Apple Rolls Out Their New MacBook Pro Series | Hacker News Reader

Apple Rolls Out Their New MacBook Pro Series

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Here are the differences I see:

-Intel Core i5/i7 on 15/17-inch models.

-Longer lasting batteries (10hr for 13-inch and 8-9hr for 15/17-inch)

-GPU upgrade to 330M from 9600M GT on 15/17-inch models and 320M on 13-inch models

-Intel HD Graphics

-Option to get a higher resolution screen (1680x1050 for 15-inch) with "antiglare"

Anything else?

Yes, for example 4gb of memory is now the default in the 13". Also I'm not sure if the SD slot was there before.

The previous model (which I own) had 4gb and an SD slot. The only difference appears to be the battery life and the video card, both of which make me jealous.

Are you sure the base model for the 13 inches had 4gb by default? I remember looking at it last week and it had only 2gb.

Actually, you are right.. I bought the upgraded 13". My mistake.

The previous models had the old Core2Duo processors, too.

Yeah, I bought the previous 15" model 2 weeks ago, just before the announcement. Ugh.

What's the return policy? Only 14 days? If not return that and eT the $50 restock fee it would be worth it in the end.

There have been major performance bumps in the CPU/graphics board, with automatic graphics switching in between the Nvidia 330M and the integrated Intel HD chipset. That should improve battery life.

More details : http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html

Also, you can order a screen with 1680 by 1050 resolution on the 15" MacBooks.

Still, on the whole having a hard time getting very excited about the update. It's a refresh as opposed to a major update.

The previous version didn't offer 1680x1050 at 15"? I consider that a necessity.

Pricey. For the cost of a 17" MacBook, you could instead get a quad-core i7 desktop, an SSD for the boot drive, 2TB of RAID-1, and a 30" monitor.

This is why I go the desktop/netbook route. Cheaper overall, and the laptop is basically disposable. If you break it or lose it, oh well. Not the case with the Macbook.

I took the netbook-only route. Never looked back.

All my code is on version control, mail and calendar are "on the cloud" and all important files are rsync'ed to another machine that would be perfectly happy with a serial terminal (but has hardware accelerated graphics because it was cheaper this way).

On my desk you will find a mouse, a monitor and a notebook stand. No need for more, really.

Eventually, we are all going to have netbooks/tablets/phones that are basically full-blown PCs which need interface peripherals.

Actually, we have that degree of CPU power on the phones already, for a value of "full-blown PC" from years ago. What we need is more support for the use pattern in the OS/software.

Take your data everywhere and have it synced with the cloud for backup/web access in a pinch.

EDIT: Software does this, if you are savvy. I'm talking about becoming the mainstream use pattern.

I would think you'd benefit heavily from Opera Mini for a desktop. I wonder why they don't have such a thing with "maximum" requirements. (I see the disadvantage to having anyone be able to use Opera Mini for their service reliability.)

Which netbook do you have?

An Acer Aspire One, the one with the hard-disk. I got it upgraded to 1.5 gigs.

Are i5's and i7's really much faster? The clock-speeds are basically the same. I know there's more to it, like cache size and such, but clockspeed and number of cores is a lot of it, and that only changed slightly. (2.33GHz->2.4GHz for the cheap 15", I believe.)

They are in fact dramatically faster.

No quad-core? Considering Apple's popularity with developers and media creators, I expected to see the option.

Unless I'm mistaken, there's no mobile quad-core Arrandale CPU. You'd have to go to a non-mobile chip, with TDP in a completely different ballpark.

The quad-core mobile part is designated Clarksfield. TDP is 45W for the lower-clocked models and 55W for the highest. The Arrandale chips Apple is using are 35W.

Was the Air updated as well? I've been waiting for it to get 4GB of memory since it came out.

doesn't look like it.

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