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

[deconstruct60]

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
....

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 think Apple with push folks to "think different" about the express card thing. The tethering problem will probably work out over time. That is really ATT fault. Apple shouldn't rejigger something that makes alot of sense for them just because ATT is screwing their customers. They aren't even rolling out MMS with the other vendors. If Apple drops Express Card and more people by Touches they aren't going to cry about that. ATT has USB connect cards also. As long as the mobile network you are connecting to is slower than USB not loosing anything.

The FW flub was bogus because Apple didn't replace it with anything equivalent. If most ExpressCard had SD card readers and "mobile connect modems" in them. Then there is little lost here. A pretty small community.
In contrast, the screw tons of users who had older video cameras by killing off the FW. Zero connectors is a bigger jump than just one.

 

[TESEV]

Count me in as being mad at the loss of the ExpressCard. Makes my "old" UMBP seem more valuable now.

 

[friareunuch]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

So is the RAM and HDD still user replacable?

B

seconded

 

[bloodycape]

I don't get it the HP Mini 2140 has both an express card slot and a SD card slot and that is a bloody nebook. Yet apples 13in heck even 15in pro models are not going to have it? I find this to be wrong.

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

This was the best part of the keynote. 15" MBP looks amazing!


Apple completely missed the mark on the iPhone.

 

[jviphone]

All those that want Bluray

WHy? what is the point having bluray on a 15" laptop that doesnt support the screen resolution 1080p that would take the most advantage of bluray, your better off ripping or re-encoding a bluray movie and putting it on your hd for when you are traveling, who wants to carry around 3 bluray discs, when you can reencode them at the highest quality and put them on your hd, there is a reason that mac isnt going to bluray and that is cause the future is digital media not discs of any kind..

Good job my apple all around on this update, cheaper prices to compete with those stupid im a pc shopping commercials, and sd card is more useful to certain people then a express card slot, im a graphic designer and photographer and my nikon's use sd cards so in this case it works for me, im interested to see what that the screen upgrade was is it oled screen, it says the new 15" uses the best screen they have ever offered so that will be interesting..

 

[jablko]

Sigh

No ExpressCard? No E-SATA? Still uber-glossy?

The only MBP that deserves the "P" now is the 17-inch version, and that only because they didn't update it today. While the 17-inch is still about the same weight as most 15-inch laptops, it's still big enough and heavy enough you think twice before taking it with you.

As much as I love my current MBP, in a year when I'm ready to upgrade, I think it will be a PC. If only they'd license Snow Leopard for use on other hardware.

 

[chabig]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

So is the RAM and HDD still user replacable?

B

Of course.

 

[Hattig]

I think that overall, it is a good refresh - mostly with the 13" gaining FW800 and an SD card slot whilst losing $100, and a slight downer of losing the ExpressCard on the 15" models. Nothing wrong with the base 15" model. Nothing wrong with a 7 hour battery that will last 3x as long.

 

[chabig]

So they got firewire back on the smaller one, but the 15-inch lost the express slot and now has just 1 firewire slot and no way possible to expand that now.

Firewire devices can be daisychained, so one port is plenty.

I was just on a conference call this morning about a shoot next week, and we need to take a fw400 cable from a camera, to the mac, and write off to a a firewire 800 drive.

Run the cable from the camera, to the drive, to the Mac. Problem easily solved.

 

[L0s7man]

future is digital media not discs of any kind..

Really? Let's see... Blue-ray=50GB; Blue-ray rip=10-16GB for good quality (and still lower than BR proper). HDD=320GB 7200RPM (or heck go for 500, doesn't make much difference).

320/10 = 32. In case of hardware failure, 0.

And hardware failures DO happen. Of course you can set up a backup solution with 3 layers of redundancy in your attic ;-) But simply storing this much data on a small piece of plastic REALLY MAKES SENSE.

As for screen res -> BR downscaled to 1440x900 will look mighty good compared to DVD upscaled to 1440x900!

;-)

 

[hvfsl]

WHy? what is the point having bluray on a 15" laptop that doesnt support the screen resolution 1080p that would take the most advantage of bluray, your better off ripping or re-encoding a bluray movie and putting it on your hd for when you are traveling, who wants to carry around 3 bluray discs, when you can reencode them at the highest quality and put them on your hd, there is a reason that mac isnt going to bluray and that is cause the future is digital media not discs of any kind..

Good job my apple all around on this update, cheaper prices to compete with those stupid im a pc shopping commercials, and sd card is more useful to certain people then a express card slot, im a graphic designer and photographer and my nikon's use sd cards so in this case it works for me, im interested to see what that the screen upgrade was is it oled screen, it says the new 15" uses the best screen they have ever offered so that will be interesting..

Who wants to spend hours encoding when you can just put a disc in. The point of having BluRay on the Mac is you only need to have one version of a movie.

 

[MH01]

Compact Falsh

My thoughts exactly. CF is the Pro format not SD.

Apple should have put SD on MacBooks and CF on MacBook Pros.

Its a shame they got rid of the express card, and replaced with with just a SD slot. As you said, when it comes to the Pro range of cameras they use CF. Not to mention sonys and Olympus etc that do not use SD. For some people this SD reader is going to be completely useless.

They should have dropped the "Pro", and called it the Macbook line.

At least it seems the Microsoft ads are working, prices are getting cheaper . Just wish apple did not think they had to remove functionality from the range, its not like there is no space.

 

[deconstruct60]

Across the base from 13" to baseline 15", they're essentially Macbook Pros in name alone.

Going back in time the "Powerbook" line was mostly distinguished on being Titanium/Aluminum versus the plastic of the lower end line.
This is somewhat just going back to that. Remember the smaller 12 (?) Powerbook was missing lots of slots and features to. Smaller was the feature.

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.

The keyboards are the same size ( hard to tell from Apple's website).
The other very curious thing is how these specific two models could both offer 7 hours in battery time. The 15 is bigger. Supposedly the "sealed battery" tech allows Apple to use more internal space so the battery should be better in the 15 ... or else there is just more empty internal space in the 15". I wouldn't be surprised if it is the slower 13 inch model that gets 7 hours and the faster one doesn't.

There is a weight differnce tradeoff too if that matters.

 

[ericinboston]

Apple needs to start offering Blu-Ray on their laptops and desktops. this is freaking ridiculous how long it is taking them to support the format.

They don't even have to offer models which burn BD discs, they can offer BD reading superdrives, and offer BD burning as an option.

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

 

[The Captain]

Firewire devices can be daisychained, so one port is plenty.



Run the cable from the camera, to the drive, to the Mac. Problem easily solved.

Thanks but, you can not daisy chain video devices. The camera (or deck) and the drives must be on separate busses. You will get dropouts and video underruns if the video signal goes through another device on the way to the computer for encoding/writing. This is nothing new, and apple should be well aware of it.

 

[celtikmind]

Of course.

Proof?

 

[L0s7man]

Why is BR needed on any laptop these days? Yes, seriously...why?

Because I'm a student, I have a 23" full HD, amazingly good lcd screen and a laptop. Don't you think it would be kind of useful?

Also, there are many many many many students who buy macs. They don't have big plasma screens and blue ray players in their dorms...

 

[UTclassof89]

they lost me at "glossy display".

 

[youpey]

i bought my unibody mbp (described in sig) on dec31, and was really worried my mbp being wayyy out of date with the next update. seeing this update i dont feel so bad.
i bought the 2k one, and comparing the 2k one now, the only difference is the ram update, which i did afterwards and a slight processor update.

i dont feel as bad, as even though there is technically a price drop, there really isnt one. the "cheap" mbp is nothing more the a relabeled macbook. it doesnt have the option to get the 9600gt, which i think kind of stinks.

when i bought my mbp, i had trouble deciding between the macbook and the mbp because i wanted the 13" screen, but i wanted the 9600gt video. i would have been sad if they made that because that was exactly what wanted. i ended up with the pro, i figured the weight difference wasnt a big deal.

anyway, i hope i never have to see the stupid laptop hunters commercials since they dont make sense anymore

 

[MH01]

WHy? what is the point having bluray on a 15" laptop that doesnt support the screen resolution 1080p that would take the most advantage of bluray, your better off ripping or re-encoding a bluray movie and putting it on your hd for when you are traveling, who wants to carry around 3 bluray discs, when you can reencode them at the highest quality and put them on your hd, there is a reason that mac isnt going to bluray and that is cause the future is digital media not discs of any kind..

Good job my apple all around on this update, cheaper prices to compete with those stupid im a pc shopping commercials, and sd card is more useful to certain people then a express card slot, im a graphic designer and photographer and my nikon's use sd cards so in this case it works for me, im interested to see what that the screen upgrade was is it oled screen, it says the new 15" uses the best screen they have ever offered so that will be interesting..

Brilliant idea, and how are you going to rip that BR without a drive?

Just cause the 15" does not play at 1080p does not mean that you cannot use an external display.

 

[momoz88]

Express card gone

I am really annoyed about the removal of the express card. I do not know what is happening to apple, removing features from their products?

 

[pedrofan]

I'm still waiting for the numpad on the 17'' macbook pro, How can you call pro a computer without number pad?? Real professionals use programs with lots of number entries!!
I'm still waiting for quad proccessor qx9300 17'' macbook pro All other brands already have it.
I'm still waiting for quadro fx graphic cards or gtx graphic cards buying a 2500€-3500€ notebook with a nvidia 9600 gpu IS A JOKE
I'm still waiting for BlueRay

CONCLUSIONS - I'm not going to wait anymore. I'm, going to buy a dell m6400 covet. THAT IS A REAL PRO NOTEBOOK, NOT THIS.

 

[grapefruitx]

Small steps in the right direction, on price at least But there is still a credibility gap, if Apple wants to use the pro moniker then an arsenal of connectivity options is needed and matte screens otherwise these are just really re-branded rather than re engineered macbooks

 

[mixel]

blue ray is fail.. why does everyone want it so badly you can still use blueray data right?

Well, What'd be wrong with the option? lots of other laptops have BD support now.

I dont get how so many people make the leap from "i dont need this feature" to "that feature is useless" - I'm sure many people would enjoy BD support, even if it's just a bto option.