Apple Releases New MacBooks

[Mydel]

Do you guys own PBs or MBPs? If so have yours not spontaniously dinged? They look fabulous I'll testify, that half the reason I got it over an iBook. But to say the case is perfect. lol. lol......

had PB and never had any dent 😀 , now Im using university MBP and after 6 months still not a scratch..But maybe Im overprotective. All my electronics looks like new. even my imac G5 looks like just came out of the box....😱

 

[DTphonehome]

Oh bitch, bitch, bitch 🙄

 

[zioxide]

No, you are wrong. They are under an obligation to make sure that their share holders make the most ammount of money possible. Steve Jobs is employed by ever apple share holder, and his job is to make money for them. That is, their one and only obligation is to make the company make as big winnings as possible. If that includes making you happy then so be it, but that is not their business object.

Oh and by the way, this goes for any company.

And if the customers don't buy their products because they aren't satisfied, then they won't make any money.

 

[macenforcer]

No I dont think you understand. Computers and gadgets are the first thing in the history of mankind that can be said to be amazing based on features one month and ****** the next. By the same person. Just two centuries ago it was amazing if things changed at all! EVER! Then it was cool when your car got an update every couple years or when a new gadget came out. No one ever cared from a nearly week to week standpoint what was in something. If they had bumped to SR now. At WWDC people would have been asking for more. Then come Xmas, what are they supposed to bump? There is nothing coming out until next Spring. This is def. smart. Give a bit more. Clear the stocks. Stagger the less than luster amount of updates untill next year. You can't redesign the case for LEDs, you just came out with a new computer. You update to SR in the fall or sooner if stocks fall enough. Update early next yr to LED. Then soon after to Penyrn. That seems healthy. Waiting almost a year from now to update to LEDs doesnt seem as healthy. Plus they could potentially have a huge stock of Socket M CPUs on their hand (which wouldnt be a problem if they had as large as product diversifications as other companies. But they only have two portable lines, so...)

It clearly wouldnt make any business sense to upgrade to SR now.

AND BLURAY AND OLED!?!?!?!

First of all most companies barely have LED ought. OLED has only been shown for like one or two PROTOTYPES. No where close to market ready and you wanted them to put them in their base computer? And Blu-ray doesnt fit in a computer this thickness. If you didnt realize they are big and also need a good graphics card. They are only showing up on high-end 15/17" multimedia laptops. Which the macbook is not. Thinking Blu-Ray and OLED are deserving of the macbook merely proves how little you really know about the situation here.

Like I said. You don't understand. At all obviously.

 

[chas0001]

It's wrong there, but once you select (to buy) them the specs are OK.

Oh, and it's not Spain and Netherlands, it's ALL the Apple Stores that work with Euros 🙄

Edit: I guess most Europe has it wrong because the Swiss one is wrong too, and South Korea, and Norway...

Must be all the non English stores that are wrong.... US/UK/AU are fine. Perhaps it takes them longer to translate the digits. 😀

 

[jaw04005]

As for longer brightness life... I have yet to experience a loss in brightness in any LCD I've owned so far so I stand by my comment: What's all the fuss about?

How long have you owned LCDs? Every LCD I have purchased from the original Apple LCD (Purple/1998) to my current Intel CD iMac has lost "some" brightness. After all, the backlighting is essentially a fluorescent bulb. It's the nature of the techonology.

Maybe you're not light sensitive, but LCDs do lose some brightness (around 20 or so percent) over their use period.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

I think overall the MacBook offers very good value for money interms of hardware and software but I do believe that the Macbook should have had a graphics bump from the GMA 950 to the newer (and faster) x3000 intergrated graphics set. Considering most similar speced laptops are now shipping with the x3000.

 

[heffeque]

Must be all the non English stores that are wrong.... US/UK/AU are fine. Perhaps it takes them longer to translate the digits. 😀

Japan and Singapore have things sorted out so it must be something else. I wonder... Apple didn't use to make these kinds of errors :-S What's with the web being down several times and then most of the Apple Stores having the data wrong? Each day I find that the iPhone and the AppleTV are to blame. Make good computer and operating systems and leave the other stuff as secondary PLEASE! :-/

 

[Lord Blackadder]

I voted positive on this one - I'm grumbling somewhat about Apple's conservative hardware choice, but I think the Macbook is still a solid machine. Would I buy one? Yes, but not as my only machine...I need a Mac Pro first. 😉

 

[heffeque]

I think overall the MacBook offers very good value for money interms of hardware and software but I do believe that the Macbook should have had a graphics bump from the GMA 950 to the newer (and faster) x3000 intergrated graphics set. Considering most similar speced laptops are now shipping with the x3000.

I wrote this in AppleInsider. I hope it helps here too:

I see that there's a lot of people that are failing to see a lot of what really matters.

First off I'm going to say that I'm pissed off that they've done a bump on the MB because that means that we won't see no SR in it until... October? November? But second off I'm going to say: it's the logical thing to do because the MB is still not ready for the SR.

Why is SR important? Well people seem to see one reason for it: the X3100.

Well it is an important move, but I'll explain why they haven't put it yet on MB.
It's a much better chip than the one there's now and yet it costs 4 dollars (seriously, it costs 4 dollars).
The problem is that there are no serious drivers for it.
There are barely any serious drivers for it for Windows so I'm sure that Intel doesn't have any good ones for Apple yet either.
It's a lot easier to wait 'till Intel makes some decent ones and integrate them in Leopard and that's it.

Easier for Intel and easier for Apple. It's a win win for them.

And then there's another thing, people already know that the speed bump to SR is minimum but most people don't know this: although the SR is juuuust a little bit more power consuming when on load than the present Centrinos because it runs at a bit higher speed... it consumes a lot less when not on load because of two main reasons:
The CPU can get downclocked even lower than todays CPUs and can go into deeper sleep levels.
And second, because the motherboard can half it's speed to lower consumption when not in use, something that today's Centrino's motherboards can't do. Today's Centrino's motherboards always work at full speed, and that's something that isn't very power saving, is it.

So that means that for browsing the internet, chatting, watching DVDs, etc were the CPU load is low, the battery use will be lower, and if you add into that the LED display... I'm sure that you'll get a very very decent battery life. Too bad that the LED display is coming late on the MBs.

Why is it ok for the MBPs to have the SR earlier? There aren't any driver problems since MBPs don't use integrated graphics and Apple can justify MB->MBP overprice easily.

And now what a lot of people are waiting for: ==> When is Apple going to construct a MB version that's between MBs and MBPs? I don't need the fancy graphics of the MBPs but I do need a bigger screen than 13". A lower MBP configuration? A larger (not faster) MB version? It would make a lot of our lives easier 😛

 

[penguy]

I agree it needs an update, but its not even close to 2 years. It be about 1 year and 4-5months...but since it got updated in Sept 06, its more like 9 month. Still a long time, but far more reasonable then 2 years!

hard to call the Sept refresh 'an update'. As has been stated, the box is 2.5 years old, the Mini is the only apple which still uses the CD processor... I love my G4 mini, but have wanted to upgrade for some time...I was hoping for at least a C2D and a BTO with a dedicated graphics card (though the 950 is MUCH better than many of you seem to believe). If you can build a MBP w/ a dedicated card, you can make it work in a Mini.

 

[MonkeyClaw]

Yeah having owned a Powerbook. The think dents like crazy. I find it a huge problem. And it is an old mantra that iBooks had better range than PBs cause of the metal case. But you are def. right. They aren't updating them like they used to. I just thinked their design team isn't the same as it used to be. I mean I love how the PB/MBP looks.... well when its not dinged. Which means it looks great for about a month.




Do you guys own PBs or MBPs? If so have yours not spontaniously dinged? They look fabulous I'll testify, that half the reason I got it over an iBook. But to say the case is perfect. lol. lol......

I dunno, I've had my PowerBook for 2 and a half years and it doesnt have a single ding in it. I think it has one scratch and thats at the latch and its half a centimetre. Ive had a smirnoff (bitch beer, nasty ****) spilled all over it, and Ive had an external iSight fall from a metre and a half straight on the keyboard where it bounced and landed square on the pad and case.

This thing works great, even still. Now when the iSight fell, it snapped off 3 keys but they just snap right back on. But other than that, no scratches or dings at all. And even though I had a bitch beer spilled all over it, no corrosion nor any functional issues have arrised.

And I take this thing with me everywhere, now granted its in a sleeve when I put it in my backpack but still, I think the case is pretty damn awesome. Now I say that not to dismiss any other persons issues with the design, but I bring it up simply to say that while some have issues, it might not be the majority. I have found that people are much much much more vocal about failures and problems rather than sucesses.

But I am looking forward to an updated design if anything just to see what they come up with 😀



As for the updates, I think they are perfect. I have found more and more and more often that Mac users especially on these rumor forums get caught up in ideas and theories and when reality happens, people always complain and whine. Apple is a company. They aren't your friend, they aren't this personal little buddy that is always there to help you, they are a business with a primary goal to make money.

Now they make awesome products, I personally own 8 Macs (From an Apple II to a Mac Pro), a display, an iSight, 2 iPods, etc etc etc. I love Apple products just as much as the next person, but I also realize that they are trying to make money. So when they make a business decision that will make money but doesnt quite fall in line with overly optimistic rumors, I don't complain and whine because reality and the world of rumors it seems rarely meet.

So with these updates, they make business sense. They extend the update life of the MacBook by saving hardware updates to space them out over the course of the year, they upgrade speed with no price increase, and they provide differences between the consumer line and the professional line.

Yea they could be cheaper for what you get but then again, you get a lot of software benefits in addition to solid hardware. Also, Apple is a small company with a small user base (though it is growing). When you have a small user base, you can't provide as many discounts as other companies.

Also Apple caters to the premium segment much like (sadly I have to refer to the car metaphore) BMW or Mercedes. You pay not only for whats under the hood but also for name and quality. Its a complicated situation that involves more than just specs.

So my basic point is, STOP WHINNING. We all have wishes but reality doesn't always dish us what we want. And in the case of Apple, this isn't your friend, this isn't your little buddy or a parent that gives you things, its a company with a goal to produce profit.


/end rant 😀

 

[Chef Medeski]

I don't own a Mac... When the new MBP comes out, it'll be my first Mac. Does the case get dented easily? Is that what you mean?

Yeah I've had my bottom casing replaced twice and finally I just gave up. Now my corner is so beaten up that it makes a significant indent out of my computer. I could actually put a chain through it and wear it like a necklace. It gets dented faster than a cocky guy's sports car at a Baseball event. And so while the case looks fantastic, its funcitionality...... well lets say there is a reason a lot of companies dont use metal in their cases. Emphasis on A LOT.

 

[hauger]

Wow there's a lot of apologists out here.

I was ready with my wallet in hand today, ready to finally switch to Apple....then came the update. It completely shattered my image of this company.

I could have swallowed buying one today still if the "super drive" DVD burning didn't come at a $200 premium thanks to the required upgrade in Processor speed as well. I could not, however, stomach paying $1449 (Cdn) for what the apologists here refer to as an entry level laptop.

Wanna know why such little tech costs so much? http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?Feed=OBR&Date=20070425&ID=6798556
Apple reported a gross margin of 35.1%. Roughly (assuming it's even), that means that the profit margin on these macbooks works out to about $508.60 (roughly speaking). Forget it. I'll stick to the wonderful world of competitive economics and buy more hardware for cheaper.

And no one dare tell me Mac OS-X is worth a 35.1% premium, that's b*******. All Mac OS is is BSD-based Darwin with a slick interface. Big deal. With KDE 4.0 coming out, I get the same security, better hardware, all without being hit with a 35.1% premium.

So, I'm off to buy an HP, with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core and a Nvidia GeForce Go 6150, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM), 14.1 inch screen, for $899.99.....exactly $549.01 cheaper. I'm thinking I'll probably invest that $550 so that in a bunch of years I'll be able to afford the Apple premium and not care that I'm being ripped off.

 

[Chef Medeski]

had PB and never had any dent 😀 , now Im using university MBP and after 6 months still not a scratch..But maybe Im overprotective. All my electronics looks like new. even my imac G5 looks like just came out of the box....😱

Lucky little ......

Yeah. I try that. Then after I cry my eyes out the night of my first scracth I just start abusing my electronics. Really its a lot like a wife. OHHHH.... I kid ... i kid.

 

[Chef Medeski]

Wow there's a lot of apologists out here.

I was ready with my wallet in hand today, ready to finally switch to Apple....then came the update. It completely shattered my image of this company.

I could have swallowed buying one today still if the "super drive" DVD burning didn't come at a $200 premium thanks to the required upgrade in Processor speed as well. I could not, however, stomach paying $1449 (Cdn) for what the apologists here refer to as an entry level laptop.

Wanna know why such little tech costs so much? http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?Feed=OBR&Date=20070425&ID=6798556
Apple reported a gross margin of 35.1%. Roughly (assuming it's even), that means that the profit margin on these macbooks works out to about $508.60 (roughly speaking). Forget it. I'll stick to the wonderful world of competitive economics and buy more hardware for cheaper.

And no one dare tell me Mac OS-X is worth a 35.1% premium, that's b*******. All Mac OS is is BSD-based Darwin with a slick interface. Big deal. With KDE 4.0 coming out, I get the same security, better hardware, all without being hit with a 35.1% premium.

So, I'm off to buy an HP, with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core and a Nvidia GeForce Go 6150, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM), 14.1 inch screen, for $899.99.....exactly $549.01 cheaper. I'm thinking I'll probably invest that $550 so that in a bunch of years I'll be able to afford the Apple premium and not care that I'm being ripped off.

Well every company has a profit margin. Yes Apple is unglorifying high, but one day they will pettle the peasents off with super-low prices and all with hail the infamous STEVE JOBS!

But yeah until then, basically its mostly overpriced. Just not to the point where you want to vomit. Just enough to cause quiseness, quickly overcome by playing with Expose.

 

[Digital Skunk]

How long have you owned LCDs? Every LCD I have purchased from the original Apple LCD (Purple/1998) to my current Intel CD iMac has lost "some" brightness. After all, the backlighting is essentially a fluorescent bulb. It's the nature of the techonology.

Maybe you're not light sensitive, but LCDs do lose some brightness (around 20 or so percent) over their use period.

I am sorry, I agree with you but I don't think it is that big of a deal. I have a Rev 1 iMac G5 at my school and the last iMac G5 made at my house along with plenty of 23" ACD ASD and the older LCD displays at my photo job, there hasn't been any noticeable change in brightness over the 4 or 5 years that we have owned them. None at my house and none at my job. Maybe your were defective.

 

[Mydel]

Yeah I've had my bottom casing replaced twice and finally I just gave up. Now my corner is so beaten up that it makes a significant indent out of my computer. I could actually put a chain through it and wear it like a necklace. It gets dented faster than a cocky guy's sports car at a Baseball event.

Hehe I dont even wanna ask what do you do with that computer😛 😀 😛

 

[diamond.g]

That said, GMA X3xxx still sucks. At least it has hardware vertex shaders, which might help performance somewhat, but benchmarks today show the X3000 to be barely faster than the GMA950, and the mobile version (the X3100) is clocked substantially slower.

X3100 does not have hardware vertex shaders. It is clocked 100mhz faster than the 950 as well. Read the Intel datasheet sheet here.

 

[Half Glass]

Did you just post your Vista activation code? O_O Hahaha!

#1 I am not buying a PC laptop, this was only for comparison

#2 This was a cut and paste from Dell's site, their part #

But that would be funny!

--HG

 

[JJLT76]

when will these updated MB's be available at stores like Frys. i called and they didnt help much.

 

[lord patton]

And now what a lot of people are waiting for: ==> When is Apple going to construct a MB version that's between MBs and MBPs? I don't need the fancy graphics of the MBPs but I do need a bigger screen than 13". A lower MBP configuration? A larger (not faster) MB version? It would make a lot of our lives easier 😛

They won't do a small MBP until Leopard (res-independence), and so will wait till then for the 15" MB too.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Wow there's a lot of apologists out here.

I was ready with my wallet in hand today, ready to finally switch to Apple....then came the update. It completely shattered my image of this company.

I could have swallowed buying one today still if the "super drive" DVD burning didn't come at a $200 premium thanks to the required upgrade in Processor speed as well. I could not, however, stomach paying $1449 (Cdn) for what the apologists here refer to as an entry level laptop.

Wanna know why such little tech costs so much? http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?Feed=OBR&Date=20070425&ID=6798556
Apple reported a gross margin of 35.1%. Roughly (assuming it's even), that means that the profit margin on these macbooks works out to about $508.60 (roughly speaking). Forget it. I'll stick to the wonderful world of competitive economics and buy more hardware for cheaper.

And no one dare tell me Mac OS-X is worth a 35.1% premium, that's b*******. All Mac OS is is BSD-based Darwin with a slick interface. Big deal. With KDE 4.0 coming out, I get the same security, better hardware, all without being hit with a 35.1% premium.

So, I'm off to buy an HP, with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core and a Nvidia GeForce Go 6150, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM), 14.1 inch screen, for $899.99.....exactly $549.01 cheaper. I'm thinking I'll probably invest that $550 so that in a bunch of years I'll be able to afford the Apple premium and not care that I'm being ripped off.

I am glad that I am not that much of a hardware nerd to care about specs. I need to run Final Cut Pro Studio, Aperture, Avid Express Pro and a few other apps. All run better on a Mac then any other PC. I am happy that you finally made a decision, is that OS running on your new machine a Linux OS? I hope it is. I tried to like Vista enough to buy a copy and put it on my Intel Macs but every PC nut I know hates it. Truth be told... if I could run Mac OS X on a PC plastic box, I would have bought one a long time ago. Mac OS X isn't worth a 35% premium, the design specs and complete integration however are, and the fact that I am dealing with one company is also a good buy. I am a simple man with a simple life.

p.s. Once you give Mac OS X a real good try, with a plethora of other software and Apple software and see the seamless integration... you will se why people are so fanatic about it.

 

[Undecided]

Wow there's a lot of apologists out here.

I was ready with my wallet in hand today, ready to finally switch to Apple....then came the update. It completely shattered my image of this company.

I could have swallowed buying one today still if the "super drive" DVD burning didn't come at a $200 premium thanks to the required upgrade in Processor speed as well. I could not, however, stomach paying $1449 (Cdn) for what the apologists here refer to as an entry level laptop.

Wanna know why such little tech costs so much? http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?Feed=OBR&Date=20070425&ID=6798556
Apple reported a gross margin of 35.1%. Roughly (assuming it's even), that means that the profit margin on these macbooks works out to about $508.60 (roughly speaking). Forget it. I'll stick to the wonderful world of competitive economics and buy more hardware for cheaper.

And no one dare tell me Mac OS-X is worth a 35.1% premium, that's b*******. All Mac OS is is BSD-based Darwin with a slick interface. Big deal. With KDE 4.0 coming out, I get the same security, better hardware, all without being hit with a 35.1% premium.

So, I'm off to buy an HP, with an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core and a Nvidia GeForce Go 6150, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM), 14.1 inch screen, for $899.99.....exactly $549.01 cheaper. I'm thinking I'll probably invest that $550 so that in a bunch of years I'll be able to afford the Apple premium and not care that I'm being ripped off.

Wow, you're in for a rude awakening. You're going to mess with Linux on that laptop? Good luck with software and peripherals. Try finding devices with Linux drivers, and good luck with managing the software for those devices. Linux is a nightmare compared to Windows or Mac. Not for you, you say? Then you're not the target market, though unix geeks flock to Macs. I can't recall there ever being MS office for Linux.

About that laptop, does it have a built-in camera? Bluetooth? 802.11n? Powered firewire? Unique Apple goodness, like the Magsafe adapter, scrolling (two finger) trackpad, ambient light sensor, reliable sleep / resume? Are you getting anti-virus, anti-spyware scanners and subscriptions with it? You'll need them. How much does that laptop weigh? Does it come with a software suite as powerful and easy to use as iLife?

The Macbook is a fantastic value. There is nothing on the market for PCs that costs less and has the same or better features and funtionality, and weight.

 

[Rocksaurus]

X3000

Just a note (if it hasn't already been mentioned somewhere in the previous 1000 posts) for everyone really disappointed at the lack of X3000 graphics from Intel (I'll admit I wanted that chip in there)... While the chip *is* out and can be had in some PC laptops, the WINDOWS drivers for it are nowhere near complete. Currently, Windows does not support its Hardware T&L abilities nor its vertex shaders. Full support for all that stuff is planned for "later" in 2007.

If the WINDOWS drivers for this thing aren't complete and fully functional, I don't really see why the OS X drivers should/would be. And if Apple released this spiffier graphics chip but didn't include the MAIN advantages it has over the GMA950 (hardware T&L...), I think you guys would be even MORE upset. Keep in mind all of this is coming from me, someone who hates the GMA950 as much as anyone and wants an update to the Macbook's graphics. My point is, I think it's still just a tad too early. We'll get it next rev. 🙂

Source:
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/intelg965/sb/CS-025665.htm