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Confirmation of Fixed 17" MacBook Pro Battery, Mac Mini with Firewire

Take a step back and let me tell you why these are not bad things.

1. An external battery is advantageous to the strength and weight of the device, they can shove battery in every nook and cranny. Everyone wants more hours on there laptop and if this is the way to do it without lugging around spares then i say go for it.

2. Apple is going after the vast majority of people who use only one battery. Anyone who uses one spare would probably prefer longer battery life.

3. If you tell me you are a professional who uses 3 or 4 batteries I'd like to know where you work. I do a few outdoor events in my profession and guess what the first thing we get going is....power and then a big table for laptops and paperwork! Even at starbucks you can find a power port.

4. Oh noes my apple store is far away! Guess what, your battery should not fail for 400+ charges. The laptop I'm typing on has 460 charges and 98 percent of original capacity. When it does eventually fail you will be able to replace your battery with a humble screwdriver. I think the air only needs a dozen screws. Even if that is too much apple will do it on the spot for you or I'm sure they can arrange to have your computer sent in.

5. Changing is hard, but if you ever want design to advance you have to be willing to make a leap of faith.

6. Some guy is already designing an external power brick that you can charge to charge your macbook pro in the field. It will be the same size as a normal battery which means your sweet axiom backpack, with room for 4 laptops and a bazillion batteries, all of which you need on a daily basis, can keep their place.
 
infernohellion said:
Airplane? Most long-haul flights now have power points in all seats anyway.
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I think you might want to take a look at SeatGuru.com before you spout off on something you clearly know nothing about. The vast majority of airlines, so far, do NOT have power points at all seats.
 
thelairster said:
Some guy is already designing an external power brick that you can charge to charge your macbook pro in the field. It will be the same size as a normal battery which means your sweet axiom backpack, with room for 4 laptops and a bazillion batteries, all of which you need on a daily basis, can keep their place.
Click to expand...

And that guy can never sell it, because the MagSafe patent has not been licensed to anyone by Apple.

Apple has exclusivity on MagSafe, and since selling an external pack would be admitting a design flaw in the 17", anyone want to place odds on them selling one?
 
I call BS.

1. They are moving away from Mini DVI. Its a dumb standard. MDP is much better. Why not a MDP and a full DVI port for backwards compatibility. Or at least 2 MDP's and a MDP - DVI connector.

2. Five USB ports is stupid. The iMac only has 3 (4 if you count the 2 on the keyboard, minus the one the keyboard is occupying). The Mac Pro is the only Mac with 5 USB ports. OEM's fill up their **** with 20 USB ports because Intel pay them, Apple is above that.

I'm not bothered about the integrated battery. It's a 17" notebook, no one of sound mind travels with it, and if it has 10+ hours battery life, where is the issue?
 
For the overcrowded outlet people at the airport, I never leave home without my outlet expander (2 dollars at home depot) and a thin 6ft cord (to get further away from the 2 chairs that are the closest). Not once did I have someone say no to plugging it in and sharing. Some of them said they were going to do the same. Adds almost no weight to the bag either.
 
kastenbrust said:
what on earth are you on about you fool?? that article has nothing to do with batterygeek whatsoever!
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Sorry, you must admit that the product pictured here:

http://mikegyver.com/IdeasnProducts/extbattery/index.html

looks at a quick glance like the "portable power station" product pictured here:

http://www.batterygeek.net/Batterygeek-net-MacBook-MacBook-Pro-Battery-Packs-s/78.htm

But, at the end of the day, the complaint is the same: No vendor... NO VENDOR ... can manufacture MagSafe connectors. They have not licensed the patent to ANYONE. The only way any third-party can create a MagSafe-based product is by harvesting Apple-manufactured connectors or cables and using them as the basis for their product.

Which seems completely sketchy, no? You'd trust that? Not I, said the dog.
 
A Mac Mini with dual display capabilities - very tasty.:cool:

The lack of dual display capabilities is what put me off buying a Mac Mini and which resulted in me buying an iMac instead. If they do put in dual display capabilities then I will gladly sell my iMac and buy one.

It would great if they could fit in a Quad core processor too:p


Art
 
for all the rumours about the mini now i suspect it either will be killed off finally just to piss everybody off getting their hopes up

or it will come with some ridiculous drawbacks
 
proc said:
Predictable but funny :)
Click to expand...

In my experience, I've had four battery replacements PLUS the infamous recall in 2006(?). In each case, I called Apple, and was in receipt of a replacement battery within 48 hours. What's predictable and UNfunny is that things are likely to get harder for all, not just the multiple battery outdoor types.

Hopefully time will prove otherwise.
 
I have a feeling that the 17'' MacBook Pro will not become cheaper with this new supposed battery technology.
 
I wonder if that mini display port would work with HDMI with an adapter? And does it support 7.1 channel audio? I curious what kind of bandwidth it has. It would make a great HTPC.
 
Globetrotter said:
I've had a couple of times where my Ibook froze on the 'screensaver password' on wake 'page', and closing/opening the lid had no effect, nor the power button.

In such a situation, I'd hate to be the owner of a laptop to which you couldn't kill the power supply from both plug and battery.

But, MBA owners already suffer from this, is there a kill all power button?
Click to expand...

This has never happened to me with my MBA.
I believe I could force shutdown by holding the power button for six soconds or something..
 
archer75 said:
I wonder if that mini display port would work with HDMI with an adapter? And does it support 7.1 channel audio? I curious what kind of bandwidth it has. It would make a great HTPC.
Click to expand...

It would make a great htpc, but I've got a horrible feeling that sound isn't passed through.
Standard sound would be ok using the optical out, hardly an elegant one cable solution though - but the bigger issue is with hd sound that's only really served by a proper hdmi connection, no use to a lot of ht fans, not future compatible enough for others (especially for a new product and a standard that's been out for years).

I don't know this for sure, I'm just looking at wikipedia and displayport.org, I'm surprised they didn't push for a single cable solution that covers all areas. I'm sure hdtvs are being used for connectivity more than high res 30"ers.
I've no idea where apples displayport>hdmi cable is, considering how often this cable would/could be used - every new tv has hdmi, they don't all have/properly support vga or dvi.
Cables are simple, cheap to make and provide insane profit margins - another reason it's a pretty strange there's no offering.
 
VoR said:
It would make a great htpc, but I've got a horrible feeling that sound isn't passed through.
Click to expand...

Apple needs to step up to the dreaded Blu-Ray licensing issue and start deploying hardware/software that will allow BD playback; then, it really will make a nice HTPC!
 
Mr.Gadget said:
Apple needs to step up to the dreaded Blu-Ray licensing issue and start deploying hardware/software that will allow BD playback; then, it really will make a nice HTPC!
Click to expand...

I honestly don't think the licensing is as much as an issue as their overall game plan.
Even if they did suddenly allow the drives and software for playback, the issue in my post is that you won't be able to take advantage of all the high bit rate and lossless sound that comes on this format - I happen to think that the sound plays as big or bigger part than the picture itself.

There's also a lot of ht fans on all platforms that aren't limited to one format, don't like the many limitations of original disks and already have blu ray playback through rips and re encodes - which is why the connectivity plays a big part, more so imo than what optical drive is available through the oem and the limited playback allowed by the built in software.
 
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