Apple Releases the MacBook Pro

[bigjohn]

No dual-layer? Come on, in 6 mos everyone will be burning DL.

No new iPod shuffle announcement, but we now know what happened to the cases - they became remotes!

 

[InsiderTravels]

Front Row on a laptop absolutely is not a serious selling point - who in their right mind is going to use it seriously? Jobs' rationale for Front Row on the iMac was that you'd sit on the other side of the room and watch a DVD/listen to music. With a desktop, fine, understandable. But a notebook? A notebook is portable. And even if you are going to sit down and use Front Row on it on the other side of the room, a 15" widescreen isn't exactly perfect.

Umm, there are a multitude of uses for Front Row on a laptop. The most intriguing that comes to mind is for giving presentations. I remember having to give presentations in grad school with my laptop attached to the projector. Every time I wanted to change to the next slide, I had to walk over to the machine and press the space bar to advance. And with iLife '06 and iWork '06 having new capabilities in Keynote and other apps for further integration of all your multimedia projects, there's no reason you couldn't export a presentation as individual slides and/or as Quicktime. This would make it perfect for Front Row with the new remote control.

I realize there have always been RF remote controls that would work with your 'book, but this just takes it a step further. Plus, what about those who attach their 'books to a large external cinema display? I'm sure they'll get great use out of Front Row.

Edit: fixed a typo

Also: I absolutely LOVE the idea of having an iSight built into the laptop. But now knowing that I can't get a DL burner with it, I'll probably wait. Perhaps for Blue-Ray?

 

[nsjoker]

why is everybody so impressed?? they should've gone with 1.8 and 2.0 Ghz :/
it's just another laptop that runs Mac OS. Nothing new or innovative in the entire keynote. Even the casing is the same and there was no price drop in the line... and also only 15.4". While a good screen size, leaving out the 12" will piss a lot of people off. i dunno, i guess i just wanted a badass core duo ibook for $999 and i don't think i'm alone on this one.

 

[macidiot]

Doesn't seem very impressive you would think the intel core duo would smoke the G4 with its specs but, it doesn't. Not impressive at all.

Huh? 4x faster isn't impressive?

 

[DakotaGuy]

I was just over at Acer's website and I see they have introduced a new 4200 model with a 2.16Ghz Core Duo processor. Looks like Apple is going to have to get a speed bump into these things fast if they are going to compete in the Intel world. The race is on and now you don't want to be caught behind because people will wonder why yours is running slower then the same processor in a competitive laptop.

 

[Diatribe]

Let's compare 2 $2,499 laptops shall we:

Apple MacBook:
CPU: Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz
RAM: 1GB
HDD: 100GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA
DVD: Single-Layer RW
Graphics: ATI's X1600 256MB Radeon
Screen: 15.4" (1440x900)
WiFi: b/g
Weight: 5.6lbs
Battery life: ???
Casing: aluminium

Acer TravelMate 8200
CPU: Intel Core Duo 2Ghz
RAM: 2GB
HDD: Seagate 120GB 5400rpm SATA
DVD: Dual-Layer RW
Graphics: ATI's X1600 512MB Radeon
Screen: 15.4" (1366x768?)
WiFi: a/b/g
Weight: 6.6lbs
Battery Life: 6 hours (87W 7800mAH)
Casing: Carbon Fibre


To bump the memory and HDD to match that of the Acer adds $400 - and you still have got as much processing power, graphics memory, dual layer or battery life.

That's quite a premium to run Apple OS / software. No doubt about the quality of Apple, but they can't hide behind platform differences anymore - and they aren't really offering enough flexibility, and bang for the buck.

That basically shows that Apple is waaay overpriced.

 

[autrefois]

Kevin Rose didn't "predict" crap. He had some buddy at Apple tell him about things. Big clues are the fact he got everything right (iPod remote w/ FM tuner? How could he predict a product NOBODY was talking about at all? Too precise a prediction to not be spoon fed.)

I agree that "predict" was the wrong word. He had a better source than everyone else did.

The other clue is that he didn't give this information out sooner. I mean he waits till it's so close to the keynote it doesn't matter anymore... becuase his source didn't tell him until it didn't matter anymore.

So exactly how long before a keynote does information have to be released for it to "matter"? It sure got some attention on here and on spymac and I'm sure elsewhere.

If Kevin had made these predictions a month ago. He'd have Apple legal serving sopenas to find out who his source is. They waited till now because there's less chance of any trouble for the employee.

[He might still be sued.] Obviously someone fed him protected info he shouldn't have had. I don't know if he or his source sat on the information to try to avoid legal troubles. The only point I was trying to make was he was the only one who reported what would be announced before it was. He got an inside source who told him what would be announced. Although the info only came out very late, I think Kevin Rose was this year's ThinkSecret. Whether that's good or not is debatable.

[EDIT: I misread the part about whether or not the poster thought Kevin Rose would get sued.]

 

[Dr. J]

I called Apple to order a Pro a few minutes ago. They told me that the super drive is single layered, and that the battery life is supposed to be 5.5. I wonder why they did not place this info on the web site.

 

[horace]

Two Button Trackpads

So, does anyone know why they didn't add a two button trackpad????

If you have a slightly older (i.e. now obsolete ;-) ) powerbook like mine, you can get a utility called iScroll2 to make your trackpad into a scrolling one. Now for the cool part - if you hold both fingers on the pad when you click the button.................right click.

Genius

No idea if this works with the *genuine* scrolling trackpad

 

[digitalbiker]

MacBook Pro is OK entry but I'll wait!

I have to say looking at the specs of the new macbook pro, that I don't regret recently buying a new 1.67 Powerbook 17".

I agree.

No built in modem
An 85 Watt powerbrick supply
No svideo connector
No TV out
No FW 800
Single layer instead of dual layer DVD support
Apple pro apps aren't even universal binary yet, plus Apple is going to charge pro users an upgrade fee for pro apps even though they are just conversions to x86
.
4X faster is completely hyped. In the performance tests which I am sure Apple is trying to emphasize graphics speed only one app performed at the 4X faster rank. Most are in the 1.5-1.7x faster range.
Rosetta won't even run FCP, and other Apple Pro apps.

How sad!

I'll wait for rev B or C with Merom and more apps available.

My PPC looks pretty good right now.

 

[Maestro64]

No new iPod shuffle announcement, but we now know what happened to the cases - they became remotes!

I think they stop shipping the shuffle last month to save flash memory for the Nanos. Last quarter there was an industry wide shortage of NAND Flash so, apple must have saved what they had to put in the higher profit Nanos.

Everyone thought when the shuffle was not longer available online it was going to be replaced.

 

[Lacero]

So, does anyone know why they didn't add a two button trackpad????

iScroll works by pressing down two fingers on the trackpad and that switches button presses as right-click. You can also scroll web pages the same way by dragging two fingers. Much more elegant solution than have multi-pad buttons.

Here's to the Crazy Ones ​

 

[stevep]

Just realised - Apple got the UK price wrong when their web site first came back on-line after the updates. They originally said £1779. About an hour later it was changed to £1429 !!!
This caught me out, and at least one other (see posts 8, 73 and 77).

It's still too expensive for an Intel laptop - Apple are competing with the big boys now!

 

[thequicksilver]

Umm, there are a multitude of uses for Front Row on a laptop. The most intriguing that comes to mind is for giving presentations. I remember having to give presentations in grad school with my laptop attached to the projector. Every time I wanted to change to the next slide, I had to walk over to the machine and press the space bar to advance. And with iLife '06 and iWork '06 having new capabilities in Keynote and other apps for further integration of all your multimedia projects, there's no reason you couldn't export a presentation as individual slides and/or as Quicktime. This would make it perfect for Front Row with the new remote control.

Ahhh, but that's not Front Row, that's the remote. FWIW, most Bluetooth phones work with this perfectly - I've used my SE T610 with my iBook for this for well over 18 months. The remote's nothing special. You could even have used a wireless mouse and clicked that in mid-air - and you wouldn't have to point any of these at the computer, unlike the remote.

I stand by what I said about it.

 

[Alex Cutter]

• Front Row on a laptop absolutely is not a serious selling point - who in their right mind is going to use it seriously?

I don't know... how about anyone who's ever hooked up external speakers to their PBook to listen to iTunes? And didn't want to have to get up to change songs?

 

[ChrisWright]

Apparently faster, but at what cost?

This is definitely a machine for early adopters with burning wallets!!

It may well be a big performance improvement (if you believe Apple's claims...) but in rushing this machine out ahead of schedule they seem to have binned some useful features and others have gone backwards. At a guess I'd say this is to keep the price of the machine down, though it's still pricey.

These are the main backward steps I can see compared to the PowerBook G4:

Slower SuperDrive lacking dual-layer DVD burning support.
No FireWire 800.
No PC card slot (ExpressCard/34 isn't widely supported yet).
No internal modem (not everywhere has broadband yet).
No sudden motion sensor (not mentioned in tech specs).
No S-Video output (not all video equipment has a DVI input).
Lower resolution display (nearly 9% less pixels).
Clumsy name!

I bought an October revision PowerBook G4 1.67GHz and don't regret not hanging on for these new machines. The G4 is more than fast enough for what I need and the removed/downgraded features are things I'd miss. I'll be waiting until these Intel Macs are much more mature and fuller-featured before I think about upgrading again.

 

[AliensAreFuzzy]

I ordered the 1.83GHz
2x512MB RAM
100GB 7200RPM
256MB X1600

*Drool*

 

[dontmatter]

what's with all the whining!

we KNEW that big advancments would come with some features dissapearing for a while. We knew they would release only some computers immediately in intel form, I'm sorry if the one you were looking for isn't around anymore, but, for that matter, it's been promised to arrive within the year!

And, seriously, would you rather apple redesign the case just because they want something new, but end up with something uglier? Changing because it should keep to some particular schedule invariably means getting rid of good designs for mediocre ones because its' time for something new, and we don't want that. It's still a rocking look.

Oh, and it costs too much. What? 4X the speed of previous PBs, numerous other specs increased, and at the same price. Sure, computers are supposed to always get faster and cheaper, but your not supposed to get 4X at the same price in one jump, and we did. So it will take longer to burn a DVD. And a quarter the time to edit the movie you put on it. Sound like a deal to me.

And, a quick search of dell's site for core duo shows a 17 incher for the same price. So sure, in apple land that would cost 500 more, but the dell's thicker, heavier, uglier. No ilife, no OS X, no isight...

 

[DakotaGuy]

Acer TravelMate 8200
Price: Starting at $1999
CPU: Intel Core Duo 2.0GHz processor (Intel Yonah processor)
Memory: 1 GB (expandable up to 2GB RAM) 533/677
Screen: 15.4" WXGA (1680x1050 pixel resolution)
HD: Seagate 120GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
Video card: ATI Radeon X1600 256MB (256 dedicated while 256MB can be borrowed from main memory)
Optical drive: DVD-Super Multi Double Layer
Camera: Built-in 1.3 Mega pixel camera, with 225-degree swivel ability
Wireless: Intel Pro wireless 3945 a/b/g
Other: Built-in VOIP capability
Ports: 5-in-1 card reader, a connector to Acer ezDock, Acer's PCI-Express based port replicator, an ExpressCard slot, a PC Card slot, 4 USB 2.0 ports, DVI-D port, SmartCard slot, IEEE 1394 port; External Display (VGA) port, Fast Infrared port; S-video/TV-out port, Headphones/speaker/line-out port with S/PDIF support, Microphone/line-in jack, Ethernet (RJ-45) port; Modem (RJ-11) port
Weight: 6.6lbs
Bling: Carbon Fiber finish lid

So stacking this up against the $1999 MacBook, the Acer comes out ahead in terms of processor speed (2.0 vs. 1.67 GHz), RAM (1 GB vs. 512 MB), hard drive space (120 vs. 80 GB), video card memory (256 vs. 128 MB), wireless capability (802.11a availability). The Acer has 2 more USB 2.0 ports, a 5-in-1 card reader, a few more TV-out options, and a few more notebook card options. A modem is a $50 add on item for the MacBook. The Acer has a higher resolution screen, but it loses on weight (6.6 vs. 5.6 lbs.).

If we take the higher end MacBook, and try to even the specs, you can get equivalent RAM, video card RAM, and HD space, and be a little closer to equivalent processor speed through Apple for $2599. Or you could get the $1999 MacBook, go to your favorite computer parts store and pick up an extra 512MB RAM stick and a 120 GB notebook drive for about $350, in which case you are still a little short in the CPU and video RAM areas.

So which gives you more value for your money? I would still vote for the 15" MacBook. Why? Because the MacBook runs OS X instead of crappy Windows, and is lighter, which is important for those of us who actually travel with a notebook.

As far as battery life goes, Anandtech recently benchmarked an ASUS Core Duo notebook, and found that battery life was pretty good. I won't repeat all of their findings, but office/productivity tests gave a battery life of about 230 minutes, while DVD playing gave a battery life of 192 minutes. Now this notebook has a 12.1" screen, so there's a good chance that the 15" MacBook will probably not be as good in the battery life area. On the other hand, the Acer TravelMate 8200 claims a battery life of 3.5 hours, so I guess we'll just have to see what happens.

It will be interesting to see what happens on the desktop side. No Core Duo desktop other than the new iMac has been announced so far. The closest would be the few Pentium M based desktops, but they seem to carry a price premium compared to other Intel based desktops. And Pentium D desktops have not been out for that long.

Based on the (admittedly very few) current Core Duo notebook offerings out there so far, I think the best product that will come out of the migration to Intel will be the MacBook that replaces the current 12" PowerBook. The ASUS COre Duo mentioned above has a 12" screen, but the current crop of Sony notebooks include a model with a 13.3" widescreen display, which is the screen I would like to see.

Now just wait until someone finds a way to hack OSX to run on that Acer and not a lot of people are going to buy the MacBook Pro. I wonder what Apple has done to prevent this from happening? What is the show stopper from putting OSX on this Acer? Looks like the same laptop to me "inside anyhow"

 

[iSee]

no firewire 800 support means my backups take a century instead of a week....i regularly back up my music collection which is over 300 gb..

Wow! Well, if you can afford to buy that many songs, you can probably afford an ExpressCard FW800 port for your Macbook. Let's see, at 4MB per song, that around $75,000 in music!

And with 300GB of music to carry around, you're going to need one of those 8 lb. iPods

 

[thequicksilver]

I don't know... how about anyone who's ever hooked up external speakers to their PBook to listen to iTunes? And didn't want to have to get up to change songs?

My laptop's a portable machine. I use it where I am, not where I'm not, and if I'm listening to music with me, it's within a metre or two of me. I can't believe that I'm atypical in this - the portability is the biggest joy about a notebook - it goes where you want to, and you don't have to go where it is.

Also, having used Front Row, navigating music with it is torturous. Getting from 808 State at the top of my list to, say, Underworld takes too long. If I left it playing music elsewhere, I'd rather get up and change it frankly, it's quicker.

 

[50548]

This is definitely a machine for early adopters with burning wallets!!

It may well be a big performance improvement (if you believe Apple's claims...) but in rushing this machine out ahead of schedule they seem to have binned some useful features and others have gone backwards. At a guess I'd say this is to keep the price of the machine down, though it's still pricey.

These are the main backward steps I can see compared to the PowerBook G4:

Slower SuperDrive lacking dual-layer DVD burning support.
No FireWire 800.
No PC card slot (ExpressCard/34 isn't widely supported yet).
No internal modem (not everywhere has broadband yet).
No sudden motion sensor (not mentioned in tech specs).
No S-Video output (not all video equipment has a DVI input).
Lower resolution display (nearly 9% less pixels).
Clumsy name!

I bought an October revision PowerBook G4 1.67GHz and don't regret not hanging on for these new machines. The G4 is more than fast enough for what I need and the removed/downgraded features are things I'd miss. I'll be waiting until these Intel Macs are much more mature and fuller-featured before I think about upgrading again.

THERE IS sudden motion sensor, ma boy...just see the keynote again. PC cards are gonna be obsolete in no time, just as the floppy...Apple is always at the forefront of adoption...Firewire 800 is a minor loss, because 400 is there...everything else you mentioned is crap. The MacBook is THE notebook for the whole market, and no PC equivalent is, well, equivalent.

Just the jump in speed was already worth it, but much brighter displays and great GPU are the cherry on the icecream...too bad I can't buy one now...APPLE RULES!

 

[~Shard~]

Talk about a major update! I’m quite impressed with what Apple has done with this new “PowerBook” in terms of the graphics, memory (1 GB!), as well as the HD capacity and speed. And then of course there is the built in iSight as well – very cool!

So, will this update finally silence all those “PowerBook G5!!!” whiners?

 

[Stella]

I'd take the Acer, really. The Acer has much more value for the same price.

Apple must compete on hardware specs - its so much more visible.

And so what if one runs OSX, and Windows - its really no excuse for Apple to add on a premium ( which they have done ).

Let's compare 2 $2,499 laptops shall we:

Apple MacBook:
CPU: Intel Core Duo 1.83Ghz
RAM: 1GB
HDD: 100GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA
DVD: Single-Layer RW
Graphics: ATI's X1600 256MB Radeon
Screen: 15.4" (1440x900)
WiFi: b/g
Weight: 5.6lbs
Battery life: ???
Casing: aluminium

Acer TravelMate 8200
CPU: Intel Core Duo 2Ghz
RAM: 2GB
HDD: Seagate 120GB 5400rpm SATA
DVD: Dual-Layer RW
Graphics: ATI's X1600 512MB Radeon
Screen: 15.4" (1366x768?)
WiFi: a/b/g
Weight: 6.6lbs
Battery Life: 6 hours (87W 7800mAH)
Casing: Carbon Fibre

Oh yes, right on. Apple needed to do something with the PowerBooks and its a step in the right direction. But comparing against the competition, its over priced.

( if I didn't know what the competitors prices were, I'd say the price was good ).

I think this version of the MacBook is just a stopgap until the Merom cpu comes out later this year, then we will see a complete redesign of the Macbook in usual Apple style.

 

[iN8]

I think this version of the MacBook is just a stopgap until the Merom cpu comes out later this year, then we will see a complete redesign of the Macbook in usual Apple style.