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

And even video editing isn't CPU intensive. The only CPU intensive thing about these is when you are actually rendering.
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Try editing HD in realtime and using Motion.

I don't think they will boost the Mac Mini price, if anything they will lower the price. In this economy they need to do all they can to keep people switching to macs. a $499 Mac Mini would seal the deal for a lot of potential switchers.
 
lscangus said:
Most of the people who thinks they are "pro" are not reli "pro" If you are reli a "pro" u use a lot of CPU intensive task, liek editing video, audio recording, 3D modeling. I doubt any battery will do any good. AC is your best freind
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battery does me a lot of good, especially in class doing those things not near an outlet. The thinkpads next to me get around 4 hours, my MBP gets 2 at best. It makes a difference in a PORTABLE computer.
 
iParis said:
How in the world would you know this?:rolleyes:
I don't see any reason why or any reason to believe they would raise the price.
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Well... they did for the unibody MacBooks. Maybe they will keep the previous gen mini like the white macbook and raise the cost of the new ones.
 
zap2 said:
Sadly only one of my external HDD has a FW 800 port, the other will go to USB 2.0...not ideal, but something I can deal with, since FW 800 is so much faster
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As far as I know, FW 800 is backwards compatible with FW 400 - you just need an adapter or a 800-to-400 FW cable.

But This looks to be a nice update to the Mini, hopefully we see a 599 price point still
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Will be interesting to see. Wouldn't surprise me if the catch to all of this good news is that the price goes up, just like it did for the new Macbooks.

Either way, the rumored inclusion of FW 800 means I won't have to think about scrambling to get an older mini for my eventual home theater PC. Instead, I can hold off and buy when it makes more sense financially. That's a good thing right now. ;)
 
Non-removable battery on top of the glossy glare-o-matic screens? Apple really doesn't want my money.
 
Slowstick said:
Well... they did for the unibody MacBooks. Maybe they will keep the previous gen mini like the white macbook and raise the cost of the new ones.
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But those got very significant updates. Also, the Mac Mini hasn't gotten even a spec update in a year and a half.
 
Eh, 50% improvement, I don't know about that. So instead of 4.5 hours, it'll last 6.75 hours now? That is admittedly pretty good... but I'd think that pros would prefer to be able to swap batteries even so.

They should definitely offer this in the MBA though, since it's already got a fixed battery design. If they did... I would have a really hard time not buying one!

FW on the Mini is excellent news. Hope it comes true.
 
Yvan256 said:
MacBook:
- iSight built-in
- keyboard built-in
- trackpad built-in

Mac mini:
- webcam requires a USB port
- keyboard requires a USB port
- mouse requires a USB port (not all USB keyboards have USB ports on them)

Seems to me they both have two free USB ports in the end. Anyway, it makes more sense to use a USB hub with a laptop anyway. It allows you to connect a lot of things with only one wire. It doesn't matter much for a desktop computer to have dozens of wires, but it's a lot of clutter for a laptop who has its ports on the sides.

edit: iParis beat me to it.
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Actually, I beat you to it twice.
Once on page four and once on page five.
These people just don't get it, I hate having to repeat myself.
 
iParis said:
But those got very significant updates. Also, the Mac Mini hasn't gotten even a spec update in a year and a half.
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Looks like the Mac mini update is pretty significant. Keep in mind that the old macbooks cost more that the old (well current ones only for a couple days)mac minis. However, with the recession in mind......
 
Slowstick said:
Looks like the Mac mini update is pretty significant. Keep in mind that the old macbooks cost more that the old (well current ones only for a couple days)mac minis. However, with the recession in mind......
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Yep. And and especially since the Mini is the low end Mac.
If the high end Mac Mini was $899 then I would assume many people would just go for a MacBook for $100 more.
 
zap2 said:
And dual display sounds great!(though a Mini DVI port doesn't have me sold, better ship with an adaptor)
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Apples dont ship with adaptors, converters, additional cables etc something about company policy and the way the company wanted to go, there was an interview with the guy who designs the products and he said that, i'll try to find it.
 
iParis said:
Yep. And and especially since the Mini is the low end Mac.
If the high end Mac Mini was $899 then I would assume many people would just go for a MacBook for $100 more.
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Ya your right. And prices of desktops drop rapidly faster that notebook prices. You can get a pretty nice desktop PC for 500 and less. Besides, all the Mac minis in the past have been significantly more expensive than their PC hardware equivalent competition.
 
Dumb move on the part of Apple to fix the battery. Why remove this option for a minimal space gain? People buying a 17 inch don't buy it for ease of portability...
 
Seems the Mac Mini is now becoming a serious Mac computer, if this is true. Great! The pro is just TOO BIG and crazy for most people, and the iMacs are nice but have built in monitor sizes. >.< I'm glad they are working the mini line... it will probably be my next Mac, if they are still around in 4 years or so.
 
Slowstick said:
Can't apple figure out a way to make an extended life battery removable??

Come on... Apple's engineers are smart.
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They may be smart - but when the over all design guidelines appear to be form over function then smart doesn't cut it.

Guess we will know when the announcement is made - if it has a fixed battery and they crow about how thin it is, you know where the priorities lie.

Personally, I don't have an issue with the fixed battery - provided the replacement is as easy as going to an Apple store and buying a replacement battery is now (which is what I do when my current batteries fail) - maybe you have to wait half an hour for the tech to install, but still, not much of an issue.

That said, I also don't see the need to drive a 17" machine as thin as possible - you are playing at the big end, no matter how thin you make it it still has a huge footprint. If you want small and then thin you have that option, if you want screen real estate and professional options, who needs it thinner than the current models - really?

Now, if it had a flexible rollout screen or something, so that when your not using it is much smaller than that 17 inches, then sure, make it as thin as you want ;-)



As an aside, I got a protective cover for my current 15" MBP 12 months ago (I do a lot of work where the case can get bumped by idiots other than myself, so I wanted it to last a bit longer than my last one). I have had the cover off once since I got it, and that was to show someone how easy it was to remove. Other than that the battery stays in, and it lasts fine when I'm working remotely. I expect it to need replacing in the next 12 months or so, but I give it a pretty hard slog in that 18 to 24 months, and I factor it in when I buy the laptop.
 
It looks like rumors are starting to feed upon each other at this point.

IMHO, the MBP 17 inch will have the same form factor and overall design of the MBP 15 inch. So it will have a removable battery.

This seems to be a very emotional and contentious issue.
 
So what happens when laptop batteries start exploding again, requiring a recall, yet all of the MBPs have their batteries built in?
 
This will forsure be marketed as "The world's thinnest 17" notebook". Form over function, probably. Who knows? Maybe they have some cool new technology all set up so that a sealed in battery will be more powerful than the old one.
 
Slowstick said:
Ya your right. And prices of desktops drop rapidly faster that notebook prices. You can get a pretty nice desktop PC for 500 and less. Besides, all the Mac minis in the past have been significantly more expensive than their PC hardware equivalent competition.
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Trust me, the current $599 Mac mini's specs are was spread from other computers of it's price and lower.

Example - Here's the $200 eMachine I got for Christmas (which I didn't ask for). I think it was originally much more but put on sale for black Friday.
- eMachines - Desktop with AMD Athlon™ 2650e Processor
- 320GB HDD
- Windows Vista Home Premium
- 2GB DDR2 Ram

And even though the Mac Mini's specs are crap compared to that, I would have much rather preferred the Mini. So I believe that Apple will most likely keep the current price points. Actually, I was originally hoping for a $100 price drop. lol. xD
 
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