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Full Laptop Refresh By Holidays?

macman2790 said:
They only use 3.2, dell should be brought to justice for selling 4gb of ram in their notebooks.
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Actually, they disclose this information in the fine print (although a potential buyer has to dig for the proper info to sort it all out). Several PC manufacturers are doing this for a couple reasons. One is performance, if someone wants more than 2G of RAM, they must either install 3GB or 4GB. Even though the system can't address a full 4GB of RAM due to the 32bit limit, they still put it in so the RAM modules are matched spec and the user can still benefit from the dual-channel capabilities. Some vendors, like Apple, are only offering mismatched 3GB configurations in their Merom systems. This way, they're not selling you any RAM you can't use, but the end user is also losing out on the extra bit of performance from dual-channel mode. So, you pick the lesser of 2 evils...

Personally, where I think Dell is wrong offering 4GB in their fully configured XPS 17" notebooks is that they're also selling it with a 512MB 7900GTX video option. By the time you account for 4GB max address space with the 32bit chipset, subtract the 512MB for the video memory plus the other memory addresses for every other piece of hardware in the system. You actually come up with about 2.8GB usable. So they're charging users (many of them unknowingly) an $800 premium for 4GB of RAM, but in reality they can only use about 800K of it over the 2GB option and they don't gain any performance.

I think many users and vendors are hoping for some kind of magic BIOS upgrade that will patch or work around this chipset feature and let them use all their RAM. ...Won't happen. I suppose it's possible, but working RAM paging through BIOS would be too slow to be worthwhile and probably not all that reliable.

Depending on the timing of Apple's next update, I may or may not jump the gun and buy a Macbook for the wife. But I'm keeping my current MBP until we have 4GB or more of usable RAM addressability, an updated GPU and possibly will even wait for the 800MHz FSB if Apple doesn't release this year.
 
Major Kong said:
AI just reported that Ingram, a primary Apple hardware distributor over here in Europe, has absolutely no MacBook (Pro) inventory.

Link: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2142
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The only thing that comes to my mind on this is whether or not it's just the lag in shipping the current model since they're selling quite well overall, or is it an intentional cutback to thin out the stock?
 
ThunderLounge said:
The only thing that comes to my mind on this is whether or not it's just the lag in shipping the current model since they're selling quite well overall, or is it an intentional cutback to thin out the stock?
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Several sources have reported cutbacks in production over the past week.. I know a lot of US vendors are still receiving shipments, but Apple is going to prioritize and continue to ship these notebooks where they're guaranteed to sell out the fastest. There's a good bet that we'll see the new notebooks sometime in the next few weeks. My gut keeps telling me 10/31 and has been telling me that for over a month now. We'll see if I'm right, but the date just makes sense. If not then, then I guess any tuesday/wednesday between now and thanksgiving (here in the US) is fair game. After that, they would be better served to wait for MWSF.
 
ThunderLounge said:
The only thing that comes to my mind on this is whether or not it's just the lag in shipping the current model since they're selling quite well overall, or is it an intentional cutback to thin out the stock?
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It would seem (IMO) that they're cutting back on the stock of laptops from their previous manufactuer, to ready the market for the new MBPs from Foxconn...hopefully with C2Ds in them.

This would at least tie in three rumors together: Foxconn, C2D before holiday season, and thinning shippments.

And I also think that AppleInsider's track record is somewhat good...
 
Trick or Treat

We should all go Trick-or-Treating at the Jobs house. We'll demand MMBPs in our Sacks. And if not we can Toilet paper his house, if we can get past the dogs, security, and sharks with laser beams on their frickin heads.

Neuroguy
 
Just stopped by Best Buy to see some CD2 notebooks. The Toshibas have MAJOR ventilation grills on one side. I think the Vaio had this protrusion (like a growth) on one side of the back that had big 'ol ventilation grills.

Boy, are those machines UGLY. I mean really, really, really unappealing.
 
Why can't they just make the MBP resemble the front grill of the MP? That'd solve the ventilation problems once and for all! Besides it is not a "laptop" so it is not like someone is going to put it on their legs and get the pattern chargrilled onto their skin.
 
generik said:
Why can't they just make the MBP resemble the front grill of the MP? That'd solve the ventilation problems once and for all! Besides it is not a "laptop" so it is not like someone is going to put it on their legs and get the pattern chargrilled onto their skin.
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That's actually an interesting idea. Even if not making the entire laptop in that manner, maybe the sides would be sufficient. The problem with this of course is that if you spill anything nearby, your dead. For students, this would be a hastle, as there is a certain level of abuse that takes place with these things. My dell laptop can't handle much abuse at all. While its best to not subject a laptop to such abuse, accidents do happen....
 
Well after getting properly emotionally involved in this thread over the last month, i've finally decided to give it up. I mean, all things considered, without Santa Rosa the merom upgrade is really not that big a deal.

It seems to me (please correct me if i'm wrong!) that merom without SR is merely a 5% faster 64bit emulator. And why would Apple go with that? C2D seems like a rather baseless interim upgrade, and i would expect Apple to go with something with far more wow factor (new case MBP with merom & SR released at the same time as Leopard).

However, all those hanging on.... good luck :)
 
gatsbys hat said:
It seems to me (please correct me if i'm wrong!) that merom without SR is merely a 5% faster 64bit emulator. And why would Apple go with that? C2D seems like a rather baseless interim upgrade, and i would expect Apple to go with something with far more wow factor (new case MBP with merom & SR released at the same time as Leopard).

However, all those hanging on.... good luck :)
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You're mostly right... The C2D gives about a 5% typical speed boost, up to 10 to 15% in performance apps, especially if they're 64bit optimized. They key here is not waiting for Sant Rosa (for Apple such a thing won't be part of their plan) it's waiting for the next Intel mobile chipset to compliment the Merom CPU - currently codenamed "Crestline". The new chipset will bring us expanded memory addressing capabilities and hopefully better power management and some other goodies.

IMO, a 64bit CPU and most current 64bit applications are pretty much worthless if we're still stuck with a 32bit memory limitation, leaving us with somewhere between 2 and 3 GB that we can actually use, not to mention the 2GB process limitation also still imposed by the current chipset since it forces the CPU to exist within 32bit memory space. Now that it's been over a month since the introduction of C2D iMac systems, I'm convinced that Apple is indeed waiting for Crestline before shipping Merom CPUs in their notebooks. Hopefully this happens soon and may they upgrade the GPU to an X1800, or nv7800/nv7900 pleeeeeeaaaaaase???

For me, no Crestline chipset, no MBP purchase - simple. If it takes them all the way until next spring to do it, when the next gen Centrino notebooks (erm.. Santa Rosa) hit store shelves, then so be it. By then we'll be looking forward to faster Merom CPUs with 800MHz FSB.
 
AppliedVisual said:
You're mostly right... The C2D gives about a 5% typical speed boost, up to 10 to 15% in performance apps, especially if they're 64bit optimized. They key here is not waiting for Sant Rosa (for Apple such a thing won't be part of their plan) it's waiting for the next Intel mobile chipset to compliment the Merom CPU - currently codenamed "Crestline". The new chipset will bring us expanded memory addressing capabilities and hopefully better power management and some other goodies.

IMO, a 64bit CPU and most current 64bit applications are pretty much worthless if we're still stuck with a 32bit memory limitation, leaving us with somewhere between 2 and 3 GB that we can actually use, not to mention the 2GB process limitation also still imposed by the current chipset since it forces the CPU to exist within 32bit memory space. Now that it's been over a month since the introduction of C2D iMac systems, I'm convinced that Apple is indeed waiting for Crestline before shipping Merom CPUs in their notebooks. Hopefully this happens soon and may they upgrade the GPU to an X1800, or nv7800/nv7900 pleeeeeeaaaaaase???

For me, no Crestline chipset, no MBP purchase - simple. If it takes them all the way until next spring to do it, when the next gen Centrino notebooks (erm.. Santa Rosa) hit store shelves, then so be it. By then we'll be looking forward to faster Merom CPUs with 800MHz FSB.
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I think the biggest problem is that Apple needs a marketing throw when they introduce anything new. This is an exception when it comes to speed bumps. You saw the 24'' iMac with the C2D. They need something that will get the people to the store so to speak. C2D will not do that alone, it isn't that good. If, before Apple ever recieved the first Merom chip (way back in the Summer), they expected C2D to be bigger than it is then they could be behind a few months trying to find something else to give us. Maybe this is a case redesign or 12'' but it has to be something that *EVERY* user can say "that's cool too." Sorry, that doesn't include more ram, bigger hd, or better gpu.
 
I Think Re-Design Is Necessary To Reduce Heat Problem

ccroo said:
This has been around for a while and what it says about the consistently higher operating temperatures of Merom is nothing new:

http://googled.wordpress.com/2006/08/26/merom-runs-hot-yonah-might-be-the-better-chip-for-notebooks/

Given that Yahoo MBP's are thought to be unacceptably hot, a chip swap with Merom might make for a truly unacceptably hot notebook computer.

Does this not suggest the high probability of a case redesign? At the very least it suggests a reworking of internal compotents to address cooling issues.

Is a chip swap simply out of the question in this upgrade?
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I think so. Makes no sense for Apple not to address this huge 2006 problem they have been experiencing all year long with Yonah inside. Not rocket science, but thermal science for sure. :D
 
I Will Follow AppliedVisual's Buying Directions Too

AppliedVisual said:
Depending on the timing of Apple's next update, I may or may not jump the gun and buy a Macbook for the wife. But I'm keeping my current MBP until we have 4GB or more of usable RAM addressability, an updated GPU and possibly will even wait for the 800MHz FSB if Apple doesn't release this year.
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Well you've sold me. I won't buy until you do. Keep in touch. ;)

Should we have a contest to see who can get their 2.66GHz 8-Core Mac Pro delivered first? :D
 
OSX font scaling

I'm considering switching to a Mac (been waiting for the MBP update, yada yada yada). I was at an Apple Store today and booted up Excel on several different machines (MBP, 24" iMac, Mac Pro). In all cases when I did the standard CTRL+mouse scroll to zoom in, the text became "washed out" looking at anything other than 100% size, essentially like what happens when you zoom in on a low res image. This does not happen on my PC laptop -- the text remains sharp all the way up to 400% (Excel limit). What's going on? Is it because in Windows fonts are scalable and in OSX they're not scalable?

I'm really bummed out about this, to the point I'm actually considering going with a Dell laptop.
 
akadmon said:
I'm considering switching to a Mac (been waiting for the MBP update, yada yada yada). I was at an Apple Store today and booted up Excel on several different machines (MBP, 24" iMac, Mac Pro). In all cases when I did the standard CTRL+mouse scroll to zoom in, the text became "washed out" looking at anything other than 100% size, essentially like what happens when you zoom in on a low res image. This does not happen on my PC laptop -- the text remains sharp all the way up to 400% (Excel limit). What's going on? Is it because in Windows fonts are scalable and in OSX they're not scalable?

I'm really bummed out about this, to the point I'm actually considering going with a Dell laptop.
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Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of font scaling artifacts and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of lack of Core 2 Duo and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of high prices and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of limited upgrade paths and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of poor software compatibility and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of your lack of desire to beta test Apple's hardware and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of inability the run Microsoft Access and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of pathetic game support and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of zero .NET 2.0 support even through MONO and go back to Windows?

Are you? :rolleyes:
 
OUch

generik said:
Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of font scaling artifacts and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of lack of Core 2 Duo and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of high prices and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of limited upgrade paths and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of poor software compatibility and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of your lack of desire to beta test Apple's hardware and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of inability the run Microsoft Access and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of pathetic game support and go back to Windows?

Are you saying you are willing to give up the goodness of OSX because of zero .NET 2.0 support even through MONO and go back to Windows?

Are you? :rolleyes:
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Damn. Your hurting my eyes
 
ChickenSwartz said:
I am going to buy a MBP now just to spite you!

HA
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Go for it! For all we know some paper pusher in Apple might be waiting to push the button the second existing stocks fall below a certain number. Your order might just be the trigger :D
 
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