Apple Releases New 15" MacBook Pro, Updates 17" MacBook Pro

[Ori]

well I will be trying to sell my 3 month old Macbook 13" in order to get the new one purely for the battery life.
The SD slot is a nice bonus, but as I said, 7 hours of battery life is the key for me.

If anyone wants UNI 13" and lives in London! PM me! lol

Seriously though, are firewire connections that good? I have never used it.

 

[The Captain]

I honestly cannot understand all the bellyaching about the firewire!

The need you described has a very easy solution. I work in production audio / video (mostly audio) and was uneasy at first but for absolutely no reason.

You can go from the drive to the camera, and camera to mac with daisy-chaining--which IMO was the greatest thing about firewire in the first place.

But, barring whatever problem you may have with that, you can easily grab a firewire hub.

What made me switch in the first place was being able to use my motu firewire equipment with 48v phantom-powered mic preamps while running ONLY on the laptop's battery. The firewire bus's power is enough to give me 24 channels of audio i/o and that power keeps coming when the power is unplugged.

NOTHING could be sweeter.

I don't know what camera you're using, but mine (JVChd110) does not daisy chain. It will give digitizing errors every few seconds. And next week the shoot is DVCPRO 50HD and that also will drop out if the camera is in line with a drive. Or has any connection other than straight to the computer.

 

[bruinsrme]

Why is BR needed on any laptop these days? Yes, seriously...why? I have had a home BR player for 1.5 years and own, for numerous reasons, about 10 titles...and yes I have a killer tv and a/v setup. None of my PC and Apple laptops/desktops have BR nor do I care. What's the big advantage of watching a BR on a 15" laptop? Or on a 19" monitor?

You can list all the tech specs you want, and I'll agree that technically BR is a great product...but it hasn't been selling well (again, for numerous reasons) since it won "the war" in Jan 2008...1.5 years ago.

My bet tells me that BR will never make it mainstream into laptops. Not even as data devices. BR has started to appear in pricey desktops, but again, I don't see any value unless you really want to sit in front of your 19" or 20" monitor (which most people have today...I have a 24") for 2+ hours watching a movie when you can easily watch it on a very affordable 40-50" tv with a true sound system. Sure, a certain population are college kids or people who live in extremely small apartments might want BR on their laptop or turn their computer into a media hub...but that's not the general population.

The main problem is that very few consumers see the value of BR over DVD...and currently have the means/wishes to spend quite a bit of money to upgrade to BR (players, movies, a/v equipment). There are hundreds of articles that will go into great detail about why BR is not selling well...not to mention that a lot of BR movie titles are pretty much the same quality of DVD. Yes, you heard that right. The movie studios need to make better "transfers" to BR to truly notice all the wonders of BR.

I'm praying that BR will soon take off...but if not by Jan 2010 I fear it will go the way of Minidisc(people just didn't want it) and/or Betamax (something cheaper beat it/came out).

-Eric

Blu-ray is in mainstream laptops at least for the past 1.5 years, just not in apple.

 

[celtikmind]

The 15" MBP with the 9600 went up $100 here in Canada, up to $2299 from $2199, thanks apple! (idiots)

I'm starting to think the reason behind all this is that Apple themselves is guessing more people will opt for that model when Snow Leopard is here. Considering OpenCL/using the extra GPU etc. and they saw a chance to sneak in a price increase. The reason for not doing it to their US prices would then be because those were the ones presented at the keynote.

Then the true point, behind the reason for using the processing power in the GPU, is foremost a way for Apple to sell less hardware for more $$$ (in effect) and not give their customers more power. Then you can only applaud Apple in their strategy to make money. Not that the priority for more money over user value have ever been secluded...

Funny also how all the prices outside the US is blamed on the recession by the "loyalists". What? US is excepted from the rest of the world... I always thought you were one of those that got hit the hardest.

 

[bruinsrme]

definetly

MACS for MOMS
DELLS for DADS

Do you understand??

that is funny

 

[macshill]

This statement says it all:

 

[NeverhadaPC]

This is it, the turning point for apple, OSX and the rest. Price wise, software wise, it does everything...

ships in 3 days (international keyboard) and cost 10174DKK + vat, now that is pushing the bargin bin.

I would not take 3 Acers for 4k each over 1 mac for 10k
Especially the MBP15" entry level. What a premo machine.

Worth the wait, I was worried they would wait until July

Hvordan går det?

My purple iMac G3 333 MHz cost 10,000 DKK in 1999

Found it funny how computers have changed in 10 years.

 

[tdmac]

Could there be a benefit to the SD slot?

SD latest spec, SDXC - slated for release in 2009, allows for cards from 32GB up to 2TB. With a bus speed of 104MB/sec with a roadmap to 300mb/sec.

Maybe it would be possible to utilize SD cards for additional processing memory under "snow leopard" or use this as an additional disk drive to store huge amounts of data.

But it depends on what specification it supports. There is NO information in the tech specs, on Apple's site regarding the macbooks, regarding the SD slot. If one can figure out this info maybe we could figure out where they are going with this.

 

[celtikmind]

You think this would be very obvious by now but as usual, there will be a lot of folks excusing Apple in weird ways.

From a rhetorical point of view, I'm very interested in how Apple manages their attraction value. Giving people tunnel vision over the "Pro"-part et. al.

Damn, it actually reminds me of that child story about the emperor...

 

[celtikmind]

Could there be a benefit to the SD slot?

SD latest spec, SDXC - slated for release in 2009, allows for cards from 32GB up to 2TB. With a bus speed of 104MB/sec with a roadmap to 300mb/sec.

Maybe it would be possible to utilize SD cards for additional processing memory under "snow leopard" or use this as an additional disk drive to store huge amounts of data.

But it depends on what specification it supports. There is NO information in the tech specs, on Apple's site regarding the macbooks, regarding the SD slot. If one can figure out this info maybe we could figure out where they are going with this.

What? ReadyBoost II?

 

[grs]

It IS funny to read the comments that basically say "I never used ExpressCard-slot, but you can pry it from my cold dead hands!"

I use my ExpressCard slot all the time. I never use SD. I've been thinking about replacing my aging PowerBook, but now I can't. The elimination of the ExpressCard slot is a major design error and has lost Apple at least one sale.

 

[packgrad2000]

I believe the Express Card slot got axed because of the new battery. Have you ever looked inside a MBP and seen how much relative room it takes up? So I think Apple made the decision for the battery over the ExpressCard, which is still surprising since that basically nixes using eSATA now.

I can hear the engineers asking, "What is small enough to stick in there so it looks like we added something?" Nevermind the fact that virtually no professional cameras (at least digital SLR's...I can't speak for video) use SD cards (CF is king in prosumer/pro SLR's).

 

[myca]

Just remembered about this

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/symphony-mobile.php

The rather spiffing Apogee Pro audio system that only works with expresscard laptops (only Apple ones at that).

Apogee can't be too happy that their partner has poleaxed support for their high end audio gear on nearly all of their notebooks, just like they can't have been happy when the Alu MB lost firewire, which was needed for the Duet and Ensemble.

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/duet.php
http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/ensemble.php

Dumb move, and using a cheaper CPUs on the lower end 15" MBP is a little cheeky too, halving the L2 cache isn't good for some users.

What's next, dropping all ports and sticking a Celeron in there, I'm sure it'd look pretty but be completely useless.

 

[Rorikynn]

Why? What would getting the used laptop give you, as opposed to getting anew one? It seems to that you are thinking that the 15? MBP lost the dedicated GPU entirely. it didn't, only the low-end model did.

Before this update, the cheapest 15" MBP cost $1999 and it had a 9600M GT. Now, you can spend the exact same amount of money and get a 15# MBP that has 9600M GT, along with host of improved specs. IN ADDITION, there's now a cheaper model available, that only has 9400M.

So what exactly am I missing here? before, it cost you $1999 to get 9600M GT, today it costs $1999 to get 9600M GT. What exactly has changed?

That's the problem. Nothing really changed. The new *lower price* MBP is just a macbook with a 15" screen. They didn't lower the MBPs' prices by $300 dollars, they just did some product name shuffling. So someone in the market for a MBP with a dedicated GPU are still going to be paying the same price for basically the same hardware.

Apple software is great, but the hardware is turning into even more of rip off--they don't even use quality components.

 

[chabig]

The elimination of the ExpressCard slot is a major design error and has lost Apple at least one sale.

If I were Apple, and I had the option to add an SD card slot that would benefit lots of users, or risk the loss of one sale, I'm afraid I'd make the same decision they made!

Seriously, most MBP pro never used the expresscard slot. Apple said it was in the single-digit percentages. And these are supposed to be mass-market machines. The SD card slot is much more useful to a larger percentage of people.

 

[chabig]

The new *lower price* MBP is just a macbook with a 15" screen.

That's not a problem. It's a MacBook with a 15" screen! I'm sure market research showed lots of customers with a desire for a larger screen laptop with MacBook specs and a MacBook price.

 

[filmjeff]

People who used the slot to upgrade their machines were few and far between.

This reminds me of the switch to Intel. Some people vowed to never buy a Mac again. Fast forward a bit, and Macs are more popular than ever before. It seems that there is a minority out there that will complain about EVERYTHING. Every change is fatal and ensures the utter doom of Apple. Yet for some reason Apple marches from victory to victory.... Maybe, just maybe, Apple knows about laptops and needs of people more than Joe Q. Random on some website?

It IS funny to read the comments that basically say "I never used ExpressCard-slot, but you can pry it from my cold dead hands!"

You my friend are very ignorant. Besides the fact that moving to Intel was a move for the FUTURE (faster processors/more cores, less heat, more power), removing the Express Card slot is a step BACKWARDS. Just like removing firewire from the 13" MB.

Further evidence you have no idea what you are talking about:

http://www.duel-systemsadapters.com/?productid=DP-0001 - For using P2 cards. A professional solid-state video storage.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/528236-REG/Sony_SBP_16_SBP_16_16GB_SxS_PRO.html - For use in Sony's EX Series XDCAMs for professional video cameras

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/esataexpresscard - For connecting hard drives with a fast enough connection speed to deal with your HD footage you just shot

http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2/ - For viewing the footage you just shot and getting analog signals to and from the express card slot

http://www.aja.com/products/io/io-hd.php - I guess I could use this instead, oh wait... I only have one firewire port and no way to daisychain from this device (even if I did it wouldn't be a good idea)

God forbid they leave the ExpressCard slot for people that actually need it. Now the people that use SD cards don't have to buy this! http://www.amazon.com/Multimedia-Re...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1244565885&sr=8-1

Thank goodness!

I could go on, but I think this gets my point across. I normally don't respond to threads but you are way off base with your reasoning/rants.

 

[nickvann]

Apple cripples the people that brought them success.

If I may make a comment...
For the people who never used the express card slot (such as myself 90% of the time), no big deal.

I think the underlying issue here is that apple is making a move from being a niche product to very mainstream. It used to be that people bought Mac computers because they were the only computers out there that one could (for example) compose music on. Doing such a thing on a "PC" (dos, windows etc...) computer was much less common (and still is today to some degree).

In the time of the analog synths popularity, mac was on the forefront of creating electronic music and composition. Yes you could write text documents and eventually "surf the web", but it was the one platform that really did cater to being creative.

All the artistic people flocked to the mac as the platform for being creative because it could do things of that nature with much great ease. Along with being creative comes the need for expansion and extra peripherals. From midi in the beginning to firewire and PC card slots today.

I work in the Music industry and although I'm not a musician myself, I'm currently on tour with a band that has 6 macbook pro's onstage. Each one of these units is using the express card slot, and each one HAS to have a matte finish (otherwise you'd never see the screen with all the stage lights).

Today, if the band wanted to replace their 15" macbooks they would have to "upgrade" to the 17" macbooks with matte displays. The downside to this is that having 6 laptops on stage is an eyesore as it is (from an artistic perspective). The last thing we would want is MORE computer just to get the same card slot and screen.

Just for fun we counted one day, how many macbooks were on tour with us... out of 42 people, 31 had mac computers. Hmmm.... why you ask, because it has always been a platform that caters to a specific niche market, people who want to edit video, design lighting, compose music etc...

So it's not that people are being picky about card slots or screens... I think it's more about people who went to Apple, because it was the better option for the creative types are now rethinking because apple is shifting it's focus to producing products that appeal to a much larger market. Apple has grown exponentially over the past years, but I just hope they don't forget the people that made apple successful in the first place.

Think about this... what would you say has been Apples most identifying product to date?

The iPod hands down. Strange that something that promoted music pushed Apple to the forefront of the market. Today without the ability in most of it's lineup to record music using the built in firewire and store it on a HD using an Express card, they are almost making it impossible to create some of that music.

Most music you listen to on your iPod has been passed through a Mac sometime during the recording process (if not the entire time).

Ironic.

Don't get me wrong, now that Apple has achieved this mainstream success, substituting one card slot for another to satisfy consumers (by saying we finally have a media card reader!!!) isn't going to harm the sales of macbooks to people taking photos, or browsing websites.

It will affect the sales to people who
- Record Music
- Edit Video
- Create Digital Content
etc...

Will this make an impact? Who knows. It's just clear that they aren't solely producing machines for the "creative" individual anymore.

 

[myca]

You my friend are very ignorant. Besides the fact that moving to Intel was a move for the FUTURE (faster processors/more cores, less heat, more power), removing the Express Card slot is a step BACKWARDS. Just like removing firewire from the 13" MB......

Let me add a few


http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpress/

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdspe_expresscard.php

and as mentioned above

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/symphony-mobile.php

 

[chabig]

For people who really do need the expresscard slot (and don't link me to an external hard drive with just one firewire port--you can buy a firewire hub!), just keep using the MacBook Pro you've already got. There are lots of these in the marketplace, and within the next year I think you'll see peripheral manufacturers create solutions for working with the new MacBook Pros. If you're really a pro, there's still the 17" machine.

What might have been an option for Apple would have been to continue producing both types of MBPs, but charge a premium for the expresscard machine as it would likely be produced in smaller quantities.

 

[nickvann]

For people who really do need the expresscard slot (and don't link me to an external hard drive with just one firewire port--you can buy a firewire hub!), just keep using the MacBook Pro you've already got. There are lots of these in the marketplace, and within the next year I think you'll see peripheral manufacturers create solutions for working with the new MacBook Pros. If you're really a pro, there's still the 17" machine.

What might have been an option for Apple would have been to continue producing both types of MBPs, but charge a premium for the expresscard machine as it would likely be produced in smaller quantities.

Sorry but using a firewire hub doesn't always work. Firewire has limited bandwidth. Using the Card slot allowed for additional bandwidth.

I think people are concerned because the change to SD is a blatant slap in the face to many professionals. Lets not forget, the Express card slot can read SD cards with a simple insert, I have on in my computer right now... it sits flush inside the machine. Now you can still read SD cards, but no extra firewire, no e-sata etc....

Many Pro's don't want an extra pound of computer or more screen. See my post above for some examples.

I personally am not discussing the topic anymore because nothing we say here will change anything really. I just wanted to post my insight above about the origins of apple. It is what it is!

 

[chabig]

I understand about the bandwidth, but I'm sure that only affected a small part of the MBP market. Apple's keeping it on the 17 shows that they understand the need for it.

But another battle that Apple's fighting and has taken hits on recently from a big competitor up north is the price battle. I'm sure the SD card slot costs less to produce than the ExpressCard slot and helps Apple lower the price of the machines while addressing the complaints about lack of memory card slots.

 

[cu2010]

That's the problem. Nothing really changed. The new *lower price* MBP is just a macbook with a 15" screen. They didn't lower the MBPs' prices by $300 dollars, they just did some product name shuffling. So someone in the market for a MBP with a dedicated GPU are still going to be paying the same price for basically the same hardware.

Apple software is great, but the hardware is turning into even more of rip off--they don't even use quality components.

i believe that the high-end MBP is now actually cheaper. Just it has no ExpressCard slot.

 

[Anuba]

Regarding the ExpressCard slot, I have to ask since it boggles my mind...

Why is everyone so hell bent on buying the 15" model and not the 17"? It's like the 17" doesn't exist. For me it was the easiest no-brainer ever, I didn't even glance at the 15". The 17" has 1920x1200 pixels for crying out loud. Who wants a 1440x900 toy for professional use? I haven't worked with anything less than 1600 horizontal since the mid 1990's.

Both audio and video/graphics apps eat pixels for breakfast with their myriad tool panels, timelines, stages etc. How can you work with that stuff on cramped screens? Do you spend half your worktime reorganizing the workspace, scrolling, moving, toggling, hiding and minimizing?

Yeah, the 17" is a couple inches bigger and a few ounces heavier, but it's not like the 15" is pocket sized. If Apple upped the resolution to 1680x1050 I might briefly consider the 15" but I'd still go with the 17" in the end.

 

[tseitz89]

For the people that say we are "whining" about the lack of expresscard when USB 3.0 comes out wouldn't you like to use it? to do that you would need expresscard. Personally i buy a computer with the intent to keep it at least 3-4 years so when new technology comes out i can add it via expresscard