the HD size, and now they offer a 160GB 5.4k as standard on the MBP17in?

The waiting begins for big (hopefully, many new engineering/parts upgrades and perhaps new case design) Santa Rosa/Merom release sometime in Spring 2007, if Intel keeps to it's anticipated progress in delivery at that time. Heh, I'll bet Apple will tell you that the Santa Rosa/Merom MBPs are 'up to' 150% or something like 2x faster (in common usage for most people the speed boost will probably be noticeable, unlike the current upgrade from Yoyawn to Meryawn, but not huge improvement) than the current C2D Napa/Merom MBPs. Which will really PO people who buy it now, in just 6months or so. If people are disappointed by the upgrade now, just think how much they will hate their systems once the significant upgrade to Santa Rosa/Merom occurs. Ahead well, it's not as bad as having bought a G5 iMac, only to find a month later Apple releases an Intel iMac that is 'up to' many times faster (for optimized apps).

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

<snip>
If you bought "yesterday" (last 10 or 14 days I believe), apple DOES address this. If you decide not to return it, they'll give you a price break, just call them up.

Is this a general fact? Or only some especially nice person on the Apple Customer Service?

I have an unopened Macbook 1.83 sitting under my desk that I am still undecided about sending back. (unfortunately nothing yet announced about Macbooks)...

 

[aly]

Ordered

Just ordered myself the standard configuration 2.33Ghz 15" Macbook Pro, I can't wait till it arrives! Apparently it will ship in 4 days, wont believe this till I have it in my hands though. I'd imagine a large increase in Macbook Pro demand just occurred Interesting release time aswell i thought. I've waited so long, can't believe its happened!

 

[hartog]

Great news indeed.

I'm about to switch. However one thing I'd like to know is if I can attach a LaCie Two Big to the FW 800 port? This device comes with eithe a PCI-E or PCI-X card, which obviously does not fit in the MBPC2D.

Anyone who can clarify this to me?

Peter

 

[JobsRules]

Where's the MacBook

Pah, couldn't they have upgraded the MacBook non-Pro to C2D too? Hopefully it'll be here almost immediately and not five minutes before Christmas as it's my wife's birthday present from the end of September and I'd naively hoped it'd be out by then given the fact that several Windows vendors had C2Ds out.

And, yes, the MacBook should be C2D unlike the Mini as compared to the compeition it's a expensive laptop so needs something to justify the price beyond merely Mac OS X.

 

[CPTMONK]

hey i just bought a new 15" macbook pro my first mac,

i do alot of video editing

am i right in think the 5400rpm is only bad when CAPTURING video footage, does it make a difference when you edit?

 

[ChrisA]

Am very happy with the RAM but OMG, is it expensive (590€ in Belgium)

Bought it anyways. Would like to find out if I swap that second dimm out for a 2GB, would it run at 4GB of RAM? Any takers?

3.2 GB is the most the chipset can use. If you did add that second 2GB stick the most the system would "see" is 3.2 Some other manufactures do allow you to buy a 4GB C2D system but the OS only gets to use the first 3.2GB. In theory there is a slight speed advantage to using two matched RAM sticks so 4GB is not a total waste but it would be very expensive for little gain.

 

[4np]

Am very happy with the RAM but OMG, is it expensive (590€ in Belgium)

Bought it anyways. Would like to find out if I swap that second dimm out for a 2GB, would it run at 4GB of RAM? Any takers?

Unfortunately no:

Processor and memory
Intel

* 15-inch MacBook Pro
o 2.16GHz or 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed
o 1GB (single SO-DIMM) of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory on 2.16GHz configuration; and 2GB (two SO-DIMMs) on 2.33GHz configuration; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 3GB
o 667MHz frontside bus
* 17-inch MacBook Pro
o 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed
o 2GB (two SO-DIMMs) of PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 memory; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 3GB
o 667MHz frontside bus

source: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html

 

[Swarmlord]

Very Very Tempted.

Time to put my repaired and working perfectly G4 PB 15'' on sale I think.

Any takers? (London, UK)

I'm giving my G4 PB to my wife for internet browsing. The new Intel model is for me!

 

[daneoni]

The MacBook wont be upgraded for at least another 2 weeks because:
1. The MBPs need some airtime on apple's front page before another announcement

2. The MacBook is a consumer model...meaning A LOT of people would be buying one. Hence a large stock of chips are required which i dont think Apple has enough of yet

Then again i could be wrong and it could happen in 4, 3, 2, 1......