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I just bought a Macbook 13 inch 2 months ago...wish I would have waited...firewire would have been nice...not too mention it's cheaper and faster too. They do need to have Blue Ray, I agree there! I love my Mac though.
 
I'm pretty pumped, actually

I guess I'm one of the few who is excited about this product.

For $300 less I get a (slightly faster) 15" laptop with 4GB of ram (I believe the previous standard was 2 for the 15") an SD card (that's all I am likely to use) and a supposedly superior screen.

Since I'm not playing games, I don't see that I need the discrete graphics, unless OpenCL is going to really latch onto the discrete graphics adapter to boost overall performance.

It sounds like a win to me.
 
Sorry to see the card slot gone on the 15"--on principle--but all I've ever used those slots for is an SD reader anyway. And there are other ways to attach most hardware.

At the very least, Apple should have swapped one of the USB ports for a USB/eSATA combo AND added internal WWAN to compensate. Many PCs offer EC/54 (not EC/34) AND media card readers. Also, no BR at this point in the game is extremely disappointing.
 
Where are all the posters who told us that Apple doesn't update at WWDC?:p

So glad I waited. Very excited about my new MacBookPro. :D
 
"Pro" seems to be slipping.

Come on, Apple. Don't take features away from Pro, so that the non-Pro all of a sudden qualifies.

I want the *ONLY* difference between the MacBook Pros to be the screen size.

I already own an ExpressCard SD reader, (that can also read xD and MS,) I don't need to have that downgraded. I bought a 'Pro' because I wanted 'Pro' features.

If you want to make cheaper, less featured computers, fine. Don't call them 'Pro'.

Still no eSATA, and without an ExpressCard slot, I can't put eSATA on. I was really hoping for a 15" upgrade that would make me want to actually buy a new one. The 17" is just too big for me; the 15" barely too big; but if it were to have gotten *ALL* the features of the 17", I would have upgraded. Now Apple has guaranteed that I won't buy a new MacBook Pro.

At this point, I'm seriously looking at just abandoning a 'high-power' notebook, and going for a MacBook Air; and relegating my fast PC to 'fast machine' duties. (Sorry, the Mac Pro's too expensive, and the iMac too underpowered, as well.)

Hopefully when the next-gen notebook chips come out, Apple puts the Pro back in.
 
I'm bummed about them losing the Express Card slot too. I'm going to try to pick up one of the "old" models before they leave the stores.

Although, I called my Mac Store and they said they were going to be selling the old models for the same prices they were yesterday. Ie an "old" 15" MBP for $2,499 vs the "new" MBP similarly equipped for $1,999.

What the hell, Apple?
 
Overall, a nice move by Apple to lower prices. This will really get the Back-to-School promotion in gear and will turn the recent tide with Mac portable declines.

Interesting how the low-end 15-inch only contains integrated graphics ... hmmm
 
I'm bummed about them losing the Express Card slot too. I'm going to try to pick up one of the "old" models before they leave the stores.

Although, I called my Mac Store and they said they were going to be selling the old models for the same prices they were yesterday. Ie an "old" 15" MBP for $2,499 vs the "new" MBP similarly equipped for $1,999.

What the hell, Apple?

Now that is just straight crazy.
 
no express 34?!?!?!?!

If they keep Removing and not adding the actual professional connections then they need to take the " Pro" out.
As a video editor i like the knowing when i am working on a job i have every option possible to connect. Most importantly i need a connection to a fast raid via eSata.
Express 34 did that fantastically, and companies were supporting it as a option creating great adapters for every need.

im in need of a new laptop my powerbook g4 just cant handle much these days. Driving to my office to work on projects when i could be in bed doing the same work is getting quite old.

No one likes buying the older model, i know i dont want to.
If i wait for them to figure all this who knows how long it could take
i want a 15 inch MBP with firewire 800, and a way to hookup a eSata and other misc connections.
If they gave me a viable option ill use whatever, but i need options.



its all just very sad to see how they have lost sight
 
The update is boring... I hoped for Geforce GT130... but...

what about the new screen? I wonder if it's really better (didn't they said best screen we've used so far?). I hope to see some impressions on Engadget or Gizmodo or Macrumors or somewhere; is it just a marketing ploy, or the screen is really much better?

Still no matte though... grr... still, with free iPod touch and edu discount the price is pretty sweet...

Sony or not Sony? That is the question...
 
eSATA is obviously better for a scratch disk intensive work with Photoshop over F800 but firewire is nothing to sneeze at either.
 
Sorry to see the card slot gone on the 15"--on principle--but all I've ever used those slots for is an SD reader anyway. And there are other ways to attach most hardware.

I am sad to see express card gone on the 15" too. I've been eyeing an expresscard ssd for awhile now, now I'm not sure I want to make the investment.
 
So with the built in batteries on the unibodies, is the user able to access the ram slots and HD? I did a quick look in ifixit and did not see an option for the 17" uMBP. This would be a major let down
 
expresscard for SD?

Seriously, huge mistake here. Could have included an expresscard to SD adapter or something, but what the heck? How do I add an additional FW bus? gotta get a 17". How do I use my ATT expresscard (ATT doesnt support iphone tethering - big fail, but would alleviate this complaint)? I love the price cuts, i love how it apparently has a better screen (although not higher res) but I don't think i want to carry a 17" machine around. I'd rather buy a 15" and get a 24" ACD to use, but what if I need an expresscard?

Hopefully next time around, apple will make it a BTO option on high-end 15" pros. They added FW after tons of complaining, so how about we moan and groan about no expresscard slot and maybe they'll add it in the next update. I was really considering buying one of these, but now its a wait until next year at least. Maybe USB 3.0 will be around and I'll not have that complaint anymore.

Well, now that I'm not spending that $2000 this summer, might as well buy a Taylor 414CE and put my mid-2007 SR MBP to use with SL and hope HD encoding speeds up with openCL and grand central.

And as for my original iPhone, in 1.5 weeks say hello to iPhone 3Gs. Skype - please make video chat available in your app. Please?

Nice updates all around today, very excited for SL and 3.0, great price cuts on laptop lines.
 
Not happy about the loss of firewire 400 & loss of the ExpressCard slot.

It makes these less useful for at least one "pro" application... digital audio.

We need two firewire busses, and we've lost the option to add one via the expresscard slot.

For performance reasons, our firewire audio interface needs to be on a separate bus than the external firewire drives.

May be able to compromise here.

You need two different busses, that doesn't necessarily mean need two firewire ones. Why does this need to be on a external drive while the external audio device is plugged in? The internal drive bus is 3Gb/s (which is faster than FW800. Jam a ton of memory into the laptop so the OS and programs aren't poking at the disk for application code because it primarily cached.)

For example record audio to the internal hard drive. You can get a 500 GB drive inside one of these laptops now. How many GB do you record in a session?

At a break in the session copy the data off to a external drive as a backup.
(would have to be a "long enough" break to copy, verify and then delete the data on the internal drive. )

Is the blocker the internal hard drive is "too small" and/or bogged down doing other things? Or is the blocker won't have time to copy off to external drive later ( or just simplier workflow and folks hesitant to let you record to your own drive; they supply the drive. ) ?
 
Where did ExpressCard go on MacBook Pro 15"? How am I supposed to stick my ExpressCards in this SDCard reader? What's next, they will remove USBs and replace them with eSATA. May be they have some slot count limitation - if they add one slot then they have to remove some other.
Why there is no SD card reader on 17" MacBook Pro. They couldn't find a place on this tiny machine?
I think that people that designed these machines are retarded! Not less than that.

I agree specially I still have those Verizon V740 wireless card. which use express card. SD card readers are far way cheap than buying a new verizon wireless USB Card. I can even buy an express card to media reader or expresscard hard drive expresscard Tuner and bunch of things than SD reader which doesnt support my Magic gate Sony pro duo or something. Way to go apple
 
2 great moves from Apple in Macbook pro's!
First remove the useless expresscard and put a very usefull SD slot. What is the use of an express card? Let me think... hmm.... maybe to put an 5-1 card reader that can read among others SD cards? But is there any reason for that if you have a absolute dedicated SD reader? Who cares if you have a Sony Camera with memory stick?

And who had the bright idea to reduce the Graphic card memory from 512 to 256 to entry level models? I mean who actually need
512 mb of dedicated memory in graphic card? Completely useless to anyone except if you are a cad/cam user, 3D graphic designer etc etc who probably buy a Mac anyway, so now they have to stuck with share memory. Who cares anyway for gamers or other users?

Hope the new screen at least to worth the money....

Thanks Apple for the help. At least I can sell my 2 month old 2.66 macbook more expensive that i bought it in first place :D
 
I held off and lived with my G4 Powermac a bit longer to get the latest batch, but I also have some serious issues with these releases.

I'm thrilled that Firewire is back on the 13", and am also ecstatic about the price decreases across the board, but some of the omissions and sacrifices are a bit odd to me. Losing the Express 3/4 slot is not too big a deal, but it's one of those port options that offers a lot of expandability for some people, and an SD card reader won't even come close. One of the biggest things to me is the dumping of the full discrete graphics from the lowest end 15". Across the base from 13" to baseline 15", they're essentially Macbook Pros in name alone.

That said, I can't say that I can really complain all that much, as the original base price for the Pro is now the midrange, which has much of what I care about most, save for the Express slot. Overall, I'm a bit torn between the highest end 13" and the lowest 15", as they're essentially the same machine, save for display real estate.

Had this 15" had anything better than the 9400M, I would've gone for that immediately, but I'm looking at a $200 difference for display size alone.

Oh, decisions decisions.

My whining aside, these price drops make me very happy indeed.
 
Aaarrrggg!

I bought my UMBP 2.66 with 4GB RAM and 320GB HDD from BB April 3, got the matte display protector last month and **just** bought the AppleCare last Friday (4th June) and activated it. With tax (7%) I dropped $3,056.98. The exact same config (RAM, HDD and processor speed) is now $2,549.76 or a $507.22 difference!

I may just go sell it and get a new 15" 2.8GHz or even the 17". I know the new MBPs were just introduced hours ago, but what do you think the going rate for my machine would be if I put it in the for sale forum?
 
I just bought a Macbook 13 inch 2 months ago...wish I would have waited...firewire would have been nice...not too mention it's cheaper and faster too. They do need to have Blue Ray, I agree there! I love my Mac though.

same here. i bought an "old" mbp 15" 4GB 2.93Ghz less than a month ago. should i have waited a bit longer to buy this "new" 15" mbp at a cheaper price? :(
 
Thanks Apple for the help. At least I can sell my 2 month old 2.66 macbook more expensive that i bought it in first place :D

Glad to finally see someone else thinking along my line. I'm hoping to do ok on selling my 2.4 uMBP... ;)

Have to since I'm unemployed for the summer...
 
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