Apple Watch: New MacBook Pro Lineup Today

Ken — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:56:18 +0000

... as expected.

The skinny:

All Models

"Thunderbolt" connector. This is the copper version of Intel's "Light Peak" technology; it's a single 10GB connection that will eventually replace USB, FireWire, SATA, and HDMI. The connector is physically identical to Apple's Mini-DisplayPort connector (and it's backward compatible), so you can already use it to connect displays.
High definition FaceTime camera (webcam). I'm not sure what that will do to upstream bandwidth requirements; I expect most users won't be able to take advantage of the full resolution.

13" MacBook Pro:

Prices unchanged at $1199/$1499
CPU changed from 2.40/2.66 GHz dual-core Core2 Duo to a 2.3 GHz dual-core Core i5 or 2.7GHz dual-core Corei7. That's a fairly significant improvement.
Standard RAM is unchanged at 4GB on all models.
Standard hard drive lineup up from 250/320 GB to 320/500 GB.
GPU is now the Intel HD Graphics 3000 instead of the NVidia GeForce 320M; this is a wash at best, perhaps even a slight downgrade
Battery life down from 10 hours to 7 hours

15" MacBook Pro:

Prices unchanged at the low and high end at $1799/$2199 (no more $1999 model)
CPU options now 2.0/2.2 GHz quad-core Core i7, instead of 2.4/2.53 GHz dual-core Core i5 or 2.66GHz dual-core Core i7
Standard hard drive lineup up from 250/500 GB to 500/750 GB
GPU is now Intel HD Graphics 3000 + AMD Radeon HD 6490M, instead of Intel HD + NVidia GeForce GT 330M; pretty much a wash
Battery life down from 8-9 hours to 7 hours

17" MacBook Pro:

Prices up from $2299 to $2499
CPU options now 2.2/2.3GHz quad-core Core i7, instead of 2.53/2.66 GHz dual-core Core i7
Standard hard drive up from 500 GB to 750 GB
GPU is now Intel HD Graphics 3000 + AMD Radeon HD 6750M, instead of Intel HD + NVidia GeForce GT 330M; this is an improvement
Battery life down from 8-9 hours to 7 hours

All in all, Apple sacrificed a few things (battery life in particular) to bump the CPU performance. These will be screaming fast machines. There's no small SSD for the OS as was rumored, and everything has retained roughly the same form factor (including the optical drive).