MacBook Pro Upgrade At Photokina?

[zimtheinvader]

I think no new enclosure, they would have done that when they went Intel! I also second the antiMB keyboard sentiment. The powerbook keyboard is nearly perfect, & one of the the major selling points for MBP over MB for journalists, scientists, intensive-keyboardists, ect, only minor improvements could me made unless there is some new technology integrated...

 

[iJawn108]

New macbook pros will be made of tungsten maybe?

 

[soldatodipxao]

update

This looks great... I've been reading macrumors for quite some time now... been planning for merom since summer... this will be my first apple experience... can't wait!

I ordered a macbook pro for my sister on thursday (she wanted to take advantage of the ipod deal for students) and her shipment info says shipping on the 19th (maybe the REAL tuesday!) and arriving on the 25th (coincidence?). she ordered a custom 15' macbook pro. looks like a good sign to me!

 

[Multimedia]

Internal Sony 5.25" ATAPI EIDE Blu-ray Drives Cost $750 At Fry's

I can't see Blu-Ray at all.

If it were, I'd figure it'd be an option due to the cost of the drives. Sony offer a laptop in with and without forms and the "with" model costs an extra $1700... but right now I just don't think there's demand.

Based on that, it doesn't seem likely to me.

Then again, I can't see them making the case any thicker than the last-gen PowerBooks, either.

We'll find out soon enough.

Internal Sony 5.25" ATAPI EIDE Blu-ray Drives Cost $750 At Fry's. So an internal mobile Blue-ray probably cost over $1,000. Plus I agree with all of the above. It's too soon. Blu-ray blank media is incredibly expensive - Prohibitively so - almost $1/GB - IE about $50 per 50GB and $25 per 25GB Blu-ray blank.

Conventional Single Sided DVD blanks are down to about 5¢/GB. I'd say that's a fairly large MEDIA COST GAP that only time will reduce. Until then, we've got quite a wait until the professionals drive up demand to the point where prosumers can rationalize a higher price of <20¢/GB or so - IE where the $1.50 price of 8.5GB Dual Layer DVDs is now - about $10 per 50GB and $5 per 25GB Blu-ray blank. Make sense? Or do any of you see it another way?

 

[Multimedia]

Thank You For This Excellent Analysis Of Santa Rosa And What It Will And Won't Be

Santa Rosa isn't a chipset, it's the name of the platform.

It consists of Merom (eventually Penryn?), Crestline (i965 express chipset) and Kedron (802.11n).

Santa Rosa won't affect performance a great deal.

The faster FSB will make a difference of maybe 3-5%. Maybe a little more in bandwidth-sensitive applications (say, some forms of decompression).

Less than than the difference between Yonah and Merom.

The other big differences are the new graphics core -- which the MBP won't use, the 802.11n - for which the spec hasn't yet been ratified, and is something easily added by changing/adding a wifi card, and the Robson flash caching technology, which is probably the biggest difference.

Note that Crestline is currently specced at consuming ~50% more power than the i945 chipset in Napa. Robson, however, should reduce some of that.

It's quite ironic that after years of Powerbooks getting new G4's with tiny clockspeed boosts, something like Merom is considered "bland"(?)

Thank You For This Excellent Analysis Of Santa Rosa And What It Will And Won't Be ergle2. Best I've read anywhere here so far.

 

[iJawn108]

Thank You For This Excellent Analysis Of Santa Rosa And What It Will And Won't Be ergle2. Best I've read anywhere here so far.

Yes I feel the same, and will wholeheartedly purchase a memron.

 

[ergle2]

Thank You For This Excellent Analysis Of Santa Rosa And What It Will And Won't Be ergle2. Best I've read anywhere here so far.

Thanks -- Glad you liked it

 

[ergle2]

If you really want longer battery life, then you should be hoping to keep the X1600. It's regarded as having the best "performance per watt" of recent mobile GPUs.

I'd rather have a bigger battery and a Go 7700. I've not seen any decent figures for power draw on the mobile chips. The 7700 is manufactured on an 80nm process tho', so that should help some.

Personally, I hope (well, pipe dream actually) they'll make MBP build-to-order like Mac Pro. I'd downgrade the CPU to the 2.0GHz version. It wholesales for $130 less than the 2.16, and $340 less than the 2.33. That's way too much to pay for a fractional speed increase.

OTOH, the 2.0 Xeon is $370 less than the 2.66 and Apple only cuts the price $75 for two of them. That's robbery. So I guess MBP BTO probably wouldn't help me even if they did it.

Bear in mind custom options effectively "cost" Apple a lot more due to requiring special attention in a way the rest of the line doesn't. More so with the laptop line due to the processor being socketted rather than soldered.

Personally, I think the 2.33GHz part price is insane considering the small speed-bump, but that's up to Apple.

 

[drummondi]

I've just been wanting one for so long, and all I've been waiting for is a processor trade-out, that I'll be happy with just that. Of course I'll be quite please if they implement the easy access HD bay. Better still, a better gfx card would make me pee my pants a little.

I think you should go get your prostate checked.

 

[HecubusPro]

I'd rather have a bigger battery and a Go 7700.

Here! Here! Though I'd be much happier to have the option to upgrade to the GeForce Go 7900 GTX. I just don't know how practical to the average user it would be in a MBP. For me, it would be very practical.

 

[HecubusPro]

I think you should go get your prostate checked.

Next time I go in for a physical, I'll make sure to get it checked out, after the MBP w/C2D becomes available. I am beginning to get up there in years.

 

[barkins]

Hm, I just bought the macbook pro with the intel core duo (1) ... will it be able to run the new lepord or will the speed be hampered?

 

[AppleIntelRock]

Hm, I just bought the macbook pro with the intel core duo (1) ... will it be able to run the new lepord or will the speed be hampered?

haha you'll be FINE trust me. you bought a very high end laptop and it will happily run leopard. when apple introduces leopard it will want to get as many people as possible to use it, alienating owners of a macbook pro they bought a little over a year ago is not a path they will take.

 

[bigbossbmb]

I sure hope we will see Aperture 2.0 and not just 1.2...

Why? Just because it is 1.2 would be a decimal point update doesn't mean it would not be significant. 1 > 1.1 was very good. 1.1 > 1.2 could be just as good and free for all of us that are early adopters of the software.

 

[digitalbiker]

haha you'll be FINE trust me. you bought a very high end laptop and it will happily run leopard. when apple introduces leopard it will want to get as many people as possible to use it, alienating owners of a macbook pro they bought a little over a year ago is not a path they will take.

You'll be able to run leopard just fine but you won't be able to take advantage of the 64 bit enhancements to leopard or use full 64 bit software.

 

[suwandy]

just remember everyone...

all the rumor sits speculated the 23" imac (really 24") would be revealed at the "Showtime" event. apple fooled them all and released it a week early!

let's hope the same thing happens for our mbp's. here's to next tuesday!

One from me too!
Although, I kinda thought, the longer they took to release the MBP, means more time they spent on improving any design flaws, internal flaws, any other flaws, or even adding more goodies, so here's to more than just C2D update!

 

[BWhaler]

To be fair, I think you are thinking of MacOSRumors (MOSR), not MacOSXRumors. The former have a terrible record in regards to rumours (ie they make up everything), while the latter seem to be a bit more reliable. Shame they are named so similarly though.

You're right.

Thanks for the correction.

 

[Multimedia]

Mac Pro 2GHz Xeon Downgrade Is $300 Not $75 • Apple Is Not Involved In Robbery

If you really want longer battery life, then you should be hoping to keep the X1600. It's regarded as having the best "performance per watt" of recent mobile GPUs.

I'd rather have a bigger battery and a Go 7700. I've not seen any decent figures for power draw on the mobile chips. The 7700 is manufactured on an 80nm process tho', so that should help some.

Whichever uses less battery power is what I would prefer as long as it can still drive a 30" ACD or Dell when it's plugged into AC.

Personally, I hope (well, pipe dream actually) they'll make MBP build-to-order like Mac Pro. I'd downgrade the CPU to the 2.0GHz version. It wholesales for $130 less than the 2.16, and $340 less than the 2.33. That's way too much to pay for a fractional speed increase.

OTOH, the 2.0 Xeon is $370 less than the 2.66 and Apple only cuts the price $75 for two of them. That's robbery. So I guess MBP BTO probably wouldn't help me even if they did it.

The 2GHz downgrade is $300 not $75. Where did you get that number? Apple probably pays a lot less for each so this discount seems fair to me. Seems to me the down and up grade Mac Pro processor pricing is geard to steer buyers to the 2.66GHz model. I don't agree with you Apple is stealing anything from any of us. I think your use of the word "robbery" is not appropriate expecially since your figure of $75 is a flat out fabrication of your imagination.

Bear in mind custom options effectively "cost" Apple a lot more due to requiring special attention in a way the rest of the line doesn't. More so with the laptop line due to the processor being socketted rather than soldered.

Dyslexia at work. Laptop processors are directly soldered to the LB to keep the profile slim, iMacs & minis socketed.

Personally, I think the 2.33GHz part price is insane considering the small speed-bump, but that's up to Apple.

While I agree the 2.33GHz upgrades are too expensive on the iMac, I expect the 2.33GHz will be the standard part in both the 15" and 17" top MBP models - no doubt on the 17". Who knows, Apple's cost per 2.33 may even drop every 30 days or so in their contract with Intel.

 

[OdduWon]

xeon mbp next tuesday..... ehhhah.. ehhhah....

 

[freebooter]

I think you should go get your prostate checked.

good one!

 

[crashnburn275]

Blackbook Ship Date

Just to give you guys some perspective:

I ordered my custom Blackbook two days ago, ship date is 9/22, arrival date 9/29.

Basically, I got sick of waiting for Merom for the macbook and I couldn't justify the price jump to the MBP. In retrospect, I wish I wouldn't have waited so long but I'm glad I ordered when I did.

Sidenote of interest: I used a student developer discount on my purchase of a macbook and black 8 gig Nano. I was amazed to see the discount applied to the Nano as well, saving me another $30!

 

[Reach]

Sorry for being stupid here, but why do you guys want magnetic latches? It just doesn't seem superior to me, but then again I haven't tried the new macbooks, I just know that the solution on my old 17" powerbook was fine.
The swappable HD is nice though, I'd like that.
Anyway, fingers crossed, let it be true please!

 

[ergle2]

Dyslexia at work. Laptop processors are directly soldered to the LB to keep the profile slim, iMacs & minis socketed.

Doh, wrote the exact opposite of what I meant :/

 

[ergle2]

While I agree the 2.33GHz upgrades are too expensive on the iMac, I expect the 2.33GHz will be the standard part in both the 15" and 17" top MBP models - no doubt on the 17". Who knows, Apple's cost per 2.33 may even drop every 30 days or so in their contract with Intel.

I dunno... the 2.33GHz Yonah's been available for some time but Apple's never offered it.

Of course, it could be deliberate so that they can offer it with the introduction of Merom, thus making the speedbump greater than that attributable to Merom's enhancements...

I'd always assumed it was because Intel wanted such a large premium on the part for something that's a shade over 9% faster in clock-speed and maybe 5-6% faster in real world terms...

What is even more ridiculous is if we look at the OEM cpu-price-per-1,000 units (which isn't what Apple pays, they'll get the much better tier-1 full-platform price), where the difference between the 2.0 and the ~16% faster 2.33 chip is more than the 2.0 chip itself costs!

(T7200, 2.0GHz $294 vs T7600, 2.33GHz $637, with T7400, 2.13GHz, 4MB L2 $423 for those interested).

 

[Am3822]

I've also had a look at the apple store shipment times, and I'm sorry to say that the 15" mbp's are still shipping in '1-3 business days'. I hope they won't restrict the processor/platform update (if there would be one) to the 17 model.