Apple Updates MacBooks to Santa Rosa, GMA X3100

[machatch]

The MacBook Pro just got a 2.6GHz upgrade option! This is definitely just a small refresh and I'm expecting something bigger by January or March.

yeah in the next 190 days..then theres a new upgrade..

 

[~David]

Anyone know if iSight has been upgraded in this revision?

 

[Eidorian]

If anyone is going to compare the MacBook to a Dell please compare it against the XPS M1330.

I didn't asked for a faster processor. And I said these small upgrades were welcome. You brought it up by speaking the faster fsb. I said that wouldn't matter. And if you can barely tell the difference in a big render, there is no way you can see it when surfing the web or doing spreadsheets without a stopwatch.

Bottom-line - Selling it with 1Gb instead of 2x512, better speakers and (why not) give away the mini dvi adapters would be better. Maybe for you it's better opening safari in less 0.02 seconds... Happy porn watching for you!

What's up with all the pron watching comments?

I've been nice but I'm close to reporting someone.

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071101102750141

A problem to take seriously, or will be fixed in software?

It's a driver issue. Apple needs to mature their drivers for the GMA X3100.

I still use PINE MAIL...

 

[3282872]

Wow, what the hell happened to this thread, it just seems to be a giant useless pile of trolling. Did the mods all take the day off or what?

The administrators have been alerted.

 

[bchreng]

Sweetness!

Sweetness! This makes the MacBook all the more tempting for me. Anyone know how well the new graphics chip performs?

 

[mrwheet]

We NEED a MAC PRO!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I pretty much never post to this forum, but I couldn't resist.

What's up with a useless speedbump to the Macbook! The Mac Pro desperately needs an upgrade, and I desperately need a new Mac Pro!!!! I heard talk about hardware releases this week, and was dying for a new tower (Penryn-based, etc.), but then this crap comes along...

This is sooooooo lame, Apple.

Yes, yes... I realize we may see one around Nov. 12th... we better, or I'll cut my own head off with a butter knife. The Mac Pro upgrade is waaaaaaaaay past due...

 

[Eidorian]

Okay, I pretty much never post to this forum, but I couldn't resist.

What's up with a useless speedbump to the Macbook! The Mac Pro desperately needs an upgrade, and I desperately need a new Mac Pro!!!! I heard talk about hardware releases this week, and was dying for a new tower (Penryn-based, etc.), but then this crap comes along...

This is sooooooo lame, Apple.

Yes, yes... I realize we may see one around Nov. 12th... we better, or I'll cut my own head off with a butter knife. The Mac Pro upgrade is waaaaaaaaay past due...

It brings the MacBook into 2007?

It's an entirely new platform under Santa Rosa that makes the MacBook more capable and well rounded against other laptops.

 

[MitchC]

Yes, yes... I realize we may see one around Nov. 12th... we better, or I'll cut my own head off with a butter knife. The Mac Pro upgrade is waaaaaaaaay past due...

At least the Pro sports a likable (by my standards) case design...

Mitch

 

[studiomusic]

Quote your sources please... serious talk only with non-troll arguments please...

Could you quote your source for your price comparison? (Dell, 1,024 $ : Inspiron 1420)

And make sure you add the Unlimited version of Vista (unlimited version of Leopard ships with the Macbook).
You also forgot the integrated bluetooth module (included with the mac).
And the remote.
And the webcam.
And the 30 day phone support.
And the media software bundle...

The cheapest I could get is $1,241 for the 2.0 core 2 duo model (without the media software, with 1 year warranty and after the $300 instant rebate).

 

[50548]

Apple won the computing wars ??? Not to Wozniac, they did not.

Honestly, Woz has no clue about markets...he is about creating fancy geeky gadgets, and was pretty good at designing the Apple II...but to follow his advice in terms of how Apple is conducted? Not by a long shot.

 

[machatch]

it's allways nice with upgrade..
info from apple - ".... To enjoy the greatest possible performance for processor-intensive tasks such as video rendering, gaming, and more, you can upgrade the processor in your MacBook Pro from the standard 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo to an even faster 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo."

gaming?

And the 200 gb 7200 rpm are nice but i shoulda bin 250 gb 7200 rpm..
I think they put on the 2.6 just to make a distance beetwen the pro and regular(the mackbook cannabilizem theory....it would be bether if they had waited longer and make a real upgrade with 2.8 penryn and a bether graphics..
but a "quiet" upgrade is bether then nothing i guess..

the question is should we wait for bether macbook pro's ore just hit it?

 

[gnasher729]

I can't tell you about specific sites, but I can warn you against LaCie. This is one of the few things about Apple I dislike, and that is the apparent support for LaCie external HDD's. I have seen numerous, and I mean NUMEROUS, LaCie drives fail. They have to be one of the most unstable HDD manufacturers I have ever experienced.

Personally, I would get a Western Digital drive, making certain if it is an internal drive, such as a slave drive for a Mac Pro, that it is Serial ATA. Otherwise, FireWire 800 is the best way to go for an external drive (and I don't know why Apple seems to be dropping FireWire 800 support for FireWire 400, although at least machines still have "a" FireWire 800 port). I also believe Mac's ship with Western Digital drives.

Western Digital seems fine, Hitachi and Fujitsu probably as well. At www.dabs.co.uk, the Western Digital has eight reviews, all positive, seven from MacBook owners (and one PS3 ), not one Windows laptop. Now what does this say about "I buy a PC because you can't upgrade Macs"? And it seems that everyone buys the Western Digital because it is cheaper.

I got an external USB case, because it was a third of the price of a firewire case, and speed is not critical for me. If you buy an external 500GB disk, that is a different story.

 

[lasuther]

Well, I have my winner here. Way to go, dude ! Macs are cheaper than PCs : this should be a new commercial running on all channels and networks. I wonder why the Apple commercial guys didn't think about this idea already ???

Well, you said you wanted to compare similar hardware. There are $399 PCs too, but the hardware doesn't compare to what you get with a MacBook.

When you actually do the comparison properly with 13.3" widescreen slim and stylish notebooks from Dell and Apple, the Dell is more expensive. The Dell does have other advantages such as more upgradeable options like a optional NVIDIA graphics card. Its not that surprising, you just have to know what you are talking about. And you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[lord patton]

Has this been said before... probably, didn't read the thread. Still,

Apple is charging $850 to upgrade to 4 GB of RAM. The same upgrade can be had from OWC (macsales.com) for 159.99.

That's a teeny tiny difference.

Oh, and what's with the combo drive? This is 2007, yes?

 

[phalewhale]

Just another moan about the basic MB

I realise many other have said this before but it's the first thing I thought of when I saw the RSS feed pop into mail...

Why oh why are Apple still offering the Combo on the basic MB model? I just can't believe it! Two and a half years ago I bought the basic 12" iBook with a combo and thought it was a bit stingy back then, but acceptable.

To still offer this now stinks nowadays to be fair.

 

[milo]

What's up with a useless speedbump to the Macbook!

"useless speedbump"? Isn't that an oxymoron?

Or is this the sad but common internet notion of Anything That Doesn't Help Me is Useless?

You also forgot the integrated bluetooth module (included with the mac).
And the remote.
And the webcam.
And the 30 day phone support.
And the media software bundle...

It depends how you look at it...the flipside is that on the Dell you have the option of leaving those off and saving the money if you don't need them. On the mac side, there's much less flexibility in configuration so you may get stuck paying for features you'll never use.


And I have to add yet another to the WTF combo drive? pile. WTF?

 

[Bassassin]

Sounds like a stupid question but how do I make sure I'm getting the SR chipset on the macbook I order online. I asked a chick on the apple chat website thing and she wouldn't confirm anything. Or are all the macbooks being sold online now coming with SR.

 

[Richmond1958]

I can report that I am just back from the Apple Store at Mall of America in Minnesota. They do have the new units in stock at this store; I checked the Rosedale store as well about 10:30 am, and they did not have any yet (for the benefit of my fellow Minnesotans). They are not out on the sales floor yet and you have to ask for the new version. I suspect they will sell you the prior versions until they run out, and -- no -- the prior versions did not seem to be on sale.

I got the black version (wife insisted). It comes with a photo of the Leopard desktop, and the box contents don't seem to indicate that there is a Leopard upgrade disk to worry about. Salesperson told me that they had just found out about them this morning. BTW, the new chipset was among the features listed on the box label.

 

[julianbc]

I think I might order a black macbook tonight. I am a university student, so I went to the education discount online store. But I thought that the education discount was 10%? They list the black macbooks for 1,399 with the education discount. Why isnt it 1350?

 

[Brianstorm91]

Well, looks I'm back to waiting until January for a proper MacBook update.

 

[gnasher729]

Let's pretend Dell and Apple use the same manufacturers. In this case, I'm doing Apple a favour, since we know it's been using some corean second-rate hardware for years (check the apple cinema display for instance). And also, Apple is known to hide the brand of its hardware. On the contrary, PC manufacturers, especially Dell, practice the glasnost policy. Ever tried to get the brand of your optical drive on your Macbook ? See what i mean then.

"About this Mac", "More Info", and the Mac shows you everything you want to know.

 

[tripwire]

And the 200 gb 7200 rpm are nice but i shoulda bin 250 gb 7200 rpm..
I think they put on the 2.6 just to make a distance beetwen the pro and regular(the mackbook cannabilizem theory....it would be bether if they had waited longer and make a real upgrade with 2.8 penryn and a bether graphics..
but a "quiet" upgrade is bether then nothing i guess..

the question is should we wait for bether macbook pro's ore just hit it?

And who do you suggest Apple buy these 2.5" 250GB 7200 rpm disks from?
MBP with a 2.8Ghz penryn should be out in Jan/Feb.
The 2.6Ghz option for the MBP is just there to boost sales a bit for the Xmas season.

 

[technocoy]

Wow, that made me chuckle lol. Most of the LaCie drives I worked on were Maxtor models (which is now owned by Seagate) and Samsung. Western Digital did manufacture some drives and parts for LaCie years ago, but due to the incorporation of LaCie drive parts found that their drives weren't functioning properly in accordance with their quality standards and broke or refused to renew their contract with LaCie.

Interesting story though (and sorry for your troubles, nothing sucks more than a drive crashing). My photographer friend had his LaCie drive crash a few months ago with all his nieces' wedding photographs on it. I was able to recover 75-80% of the photographs using Data Rescue II and some work, highly recommend that program.

Yeah, I definitely hate maxtor as well... Here's to hoping that Seagate quality goes into maxtor and not the other way around...

That being said (slightly off topic i know) I have to agree on Data Rescue... One of the best recovery apps I have ever seen.

 

[Edot]

Specs are here to stay, dude. They're like facts. You can't beat a fact. Otherwise, you're just another sheep to the Apple herd.

Apparently, you are not understanding my point, so I will clarify it.

A value judgement is comprised of many different factors and subfactors, and each of these factors must be considered when making the judgement. Otherwise, you may over emphasis a factor that when combined with other factors, contributes very little to the overall judgement.

You are trying to make a value judgement about a computer. Specifically whether one computer is more valuable than another.

A computer includes many different factors that need to be considered when forming a conclusion about the value of a computer. Examples include Hardware, operating system, device support, 3rd party software support, maintainence, hardware/software support, etc. Even within these factors are sub factors. Within hardware, the hard disk, memory, processor, etc.

A value judgement or comparision can be assigned to a particular factor by holding all other factors equal and applying a value. After all factors have been assigned a value the total value can be attained and compared with other computers.

Your value judgement is not based on all of the factors that need to be assigned a value concerning a computer. Your value judgement of the hardware is also incomplete since you are not holding all values of other factors constant. For example, if one hard drive is 160GB in capacity, and another is 80 GB in capacity. You assigned a value judgement based soley on the capacity of the drive. However, if the 160 GB drive is faster than the 80 GB, and the 80 GB drive is more reliable, the value judgement may change if I need the fastest drive possible, or the most reliable. A value judgement cannot be assigned properly because the factors necessary in making the judgement have not been considered.

In summary, you failed to include the necessary factors in your value judgement, and you failed to make a proper value judgement on the factors you did include.

Of course making a value judgement about hardware is benefitial and important in making a value judgement about a computer. Nevertheless, without making a proper judgement about the hardware, and without including the other necessary factors that are important to making a value judgement about a computer, the value judgement is rather inaccurate and incomplete.

The main issue is that you have made a value judgement about the hardware (nevermind a poor one) and applied that value judgement to the computer as a whole. This misstep, above the others, leads to your value judgement being inaccurate and potentially misleading.

 

[MacPhilosopher]

Yep...

It is about time that they gave a speed bump change to the MacBook. However, as I said in the previous rumor thread, this was not going to be the complete redesign and overhaul that others were calling for. Generally, these are the kinds of updates that you see in the fall. Wait for late winter or spring for big surprises.