Slimmer 13-Inch and 15-Inch MacBook Pros Reportedly in Production

[Kevenly]

Slimmer means more under clocked GPUs to keep the heat low, more heat problems. I don't need slimmer I need more powerful. I wish they had a small or mid sized tower in their line if they are going to keep gimping the laptops in the never-ending quest for "thin"ness. It's been plenty thin for 4 years or more. Really, it's thin enough; Apple is becoming anorexic. Oh well, I think after 32 years with Apple computers it's time to move on. The iOS walls are closing in on my Macs anyway.

 

[whitedragon101]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9B179 Safari/7534.48.3)

And I agree that Apple should stick with a pro line with distinctly professional grade screen (read matte finish)

The matte vs glossy debate is all a matter of taste. I love the antireflective quality of a matte screen but can't cope with the blur it introduces.

I think offering both is definitely the way forward. So whatever your preference you can have it

Incidentally I would love if Apple came out with a screen as sharp and undistorted as glossy and as anti-reflective as matte.

 

[MaxReviewsTech]

Jumping the gun

In about five years, I could totally see myself living fine without an ODD. As of right now, DVD ripping and burning is still used very commonly. Apple is trying to kill something that is dying...but it's not dead yet. Just be patient, Apple. Let the ODD enjoy it's final days on earth instead of pushing it towards the light.

 

[InuNacho]

I wish they had a small or mid sized tower in their line if they are going to keep gimping the laptops in the never-ending quest for "thin"ness. It's been plenty thin for 4 years or more. Really, it's thin enough; Apple is becoming anorexic.

I've been hoping that the fabled xMac would reveal itself to the world since Apple went Intel, but I know for a fact that'll never happen. I'd be more than happy with a $1,500 Pro that didn't have all the bells and whistles of it's bigger brothers like the G4s of yesteryear.

 

[brdeveloper]

I've been hoping that the fabled xMac would reveal itself to the world since Apple went Intel, but I know for a fact that'll never happen. I'd be more than happy with a $1,500 Pro that didn't have all the bells and whistles of it's bigger brothers like the G4s of yesteryear.

$1500 is a pretty decent price for a Mac Pro "office station" version. But in Brazil this price would turn $2500 because of importing taxes. We need a brazilian-made Mac targeted to brazilian consumers. If this $1500 tower costed $2000 in Brazil, it would be a very competitive price. Certainly would sell a lot to universities, corporations, government and individuals competing with high end products from Lenovo, Dell and HP that sells very well here.
--------------------------
BTW, reflecting about the claims of american citizens to have more Apple factories there, it's something cultural. Americans are used to buy electronics for a very low price. If they accepted paying around 30% more on some gadget, certainly a lot of jobs would be created there. Only government can push this change through higher import taxes.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Eh? Not. The volume of flash usage is generally driving prices down, not up.

Flash prices have not cratered on the path they were on a couple of years ago, but that is normal. That was really an unsustainable path the suppliers were on.

From a historical perspective, SDD prices are much lower than they have been. What is missing if the flawed expectation that Flash prices where magically going to drop as low as HDD prices in "just 1-2 years". That was always hand-waving hogwash. The only thing propping that up now is the Thailand floods which have raised HDD prices 40% or so (much higher than that in the initial panic at the drop in capacity.)

I'd agree yet unfortunately the large NAND or similar storage pricing was kept high LONG before those Thailand floods: Apple has been purchasing massage storage quantities for almost 10yrs, the floods are recent in the last 4-5, no?

Apple has zero rationale to keep the prices of flash memory high. Higher flash prices mean lower margins for Apple. Apple is always looking for higher margins.

Apple charging higher prices (than industry average) for flash is a different story than the flash memory actually costing that much.

I think you misunderstood me. I mean that Apple could use its purchasing power to strong arm lower pricing due to the sheer volume they purchase.

 

[xinu]

I think you misunderstood me. I mean that Apple could use its purchasing power to strong arm lower pricing due to the sheer volume they purchase.

Samsung uses more arm chips than Apple
Nokia uses more arm chips than Apple

So what is this sheer volume we are talking about here?

When do you realize that Apple is not the biggest name out there.

 

[Quash]

In about five years, I could totally see myself living fine without an ODD. As of right now, DVD ripping and burning is still used very commonly. Apple is trying to kill something that is dying...but it's not dead yet. Just be patient, Apple. Let the ODD enjoy it's final days on earth instead of pushing it towards the light.

Sure, but how much do you rip dvds on the move.
Probably never, so there is no reason to use 25% inside the laptop on a ODD.
Might as well do that on an usb version which apple also sells.

Most people i know the first thing they do to their macbook pro is remove
the odd and add an ssd drive in it. Makes a lot more sense that apple does that themselves. They can make it a lot smaller by using their macbook air smaller format ssd and then add a normal hdd bay.

 

[mcman77]

Slimmer means more under clocked GPUs to keep the heat low, more heat problems. I don't need slimmer I need more powerful. I wish they had a small or mid sized tower in their line if they are going to keep gimping the laptops in the never-ending quest for "thin"ness. It's been plenty thin for 4 years or more. Really, it's thin enough; Apple is becoming anorexic. Oh well, I think after 32 years with Apple computers it's time to move on. The iOS walls are closing in on my Macs anyway.

True, but it depends how you think about it. It could be that the Air line is now becoming thicker

I too would like more performance.

1. I hope they stay clear from ULV CPUs!

2. I hope the 13" gets a quad!

3. I hope they both have GPUs!

In about five years, I could totally see myself living fine without an ODD. As of right now, DVD ripping and burning is still used very commonly. Apple is trying to kill something that is dying...but it's not dead yet. Just be patient, Apple. Let the ODD enjoy it's final days on earth instead of pushing it towards the light.

I prefer buying something that is considered more 'future proof' and anyway I don't use dvds anymore, unless a friend brings it to me. I could think about purchasing a external.

 

[xinu]

True, but it depends how you think about it. It could be that the Air line is now becoming thicker

I too would like more performance.

1. I hope they stay clear from ULV CPUs!

2. I hope the 13" gets a quad!

3. I hope they both have GPUs!



I prefer buying something that is considered more 'future proof' and anyway I don't use dvds anymore, unless a friend brings it to me. I could think about purchasing a external.

All that would be so nice, but there is one problem. Batteries.
Battery tech is the same as it was when PowerBooks came out. Same Lithium batteries.

They had to double the batteries on iPad-3 and called it amazing new technology. What so amazing is in that, double the batteries and still the same or shorter uptime with device.

I hope that they can go over 10hrs wifi time with MacBookProAir15" but probably they cannot because insane people insist that they must have descreet GPU,s DVD drives and dual Xeon cpu:s in those goddam laptops

 

[mcman77]

All that would be so nice, but there is one problem. Batteries.
Battery tech is the same as it was when PowerBooks came out. Same Lithium batteries.

They had to double the batteries on iPad-3 and called it amazing new technology. What so amazing is in that, double the batteries and still the same or shorter uptime with device.

I hope that they can go over 10hrs wifi time with MacBookProAir15" but probably they cannot because insane people insist that they must have descreet GPU,s DVD drives and dual Xeon cpu:s in those goddam laptops

I was under the impression they use Lipolymer batteries....

If the airs were the same weight and size as a mbp15" and all the rest of the space was used for a battery, then it could go 10hours.

The new GPUs will also consume less energy since they are going down to 28nm. I'm not after a xeon cpu, just a capable laptop. One that uses intels GPU is not that capable IMO

 

[xinu]

I was under the impression they use Lipolymer batteries....

If the airs were the same weight and size as a mbp15" and all the rest of the space was used for a battery, then it could go 10hours.

The new GPUs will also consume less energy since they are going down to 28nm. I'm not after a xeon cpu, just a capable laptop. One that uses intels GPU is not that capable IMO

New GPU's and less energy? No. The same energy more pixels and polygons.
But the watt usage is the same. No power savings there what so ever.

Show me Ivy Bridge GPU BenchMark please? I havent found one yet.

 

[4thDensity]

Here is what, in my opinion, the new Macbook Pros need to have to remain competitive in 2012:

1. Minimum 1920 x 1200 (16:10) IPS Panel Display
2. 14" screen in a 13" body as per the HP Envy 14 Spectre: http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/envy14-spectre/specifications.html
3. NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 1GB DDR3 (Kelper) GPU as per the Acer Aspire TimelineU M3: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5672/acer-aspire-timelineu-m3-life-on-the-kepler-verge
4. Quad Core Ivy Bridge CPU
5. USB 3.0
6. Up to 16GB DDR3 Support
7. User upgradeable RAM and SSD

I really can't see how Apple would stick a crappy TN panel in the new Pros. I still have a hard time adjusting to the fact that we may not even have a retina display in the Pros and the iPad 3 would have a better screen still. It's proposterous. The Macbooks need something special in the screen department this year to make them on par/better than the iPad 3. I'm thinking OLED, that's more like it.....I wish.

I'll upgrade the RAM to 16GB Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz DDR3:

http://www.corsair.com/memory/noteb...mm-memory-upgrade-kit-cmsx8gx3m2a1866c10.html

....and finally add a Crucial M4 256GB SSD.

That's what I want.

 

[xinu]

Here is what, in my opinion, the new Macbook Pros need to have to remain competitive in 2012:

1. Minimum 1920 x 1200 (16:10) IPS Panel Display
2. 14" screen in a 13" body as per the HP Envy 14 Spectre: http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/envy14-spectre/specifications.html
3. NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 1GB DDR3 (Kelper) GPU as per the Acer Aspire TimelineU M3: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5672/acer-aspire-timelineu-m3-life-on-the-kepler-verge
4. Quad Core Ivy Bridge CPU
5. USB 3.0
6. Up to 16GB DDR3 Support
7. User upgradeable RAM and SSD

I really can't see how Apple would stick a crappy TN panel in the new Pros. I still have a hard time adjusting to the fact that we may not even have a retina display in the Pros and the iPad 3 would have a better screen still. It's proposterous. The Macbooks need something special in the screen department this year to make them on par/better than the iPad 3. I'm thinking OLED, that's more like it.....I wish.

I'll upgrade the RAM to 16GB Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz DDR3:

http://www.corsair.com/memory/noteb...mm-memory-upgrade-kit-cmsx8gx3m2a1866c10.html

....and finally add a Crucial M4 256GB SSD.

That's what I want.

Google Search "macbook pro i7 cpu temperature high" gives 470.000 results and the number is rising every day.

Hint: dont ever buy used i7 core MacBookPro, ever.

I hope that this year comes the extra extra glossy screens with super retina dislplay so Apple users can watch that they enjoy the most = their own faces

 

[justperry]

Google Search"macbook pro i7 cpu temperature high" gives 470.000 results and the number is rising every day.

Hint: dont ever buy used i7 core MacBookPro, ever.

I hope that this year comes the extra extra glossy screens with super retina dislplay so Apple users can watch that they enjoy the most = their own faces

you forgot the 1 before the 4, its more like 1.440.000 Hits.

Do you even have a use for ODDs in the 15th century?

I see respect hasn't much improved since the 15c century anywhere. funny that.

I think He meant it to be a joke but forgot the wink.

If not that's a jerky comment
But in a way He is right, the islamic year is 1433.

 

[BK.]

I guess I'm not going to be upgrading to a new Macbook Pro this autumn after all then - I won't be buying any computers in the next (at least) 5 years without an internal ODD.

I'm a university student - I watch a lot of movies, mostly on DVDs. Sure I could buy an external, but that's not really why I have my sights set on a notebook computer. May as well just stick with my old Mac Mini. I liked the idea of having a MBP and using it as my main computer but it's not going to happen if I have to carry around an external ODD.

If I wanted a thin computer without an ODD then I'd buy a Macbook Air... can't understand why Apple are going to be essentially making two of the same computer, what a joke.

Really disappointed if this is true, no new Mac for me for a very long time!

(To those who are going to reply with "it's not that big a deal, you'll get used to it" - you don't know me. I watch a lot of DVDs with my housemates, sometimes at my place, sometimes at their place, etc. It's a pain for me. I have experience using a Windows netbook at home, and trust me - I do miss the optical drive in it, despite having used it regularly for three years, I sometimes I still forget it doesn't have one and then get mad all over again when I can't watch my DVD!)

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

Google Search "macbook pro i7 cpu temperature high" gives 470.000 results and the number is rising every day.

just because people "think" there are heating problems with the macbook pros, does NOT mean it's true. Yes, macbooks get HOT, that's what they are designed to do. The unibody structure is a large heat sync. Your macbook is also designed to shut off should the temperatures start getting too hot.

Let me know how many people's computers are shutting off on them, and then you can claim we have a "high" temperature problem!

BK- you know you can always rip those dvd's to your computer and then you don't have to carry anything with you (not an external drive, not even the DVD's)

 

[jmgregory1]

I guess I'm not going to be upgrading to a new Macbook Pro this autumn after all then - I won't be buying any computers in the next (at least) 5 years without an internal ODD.

I'm a university student - I watch a lot of movies, mostly on DVDs. Sure I could buy an external, but that's not really why I have my sights set on a notebook computer. May as well just stick with my old Mac Mini. I liked the idea of having a MBP and using it as my main computer but it's not going to happen if I have to carry around an external ODD.

If I wanted a thin computer without an ODD then I'd buy a Macbook Air... can't understand why Apple are going to be essentially making two of the same computer, what a joke.

Really disappointed if this is true, no new Mac for me for a very long time!

(To those who are going to reply with "it's not that big a deal, you'll get used to it" - you don't know me. I watch a lot of DVDs with my housemates, sometimes at my place, sometimes at their place, etc. It's a pain for me. I have experience using a Windows netbook at home, and trust me - I do miss the optical drive in it, despite having used it regularly for three years, I sometimes I still forget it doesn't have one and then get mad all over again when I can't watch my DVD!)

I don't think any of us who talk of the death of the ODD are trying to suggest that it won't negatively effect some people, but you have to understand that your desire to keep going forward with dvd use is no different than what happened back in the days of the 8 track, vinyl, cassette, vhs - each time a shift occurs from one tech to something new, you get those people that have invested a lot of money (or money and time) in the old tech and don't want to give up their investment.

But, you're going to. You're going to have to. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but thinking you'll carry on for 5 years using dvd may be pushing it a little further than it will last. I remember friends with 8 tracks in the their cars - then switching to cassette - having to give up all the 8 track tapes they had and start from scratch. I swapped out (or rather gave away) all my vinyl because I just didn't use it and had already recorded all my records on to cassette. Then I end up dumping the cassettes when cd's came into existence. Now my cd's are quite literally dumped into a box that I haven't opened in 7 years. I have a really nice dvd player - that is collecting dust behind my tv and the drawer full of dvd's sits unused - which of course these dvd's replaced the even bigger drawer of vhs cassettes.

You can not like the fact that change is going to be forced upon you, but denying that it will happen is delusional.

 

[akhbhaat]

My engineering background gives me the following perspective...

When there are rumors about removing the ODD, I think:

Wow, great, a lot more space for the battery.
What about a discrete GPU (in the 13" model)?
How about a discrete GPU AND a marginally larger battery?
A more effective cooling system, perhaps?
Some combination of all of the above?

If you're going to take functionality away, it only makes sense to enhance or restore functionality in other areas.

But to piss it all away on a "slimmer" chassis for people who like shiny things--especially when we already have the MBA for that--that seems such a waste. Such a waste, indeed.

 

[mcman77]

Here is what, in my opinion, the new Macbook Pros need to have to remain competitive in 2012:

1. Minimum 1920 x 1200 (16:10) IPS Panel Display
2. 14" screen in a 13" body as per the HP Envy 14 Spectre: http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/envy14-spectre/specifications.html
3. NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 1GB DDR3 (Kelper) GPU as per the Acer Aspire TimelineU M3: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5672/acer-aspire-timelineu-m3-life-on-the-kepler-verge
4. Quad Core Ivy Bridge CPU
5. USB 3.0
6. Up to 16GB DDR3 Support
7. User upgradeable RAM and SSD

I WILL buy this if it comes true! ... but it won't.

I really can't see how Apple would stick a crappy TN panel in the new Pros. I still have a hard time adjusting to the fact that we may not even have a retina display in the Pros and the iPad 3 would have a better screen still. It's proposterous. The Macbooks need something special in the screen department this year to make them on par/better than the iPad 3. I'm thinking OLED, that's more like it.....I wish.

The iPad has how many sales? vs the MBP?

All a business at the end of the day

 

[camardelle]

A thinner mbp would be great, but like other have said I like my optical drive. Can they leave well enough alone?

 

[deconstruct60]

I'd agree yet unfortunately the large NAND or similar storage pricing was kept high LONG before those Thailand floods: Apple has been purchasing massage storage quantities for almost 10yrs, the floods are recent in the last 4-5, no?

No. I guess I used to many pronouns. The HDDs prices are higher now because of the floods and the vendors managing the shortage. e floods.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/03/16/hdd_prices_inflated/

The price gap between HDDs and SDD would be even higher now if not for the over concentration of HDD production.

There is a bit more pressure for Flash for SSDs now because some vendors need to switch to a higher SDD mix because there aren't enough HDDs to go around. What is going to happen is some subset of boxes are just going to ship with smaller storage for a while.

I think you misunderstood me. I mean that Apple could use its purchasing power to strong arm lower pricing due to the sheer volume they purchase.

They already do. A while back they "loaned" some of the Flash manufacturers money to build additional production capacity. In return they get preferred pricing on the product. Apple put in enough to get cheaper Flash memory for the amount that they buy. Not everyone else.

The iPhone/iPad/Touch have $100 jumps in pricing for incremental memory (the rest of the hardware is identical). A healthy chunk of that going to adding to Apple's cash pile. Not to the Flash vendors. Not toward making additional capacity. If you look that the Flash vendors their margins are now where near what Apple's are. That's the problem because in order to make more Flash someone has to spend 100's of million of dollars ( if not a $1B).

In short, squeezing the component producers to the thinnest possible markets actually impedes new production capacity coming online because the capital cost of production is very high.

 

[EyesOfTexas]

Can someone tell me the estimated time that usually transpires between "in production" and "available for purchase?"

I just recently "bought" (used company reward points) for a MB Pro 13", but if a new one comes out in the next month or so the price of the current 13" will probably drop a good amount.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

^^ well there will definitely not be an update before Ivy Bridge, so assume within 1-4 weeks of Ivy Bridge to get a good idea of when new mbp's will come out.

I don't think apple continues to sell the old mbp's for cheaper though. You might be able to find them from another retailer like best buy for cheaper, but afaik, once the new ones are released apple doesn't sell the old ones at their stores anymore. For example, I cannot buy a 2010 mbp from apple, or even an early 2011 mbp anymore. However I get emails all the time from macmall and places like that and they are selling the old mbp's for pretty big discounts.

 

[deconstruct60]

I just find it funny how there are those that talk about abandoning Apple if they drop the ODD. Go ahead, buy yourself another year or two, until the pc manufacturers make the switch as well.

Probably not. How many Windows PCs have PS/2 keyboard connectors on them? (more than a few). How many Windows PCs have VGA connectors on them? (more than a few).

There is very little product differentiation in the Windows PCs market. Some of the vendors compete by being "more legacy port" oriented than others.

The ODD usage isn't going to drop so low that no one is using them. However, if it dropped to being 10% of the overall PC market that market would be approximately as big as the Mac market. 10% of the Mac's 8% share is less than 1% of the overall PC market. It wouldn't make alot of sense for Apple to hunt after less than a single digit sized Mac sub markets.

This is about making trade-offs. Some vendors will make the laptop thicker, heavier, shrink battery life, flimsier (minimalist tray), etc. to keep the ODD in their laptop. Those are tradeoffs Apple won't make because they are targeting a different group of folks they think is a potentially larger group over the long term.