Buy MBP Now or Wait

[ADAADW]

I would predict a few things...

- Update in the Jan/Feb time period
- Definite upgrade to 250gb HD
- New MagSafe adaptor (new direction to the new adaptor used with MBA and MB)
- Speed bump

- Hoping for 4gb of ram standard


but remember this is a "mobile" event so this new tablet will be taking center stage, but the fact that there is going to be a media event of any kind means there is going to be some kind of update to some of there mobile units.

 

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The embargo is up for news and reviews on Intel's new Arrandale mobile processors. Arrandale represents the 32-nm die shrink of the Nehalem processors and will represent the first Nehalem processors that are usable in a laptops such as the MacBook Pro. These new chips also offer improved integrated graphics on the same chip. While there was some unconfirmed talk that Apple may skip this generation of chips, they remain the best option to upgrade the MacBook Pro.

Anandtech provides an overview of the newly announced chips which run as fast as 2.66GHz (Dual Core) as a base speed with Turbo speeds as high as 3.33GHz. Direct comparisons of the 2.53GHz Arrandale and the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo currently used in the MacBook Pro showed notable improvements at the same clock speed:

The performance advantage was even more impressive for Cinebench (38-43%) and x264 HD encoding (26-45%), along with notable improvements in the integrated graphics performance. Anandtech found battery life to be on-par with the current Core 2 Duos, but this is expected to improve with later generations of Arrandale. In conclusion:Apple is, of course, expected to use these processors in their next generation MacBook Pros, though the exact timeframe for the adoption remains unknown.

Article Link: Intel Arrandale Benchmarks Show Major Improvements for Notebooks

Speed bump? A lot more.