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Posts tagged with "macbook pro"

iFixit Tears Down 2011 MacBook Pro

iFixit didin’t waste any time and, shortly after the release of the new MacBook Pros, tore down a 15” model to see the changes performed by Apple in this revision. It turns out, not much. Most changes are visible in the logic board (quad-core processor, AMD GPU, Thunderbolt chip) and in the way the battery is attached to the laptop.

A few notes from the teardown below.

Battery life decreased from previous generations, as Apple is performing more accurate tests with more realistic estimates (their tests include Flash installed while browsing the web):

No pentalobe screws;

iFixit thinks Apple made some improvements to wireless performance under the hood;

Broadcom BCM4331 chip.

The RAM in this machine is PC3-10600 RAM. That’s the same RAM used in the 2010 revision of the 21.5” and 27” iMacs, but different from earlier Apple laptops. PC3-10600 RAM is backwards compatible with the PC3-8500 RAM in older MacBook Pro Unibody machines, but you can’t use PC3-8500 RAM in this machine

The wireless card bracket is aluminum, rather than the plastic in previous revisions. Perhaps this change was made for thermal reasons, as a visible pink thermal pad is used to transfer heat from the board to its aluminum bracket.

Holy thermal paste! Time will tell if the gobs of thermal paste applied to the CPU and GPU will cause overheating issues down the road.

Engadget’s Hands-On With The New MacBook Pros

The folks at Engadget got their hands on a new MacBook Pro, a $2,199 configuration with 2.2GHz quad-core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M, 750 GB hard drive, 4 GB of RAM. The machine “clocked a preliminary GeekBench score of 9647”. Unfortunately, they can’t test Thunderbolt devices right now:

We just got our new 15-inch MacBook Pro review unit, and although it looks almost exactly the same as the previous MBP, it has that fancy new Thunderbolt icon on the side, which ought to make I/O nerd hearts flutter the world over. Unfortunately, there aren’t any Thunderbolt peripherals on the market yet, so we can’t really test the new connection yet, but we can report that backwards compatibility with Mini DisplayPort performs as advertised and that all of our display adapters worked without issue – the first time we can ever remember Apple switching a standard and not requiring all new dongles.

They saw a demo with a prototype Promise RAID unit, however:

We also watched a 5GB file transfer in just a few seconds – all very impressive, but we’re definitely anxious to try some of this stuff ourselves once Thunderbolt devices start shipping sometime in the spring.

This is why Thunderbolt will (sooner or later) change the way we think of desktop connectivity.

Apple Introduces New MacBook Pros

Apple introduced the new MacBook Pro line today with Intel “Sandy Bridge” processors and Light Peak technology renamed “Thunderbolt”, integrated over mini DisplayPort on the 13”, 15” and 17” models. In this year’s update to the line, Apple included quad-core CPUs in the 15” and 17” MacBook Pros, and new AMD Radeon GPUs.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two configurations: one with a 2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 and 320GB hard drive starting at $1,199; and one with a 2.7 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 and 500GB hard drive starting at $1,499.

The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is available in two models: one with a 2.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6490M and 500GB hard drive starting at $1,799 and one with a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M and 750GB hard drive starting at $2,199.

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro features a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M and 750GB hard drive and is priced at $2,499.

Press release here. Specs below, full specs here.

MacBook Pro 13” -  1280x800 screen resolution. 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, Dual core. 320 GB 5400 rpm hard drive. 4 GB 1333 MHz RAM. Intel HD 3000.

MacBook Pro 13” -  1280x800 screen resolution. 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, Dual core. 500 GB 5400 rpm hard drive. 4 GB 1333 MHz RAM. Intel HD 3000.

MacBook Pro 15” - 1440x900 screen resolution.  2.0 GHz Intel Core i7, Quad core. 500 GB 5400 rpm hard drive. 4 GB 1333 MHz RAM. AMD Radeon HD 6490M 256 MB.

MacBook Pro 15” - 1440x900 screen resolution.  2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, Quad core. 750 GB 5400 rpm hard drive. 4 GB 1333 MHz RAM. AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1 GB.

MacBook Pro 17” - 1920x1200 screen resolution. 2.2 Ghz Intel Core i7, Quad core. 750 GB 5400 rpm hard drive. 4 GB 1333 MHz RAM. AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1 GB.

Update: configuration options available for the new MacBook Pros. A few notes: no 7200 rpm drive for MBP 13”, no high-res display option for MBP 13”, SSD up to 512 GB available.

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New MacBook Pro 15” Specs Leaked? AMD Radeon, Thunderbolt, No SSD

The Apple Store is down, the new MacBook Pros are only a few hours away at this point, yet Mac4Ever is posting a photo of the specs of the new MacBook Pro 15-inch (although it’s not specified whether it’s a low-end or high-end model).

First off, no SSD. There’s a 500 GB 5400 rpm hard drive in there. The photo also shows the following details:

- Intel Core i7, quad-core, 2Ghz

- 4 GB SDRAM DD3

- Thunderbolt port as seen on the leaked MacBook Pro 13” photos

- AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphic processor

- FaceTime HD camera

- SuperDrive 8x

- SDXC, two USB ports, ForeWire 800

- 1440 x 900 screen resolution

Mac4Ever posted a series of leaked shots yesterday, later confirmed by multiple sources, so we’re very confident this photo is real. We’ll find out in a few hours anyway. Read more

New Design for MacBook Pros in 2012? Next Week’s iPad 2 Actually an iPad 1.5?

Following today’s leaks of the upcoming MacBook Pros and the official iPad 2 event announcement by Apple, iLounge has posted more information on the next-generation MBPs and iPads we’re going to see tomorrow and next week. According to iLounge’s sources, this year’s MacBook Pro refresh is turning out to be an incremental upgrade / speed bump, but a major redesign for the line is planned for 2012, and it’s already in development at Apple’s manufacturers in Taiwan.

Next year is the year when Apple will introduce an all new design for the MacBook Pro product family, which is already under development at Quanta in Taiwan. It’s being described as a big, “milestone” release for the Pro family, as compared with the speed bump features that will be introduced in tomorrow’s models.

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Will Apple Finally Drop The White MacBook? 16GB SSDs In MacBook Pros?

I’ve hedged bets with Federico that Apple would drop the white MacBook this time around, and I might be up $100 in the betting pool thanks to MacGeneration, who speculates Apple will replace the plastic model with the 13” MacBook Air. It only makes sense - I can’t help think of a more sensible pricing tier from little MacBook to big MacBook.

MacGeneration via AppleInsider reports that the 13” MacBook would see an upgrade to Intel’s core i3 processor, as well seeing a display bump to a new 1440x900 pixel resolution and the addition of a third USB port.

The fifteen inch MacBook Pro would see the option to replace superdrive replaced for an SSD, and the 17” model may come standard with 8 GB of RAM.

Each of the MacBooks are expected to debut Intel’s new LightPeak technology, and are also reported to be introducing a new formfactor that should result in lighter, more powerful models with Intel’s Sandy Bridge inside. A 16 GB SSD could supplement a hard disk drive for faster booting and system performance.

[MacGeneration via AppleInsider]

Intel Launching Light Peak on Thursday, MacBook Pros Launch Not A Coincidence?

CNET reports Intel will hold a press event on Thursday to officially “roll out” (presumably to manufacturers) its Light Peak technology:

Intel on Thursday plans to roll out Light Peak, a high-speed connection technology that Apple is also likely to adopt, according to an industry source familiar with the details of the event.

Intel released a statement to the media today saying that on Thursday in San Francisco it will “host a…press briefing to discuss a new technology that is about to appear on the market.”

There will also be a media event held the same day at the Intel campus in Santa Clara, Calif., where the chipmaker will conduct technology and product demonstrations.

The rumored February 24th release date for the new MacBook Pros doesn’t sound like a simple coincidence at this point. Several bloggers noted that it’d be unusual for Apple to introduce new hardware on a Thursday, but the Intel media event backs up previous rumors that the new MBP line will feature the fast Light Peak technology. We’ll see.

New MacBook Pros To Feature Hard Drive / SSD Combo for Faster OS?

The new MacBook Pros are approaching the rumored February 24th release date, with several retailers sold out  and various Apple online stores reporting shipments within 3-5 business days – a timeframe that plays very well with the Thursday, Feb. 24th rumors. BGR has posted some interesting details on the new models, which will come in five different SKUs as previously reported and will be lighter at around a half-pound less than the current generation. BGR also claims the new MBPs will have bigger glass trackpads.

The curious tidbit, however, is about a hard drive / SSD combo that would allow the new MacBook Pros to store the OS on the faster solid state disks and load everything else straight off the regular (and perhaps very large in capacity) drive:

The next bit of information doesn’t quite make sense to us, but we have been told the OS on the laptops will be loaded to a separate (internal) 8-16GB SSD while everything else will remain on the regular hard drive. There will be options for just SSD drives but the base models will feature regular hard disks with the SSD combo for the OS.

The rumor is interesting because it replicates what many users have been doing over the years to achieve a faster OS and still manage to store hundreds of GBs of media on their computers: install the OS on a small internal SSD, offload media and apps on a second internal (spinning) hard drive. It’s not a full SSD setup, but it has worked well for thousands of Mac users in the past years.

Does this make sense to you? Personally, I think I will go with the single (and more expensive) SSD option, but this could be a good move to introduce SSD in the MacBook Pros without increasing costs for the base models and yet provide a full-featured SSD option for those who want the speed and efficiency of solid state.

New MacBook Pros: February 24th

According to two separate reports from Italian websites SlideToMac and iSpazio posted this morning, the next generation of MacBook Pros – due an update – is going to be released next week, with shipments to Italian resellers starting in the next few days to ensure a late February launch. MacRumors has now independently confirmed that the new MacBook Pros will be released on Thursday, February 24th.

We’ve since heard reliable confirmation that this information is accurate and that the expected release date is next Thursday, February 24th. The move would be a bit unusual for Apple to launch new machines on a Thursday. So, if you are about to buy a new MacBook Pro, wait until next week.

This morning, iSpazio also posted the rumored model numbers of the new units (MC720, MC721, MC723, MC724, and MC725) which will likely sport a new design inspired by the MacBook Airs (dubbed by Apple on its website as the “next generation of MacBooks”) and the new powerful Sandy Bridge chips.

In the past weeks, rumors of stock running low suggested the MacBook Pro line was going to be updated relatively soon. At this point, it looks like next week we’ll be able to get our hands on the new generation of MacBook Pros.