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Will the redesigned mbp's have an ODD?
- Thread starter Mad Mac Maniac
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I bet the next iteration of the 13 MBP has no ODD and finally will get it's discreet GPU purely based on what just happened to the Mini... the 15" will likely mirror a hybrid of a 15" Air and the current 15" MBP dimensions.
Come on, guys. They removed the SuperDrive from the Mini, and it made more sense there than on the Pro.
If you think that the next MacBook Pro redesign will contain a SuperDrive you are clearly delusional. It's not about what Apple could or should do. It's about what Apple will do, and it seems too clear to me that they want the good old ODD dead, so they will remove it and you'll be happy with it.
Take a 64GB SSD like the ones they put in the Airs, and put the system and software there. Take a traditional HDD and put there the home folders. There should be plenty of space left for a dedicated graphics card, some battery and even other space, either for making the laptop lighter/thinner or for extra hardware pumping. I can easily see the 13" getting a quad core processor and an integrated GPU like the 15", an SSD for the system and the apps, the battery to keep the whole shebang powered and enough space to cool all of that down -- you can get all of this in exchange for your optical drive. Deal?
If you think that the next MacBook Pro redesign will contain a SuperDrive you are clearly delusional. It's not about what Apple could or should do. It's about what Apple will do, and it seems too clear to me that they want the good old ODD dead, so they will remove it and you'll be happy with it.
Take a 64GB SSD like the ones they put in the Airs, and put the system and software there. Take a traditional HDD and put there the home folders. There should be plenty of space left for a dedicated graphics card, some battery and even other space, either for making the laptop lighter/thinner or for extra hardware pumping. I can easily see the 13" getting a quad core processor and an integrated GPU like the 15", an SSD for the system and the apps, the battery to keep the whole shebang powered and enough space to cool all of that down -- you can get all of this in exchange for your optical drive. Deal?
gpat, I totally agree. I think that, as I have been predicting since I started seeing Apple push the App Store (first iLife/iWork, then FCP, now Lion) that Apple was going to murder DVDs. Now having seen the death of the white MacBook and the drives on the Mac mini, I think that by the end of next year the Mac Pro will be the only model with one.
I VERY much think that both the iMac and MBP will lose theirs with the next revision.
I VERY much think that both the iMac and MBP will lose theirs with the next revision.
I think the iMac and Mac Pro will keep them for a while, since it's not so much of a space feature to pack in more '...'.
The mini sacrificed the Superdrive for Performance, the iMac isn't facing that plus the 'all in one' with a external drive is a bit much, for the portables and the mini, yeah, sacrifice the drive for; graphics, improved performance, battery, etc.
Actually, the mini is empty where the ODD used to be, and the GPU is not that big of a deal - it's the same one used by Dell in the Vostro 13" laptops, so it shouldn't heat/consume much power.
I think that the main reason for the Mini not getting any smaller is to use the same factor for the Server one - so they don't have to use two form factors and spend less money via mass economy. But I'd love to see an insanely small/thin Mini made out of Air guts: ULV processor, only flash storage, near zero power consumption, so small you could embed it in a keyboard.
I think this will happen too but it makes me wonder how the pricing be for the MBP 13?
how can the mbp 13 offer that much and still be $1199 when the mba 13s are $1299 and $1599.
I am assuming with a physical redesign the mbp will be slightly thicker than an air rather than much thicker like it is now. why would anyone pay so much more that has so much less only because it's a bit thinner?
I think the Air will drop to $1199 for 13" being the cheapest 13 notebook (renaming to Macbook), as the Pro 13" will include by default features like ssd+hdd and dedicated GPU, but increase the price to something like $1399. It could even retain the current form factor without the SuperDrive, as it's going to be thicker than the Air no matter what and it's a sleek laptop anyway.
Possible.
What of the lines are scrapped all together and all apple laptops are simpley macbooks ranging from 11-17" with the 11" and 13" macbook in the current air form factor but much more powerful and the 15"&17" macbook in a air/pro hybrid form factor.
That would basically bring back the 2006-2008 lineup for "Macbook" on the 13 inches and "MacBook Pro" on 15"-17" inches, plus the 11" always for Macbook. It actually makes sense, but that would force the user to buy a 15" for dedicated graphics or even HDD storage. But we've seen Apple doing this before, so it could be that way.
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Yup. A 13" MBA cannot coexist with a 13" SSD disk drive-less mbp. Too much overlap
I think if that were the case then the 13" & possibly even 11" will get dedicated graphics. It's just one more of things they couldve included but didn't so they can introduce it later as magical
. As for HDD storage, most would do fine with ssd but I think they will bump it up to 128gb standard for the 11 and 256gb standard on the 13. exactly! more I think about it the more I hope they do it. Especially for my indecisive ass
makes the decision that much easierI don't know. Unifying the Macbook lines like that would mean:
-no swappable HDD for notebooks under $1799
-no RAM expansion, and no expansion whatsoever, for notebooks under $1799
-ULV processors for notebooks under $1799
-no ethernet for notebooks under $1799
-no storage other than SSD (may prove insufficient for some) for notebooks under $1799
-no expansion for any 13" notebook
That's no small deal, and seems like too big of a stretch to me. Not everybody wants to fork over $1799 to have a minimum degree of internal expansion, or a gigabit ethernet port, or a classic 500GB drive, or having a processor with higher power than an ULV one.
-no swappable HDD for notebooks under $1799
-no RAM expansion, and no expansion whatsoever, for notebooks under $1799
-ULV processors for notebooks under $1799
-no ethernet for notebooks under $1799
-no storage other than SSD (may prove insufficient for some) for notebooks under $1799
-no expansion for any 13" notebook
That's no small deal, and seems like too big of a stretch to me. Not everybody wants to fork over $1799 to have a minimum degree of internal expansion, or a gigabit ethernet port, or a classic 500GB drive, or having a processor with higher power than an ULV one.
Not necessarily. The MBA and 13" mbp would merge. That's not necessarily saying the 13" mbp disappears and leaves only the MBA.
I could foresee the 11" MBA staying the same, but the 13" could be more middle ground. Possibly even getting the old name of plain "MacBook" back again.
Very interesting predictions here.
I agree with everyone. If they removed the OD from the Mini then there is no way it will be in at least the lower end MBPs and Likely it will be removed from all of them.
I think the fact that they canceled the white macbook is a strong indicator that the 13inch MBP will stick around in at least something like it's current role. Apple was comfortable killing off the cheaper well balanced notebook because honestly there is nothing the white macbook offered that the 13mbp didn't except a $200 dollar discount (not trivial but in Apple's eyes I'm sure this seems like pocket change).
They've had two lines of notebooks for a long time so returning to this seems reasonable. And I agree with what another poster said. They could increase the price of the 13mbp so that it really became a pro with the inclusion of dedicated graphics. The only question is how they will reduce the price of the 13" MBA? A starting price of $1299 for what most consumers would consider a standard sized notebook is a bit steep even by apple's standards. Too bad SSD prices aren't falling fast enough...
I agree with everyone. If they removed the OD from the Mini then there is no way it will be in at least the lower end MBPs and Likely it will be removed from all of them.
I think the fact that they canceled the white macbook is a strong indicator that the 13inch MBP will stick around in at least something like it's current role. Apple was comfortable killing off the cheaper well balanced notebook because honestly there is nothing the white macbook offered that the 13mbp didn't except a $200 dollar discount (not trivial but in Apple's eyes I'm sure this seems like pocket change).
They've had two lines of notebooks for a long time so returning to this seems reasonable. And I agree with what another poster said. They could increase the price of the 13mbp so that it really became a pro with the inclusion of dedicated graphics. The only question is how they will reduce the price of the 13" MBA? A starting price of $1299 for what most consumers would consider a standard sized notebook is a bit steep even by apple's standards. Too bad SSD prices aren't falling fast enough...
They killed off the white MacBook because it sold something like 100k units, an I'm sure a decent number of those were bulk sales ; no point in keeping it around in retail stores, having them be edu only makes sense.
Must be nice to have $100M in sales be "not enough" to keep it lol.
Must be nice to have $100M in sales be "not enough" to keep it lol.
So far, these are the possibilities:
a) Apple discontinues Pro 13", creates MacBook Brand for 11"-13" "Air" and Pro 15"-17" "Pro"
b) Apple keeps up both lines: MacBook (Air name to be possibly phased out) 11"-13" and Pro 13"-15"-17". Air 13" decreases price, Pro 13" steps up its game with dedicated graphics, hybrid DD, hi-res and increases price.
c) 11" stays the same, 13"-15"-17" becomes Air-Pro hybrids.
I'd say the first is the less likely. It would dumb down every Mac under 15"-$1799. Ethernet, HDD, etc. would become "premium" features even for Apple standards, the same way they tried to phase out Firewire in 2008, and it was coldly accepted.
The third would make Apple to give up the "Air" brand, and create middle-way laptops for the 13" size, thicker than Air and not as powerful as the Pro could be. Not going to happen, IMHO.
The second seems the more viable to me. Apple has hystorically kept at least two lines for mainstream and professional lines, and we all know that the 13" Pro deserves better hardware than now, as we know that Apple wants people to buy the Air, thus making it cheaper.
Or what the hell, we are going to buy them no matter what.
a) Apple discontinues Pro 13", creates MacBook Brand for 11"-13" "Air" and Pro 15"-17" "Pro"
b) Apple keeps up both lines: MacBook (Air name to be possibly phased out) 11"-13" and Pro 13"-15"-17". Air 13" decreases price, Pro 13" steps up its game with dedicated graphics, hybrid DD, hi-res and increases price.
c) 11" stays the same, 13"-15"-17" becomes Air-Pro hybrids.
I'd say the first is the less likely. It would dumb down every Mac under 15"-$1799. Ethernet, HDD, etc. would become "premium" features even for Apple standards, the same way they tried to phase out Firewire in 2008, and it was coldly accepted.
The third would make Apple to give up the "Air" brand, and create middle-way laptops for the 13" size, thicker than Air and not as powerful as the Pro could be. Not going to happen, IMHO.
The second seems the more viable to me. Apple has hystorically kept at least two lines for mainstream and professional lines, and we all know that the 13" Pro deserves better hardware than now, as we know that Apple wants people to buy the Air, thus making it cheaper.
Or what the hell, we are going to buy them no matter what.
Interestingly, Apple is slowly making the 'more' portable ones, such as Mac Minis, Macbook Airs, without ODD. I'm pretty sure that between 2012 and 2013 there will be a MBP without an ODD. If anyone wants it, then it's just as simple as going to the Apple store and buy a superdrive. I wish I had a MBP without ODD.