
New MacBook Pro series - frytaz
http://apple.com/macbookpro/
======
SandB0x
Didn't get as much coverage, but there are also new ThinkPads this week:
[http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/lenovo-trots-out-new-
thin...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/22/lenovo-trots-out-new-thinkpad-t-l-
and-w-series-laptops/)

The 14" models look good: 30 hours (claimed) battery on the T420, 0.83"
ultrathin T420s with discrete graphics.

Edit: Here's the official announcement, which took a bit of digging around to
find: <http://news.lenovo.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1421> .
synacksynack has posted a good link now.

~~~
kloncks
30 hours (claimed) battery life?

That sounds ridiculous. How close (or far away) to the truth is that? Anybody
know more?

~~~
capstone
That's for _extended_ battery used _together_ with the regular battery.

~~~
kloncks
Ah, the fine print.

I just feel if this was just the actual battery, we would have heard a bigger
announcement!

~~~
icey
15 hours (claimed) with the regular 9 cell battery. Not too shabby.

------
wheels
Color me disappointed. I was hoping for:

• Ditching the optical media for longer battery life

• 4 cores in the 13"

• Max RAM of 12 GB (this one isn't listed ... maybe?)

• The higher resolution 1440x900 resolution in the 13" that the Macbook Air
has

Altogether it's a pretty wussy update. Basically it looks like the diff (on
the 13" model, which is what I care about) is:

• Faster CPU (finally!)

• Thunderbolt port (count on buying another $30 display adapter like every
generation)

• 3 hours less battery life

~~~
siglesias
>>• 3 hours less battery life

The old battery tests were unrealistic. They advertised 8 hours on the 17'',
but who really got even close to that under normal use?

I'm thankful they're taking the hit on pure battery life numbers to report an
honest, realistic test.

~~~
bnastic
Well, I do get very close to 8 hours on my 17" MBP (when the cpu is not too
stressed). That number will go down if any serious work is done, but light
browsing etc. takes it all the way up to 8h.

~~~
rdl
The key I find with my mid 2010 17 is to manually force intel graphics.
Several web browsers and plugins seem to invoke the NVidia discrete chip which
sucks power.

~~~
rdl
<http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus> is a great tool for this.

------
sandGorgon
hmm - you need to go to 1799$ before you end up with a half decent graphics
card and 2199$ for a decent card.

Compare it with a Dell XPS 15 Sandy Bridge - $1049 for i7 2620M, 1920X1080
display, nVidia GT525 Optimus card, HD Camera.

For a first time possible mac buyer (me) - is it well justified ?

~~~
achompas
Have you used OS X before?

I pay the Mac premium for two reasons: (1) my laptop is supported by tons of
Apple Stores across the country, and (2) OS X is awesome (and since it's Unix-
based, I can work in the terminal without a problem). There's also a great
reselling market for Macs.

If (1) and (2) don't really matter to you, go with the Dell. I'll pay the
extra price to get exactly what I want in my computer.

~~~
tomkarlo
This... the cost of my computer hardware is basically inconsequential given
that these days I'll often get 3-4 years out of it. If I'm using it for work,
that's like $2 a day total cost over its lifetime. I'll happily pay an
incremental $1 a day for a system that saves me 10 minutes of dicking around
and forgo starbucks if that's what it takes.

Justifying choice of your primary work system on the basis of even a $1,000
price difference is generally penny wise - pound foolish. I don't think that's
a Mac/Win/Linux issue, just common sense when it comes to work tools.

~~~
kenjackson
That assumes you save any time at all. I use a ThinkPad with Win7 and I think
honestly say that I lose no additional time vs using a MBP. In fact I'd argue
it saves me time as I generally like the keyboard more and I can't stand
trackpads (I turn mine off and use the stickpoint -- which I actually even
prefer over a mouse).

My point... the $1000 savings for many comes with no penalty at all. With that
said, I don't have a Unix environnemnt requirements, which would change the
equation in a big way.

~~~
tomkarlo
I think if you find the Thinkpad / W7 more powerful, you should go that route.

All I'm saying is that if you're planning to make on the order of $250-$300K
off using a piece of equipment, $1,000 (or even $10,000, arguably) probably
shouldn't be material to which one you choose.

~~~
nooneelse
But any dollar not spent on one part of a work setup can be spent on some
other part of the work setup, so that kind of thinking can easily come out in
the wash.

------
billybob
Thunderbolt is the coolest thing here to me. The way I read this, Intel at
least partly owns the IP on it, so it should be available on PCs in the
future, too? (I hope so, because that will create a bigger peripheral market.)

UPDATE: Answer appears to be "yes."

"...the fastest way to get information in and out of your PC and peripheral
devices..."

<http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm>

~~~
sandipc
when the 11" Macbook Air gets Thunderbolt and a newer generation of
processors, I will be first in line to pick one up.

Compact size, internal SSD, and only two cords to plug in each time I sit down
- power and data - and data happens to also carry video to a large external
monitor setup.

------
CrazedGeek
I was about to post something to the effect of "I'm disappointed that the
13-inch model replaced the Nvidia GPU with an Intel one", but it seems to be
decently better: [http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-
GeForce-320M.28701.0.htm...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-
GeForce-320M.28701.0.html)

~~~
DocSavage
I'm a bit disappointed because I wanted to fool with GPU programming and I
think Nvidia is still the standard there:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4638324/nvidia-vs-amd-
gpg...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4638324/nvidia-vs-amd-gpgpu-
performance)

Does anyone have any experience with OpenCL versus Cuda?

~~~
tcoppi
you can't program cuda in os x anyway, apple only uses OpenCL. As far as I
know, os x doesn't support OpenCL on the intel graphics chips either

~~~
DocSavage
The people in this forum would be very surprised you can't program Cuda on Mac
OS X :)

<http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=75>

~~~
tcoppi
Oh wow, I was pretty sure I read somewhere that Apple was only allowing
OpenCL. Good find

------
joshfinnie
I never understood why the 13" version is such a second class citizen? Is it
that different of a footprint that Apple can't fit the same technology in
it... or is this Apple's plan?

~~~
Stormbringer
Probably because of overlap between it and the MacBook and the MacBook Air?

Frankly, I'm amazed they still offer a 13 inch MBP (which is not to say that
it isn't a good little machine, but that Apple likes to segment their market
clearly)

I can't see the prices and options at the moment, but it may be that the MBP
is just a couple of hundred bucks more than the top end MacBook, which means
that some people might stretch that little bit extra.... but the Apple lineup
is becoming very cluttered around that small portable computer strange
attractor.

~~~
demoo
There is indeed this overlap and clutter on the 13". I think this is because
much within the Air is still pretty new stuff for most people: SSD, ditching
optical drives. So if people want to pay for performance as they now know it,
they'll go for the Pro version. But I doubt there will be a next generation of
13 inch Pros.

~~~
stuhacking
More like, so much within the Air is still bloody expensive.

I'd rather have space than SSD speed for the associated price. I want to be
able to watch DVDs or burn off a quick disk. I don't want to have to step up
to a bulky 15" machine just to retain these features.

The Air is not, in my opinion, a really useful machine.

~~~
demoo
So you are one of the reasons there is still a 13 inch Pro. In a couple of
years, with a new Air with bigger SSD and more of your data in the cloud, it
might make more sense to you.

~~~
Stormbringer
How is having a bigger SSD going to help him burn stuff to disk or watch a
DVD? His point was that he still uses the optical drive.

So you say, well, your DVD will be 'in the cloud'. Never mind that pushing
that much data up most connections will take all month, _how will he even get
it onto his computer with no optical drive in the first place?_

Well, you might say, all your new stuff will be on the cloud, so don't worry
about it. But consider if he has a massive DVD collection. Heck, not even a
massive one, just assume a hundred or s DVDs.... are you _Seriously_ proposing
that he repurchase all that media in 'cloud' format? At $30 a pop, that would
_easily_ justify the cost of going for a more expensive MBP rather than a
crippled Air.

Oh you say, well if it is just a matter of money, you can just buy the
external optical drive. But now whenever you take the laptop anywhere, you
have _peripherals_ to drag along with you, and that involves _logistics_.
Again, he's better off with the one that is just built in.

Disclaimer: personally I think the Air is pretty neat. I just don't agree with
parent's assertion that optical drives are unnecessary.

~~~
scott_s
Streaming Netflix is $8 a month. Its library now is okay. In the next few
years, it may approach total coverage of the movies most people want to watch.
(There already is plenty of overlap with my collection and what's available
through streaming.)

The parent did not assert optical drives were unnecessary. He only suggested
they _may_ not be necessary for _that person_.

------
jonpaul
Bummed that you can't get more than 8 GB of memory on even the i7. Why are the
i7 mobiles only limited to 8 GB? That seems silly for today's standards and
memory costs.

~~~
cnlwsu
its not the new i7 mobiles that are not supporting it... You can get a sager
with 16GB
[http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_customed...](http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_customed&model_name=NP8130)

------
wippler
may be they should've relabeled the 13" MBP as Macbook and retired the white
Macbook, frankly the specs are quite low except for the CPU.. display at
1280x800 :(

But the 15" and 17" inchers look awesome with quads

~~~
scott_s
I think that was the original goal - hence why my original 13" unibody just
says "Macbook" and not "Macbook Pro." I think they originally planned on
retiring the white plastic model, and either calling all of them Macbooks, or
just calling the 15" and 17" models Pros. I can only assume they changed
because there was still demand for the slightly cheaper plastic model.

------
swannodette
Consumer laptops where the OS sees 8 processors. Now is a _really_ good time
to pick up Clojure, Erlang, Haskell, Scala and see what the fuss is all about.

------
nicksergeant
Does anyone know if Thunderbolt will support multiple displays? If I hear a
yes, I'm off to the Apple store.

~~~
honopu
I agree with you. It'd be great to be able to run 3 monitors from a closed mbp
as a tower replacement. We'll have to see what kind of display adapters they
come up with. I use a Diamond NV usb-2 video adapter and it works well for
excel or mail, but if you are trying to actively use spaces it gets very laggy
due to bandwidth constraints on usb2.0

~~~
nicksergeant
Yeah, I've got the Diamond BVU195, too. Slows everything down, especially
spaces and other things that use Core animation.

------
code_duck
I dread this because it makes the model I bought last year feel outdated! I
can't see upgrading something like an MBP more than once every two years,
though. That's reassuring since I know whatever that model is, it will be
fantastic by current standards.

The only time my MBP breaks a sweat as it is, though, is on games: Half Life 2
and the PlayStation 2 emulator make the fans come on like it's trying to dry
my hair.

I'm not 100% sold on my next laptop being an Apple, though. While my MBP is
very impressive, it _is_ also a quite expensive piece of hardware... and I'm
not impressed by Apple's policies regarding iOS and the App Store. But what is
the alternative? It doesn't seem like there is any other manufacturer
successfully designs elegant, high performance luxury notebooks.

~~~
bphogan
Don't feel out of date. I've had the same macbook pro I bought 4 years ago.
It's gone on trips with me, it's been knocked off the couch by my kid, and it
runs my unit tests just as fast as my friend's newer model.

I paid $1900 for my core2duo macbook pro and got four years and counting out
of it. Before that I was buying new Windows machines every two years. They
were half the price, but didn't last as long.

My next machine, when this one dies, will definitely be a mac. :)

------
xster
unfortunate that almost all the rumours were false \- hybrid ssd \- better
battery \- higher resolution \- bigger trackpad \- thinner body

------
mrinterweb
I find the benchmark graphs on
<http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html> frustrating. What is the
baseline Apple is comparing to? I have a MacBook Pro with a core 2 duo 2.53GHz
processor. I am sure that the 2.2 GHz quad-core processor on the new MBPs is
faster, but by how much. How do the processors stack up when running single
treaded applications? I suppose I'll need to wait for the third party reviews.

~~~
ashamedlion
Apple always say what the stats are of the machines in the footnotes:
<http://grab.by/98Pq>

------
zefhous
Anyone know if you can boot from a Thunderbolt Connected drive?

~~~
wmf
The drive would have to either be a device that's already supported by Apple's
EFI or it would have to include an EFI option ROM.

------
NathanKP
It seems as if for the last couple years every time Apple releases a new
device it gets less expensive than the predecessor. I wonder if this is just
an economy of scale effect, if as Apple grows they can afford to make less
expensive computers, or if the lower prices are driven by falling hardware
costs, or if they are deliberately driving the price down to grab a larger
market share.

Either way the Apple product line up is just getting better and better in my
eyes.

~~~
ugh
Aren’t prices exactly the same as before?

~~~
NathanKP
Right, but now you are getting more hardware for your dollars.

~~~
ugh
Uhm, like everywhere else? Have you been alive those last thirty years?
Hardware gets better, prices come down. This years MacBook is obviously and
unsurprisingly going to better than last years.

------
Groxx
> _Thanks to the new microarchitecture, the graphics processor is on the same
> chip as the central processor and has direct access to L3 cache._

I've been waiting for this kind of thing for _years_. Up until the iPad, I
never would've guessed it'd be Apple that beat everyone out the door. That
kind of proximity has the potential to change how we use GPUs, because moving
data back and forth can be so much faster.

~~~
wmf
Innovations in Sandy Bridge are due to Intel, not Apple. All PC vendors use
the same Intel processors. CPU/GPU "fusion" sounds like a great idea until you
realize that it necessarily involves a _weak_ GPU, which negates any benefit
of the close coupling.

------
tsycho
Interesting that they are now offering a SSD drive......does this mean they
have now added the SSD TRIM command (or planning to add it in Lion)?

~~~
CountSessine
Not sure why you were voted down - I really want to see Apple support TRIM,
too.

Does anyone know whether there's a next-gen interface standard that's being
worked on that might supersede SATA, with more elegant support for flash
memory (beyond SATA's hacky NCQ+TRIM)?

~~~
ericd
Built in garbage collection in newer SSD's makes it unnecessary.

------
bane
Somehow the shot of the side made me feel very old, I hardly recognized what
half of the ports were. :(

------
Torn
Interesting they've included an integrated graphics controller (Intel) but
also a discrete ATI card with 1GB of its own memory.

I wonder if real-world gaming benchmarks will really have near the promised 3x
improvements over the last gen MBP's...

~~~
pclark
hasn't Apple always done this?

~~~
Stormbringer
The combo of built in and also discrete graphics is a relatively new
phenomenon for them.

I remember back when they introduced the first MBPs with the two different
built in graphics chips they were hyping it up, but the audience reaction was
stony to say the least, because the previous MBPs had had a moderately good
(for the time) graphics card, and built in graphics were perceived as being of
a much lower capability, so that was a step backwards in power.

It might have given them great battery life (I seem to remember that as their
big selling point), but it meant you couldn't play graphics intensive games on
them.

------
raymondh
The new SDXC slot is limited to 64GB. That's an odd limitation given that
Lexar has already released a 128GB SDXC card. The spec tops out at 2TB, so
this slot could have provided a great way to load huge filesystems.

------
emilepetrone
Ask HN: Get an old 13in MBP or new 13in MBP?

The battery is more important to me than Thunderbolt.

~~~
sandipc
Also consider that the new i5 in the 13" will be much better than the old
Core2Duo.

------
mcantelon
The Mac I'm working on is the last Apple product I plan on buying. Not
interested in further subsidizing their attempts to normalize restrictive
computing models on their iOS platforms.

~~~
lamnk
Ugh, that's the biggest reason i decided to be a first time Mac user.

------
nagnatron
I'm disappointed that the 13" still has no high DPI screen. I think Apple will
start pushing higher DPI screens into their laptops when their OS becomes more
resolution-independent.

------
tjmaxal
I just bought a MacBook Pro last month. Why can't they announce these kinds of
updates so us poor fools don't get caught with old tech.

~~~
mtrn
<http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro>

------
philthy
sucks i bought a MBP two months ago...

~~~
Corrado
Yea, I just ordered 4 Henge Docks for the current (last?) generation MacBook
Pro lineup. Crap! I have a support question out to Henge to see if the ports
line up or not.

BTW: I'm not affiliated with Henge in any way, just a satisfied customer. If
you need a dock for your MBP, the Henge is it!

~~~
flomo
I'm excited about "Thunderbolt" because someone will finally be able to build
a _real_ Mac laptop dock/port replicator.

Henge looks nice, but having a bunch of plugs sticking out from a piece of
plastic seems like such a kludge.

~~~
Corrado
It actually works quite well. I have it set up behind my huge cinema display
and it looks kinda like a tiny tower back there. :)

------
didip
They took out the AMD Radeon graphic card on the 13" unit?

Make up your mind, Apple.

------
cosgroveb
So who's getting ready to sell their old MBP?

~~~
McP
Not me, my dual-core i7 already runs quite hot enough!

~~~
icefox
And has the feature of when running connected to a monitor (lid closed) to
becoming a warm cat bed/magnet :)

------
eof
No USB 3.0 is surprising/bad.

~~~
TillE
Is there any technical reason they'd stick with USB2?

Politically, I think they want to skip it and push "Thunderbolt" as the better
standard, since USB3 adoption is still pretty low. Just look at their
comparison chart:

<http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html>

------
ssn
What's new?

~~~
pclark
Quad core i7 instead of dual core i7 in 15" and 17"

i5 processor in 13"

Thunderbolt 10Gbps integrated into DisplayPort connection

AMD/ATI Radeon graphics chips

~~~
xutopia
Actually the older generation of core i7 were quad core too but had less cache
than this generation.

    
    
      L2 Cache (per core):	256 KB
      L3 Cache:	4 MB

~~~
pclark
My i7 says 2 cores in Device Profiler but says 4 in Activity Monitor, fwiw.

~~~
jbooth
Hyperthreading. 2 physical core, 4 logical.

------
trezor
Will you be able to get a MBP with a builtin 3G-adapter yet? No? Ok, I'll just
go back to Dell then.

Edit: While my comment may come off trollish, this _is_ a requirement for me
when buying any mobile gear. That Apple still doesn't provide this for their
top of the line laptops still baffles me.

~~~
mmt
3G? What about 4G?

I'm a little irked that there's no system bus [1] slot, into which I could
install a 3G/4G combo card.

However, in the past, I've turned out to be unwilling to spend the extra money
on the dedicated hardware _and_ extra subscription. I'd rather have a
(nowadays quite tolerably small) USB dongle that I can use on any laptop or
even a battery-powered wireless access point [2] than the sleek convenience of
something built-in that only supports what was available when I bought it.

[1] e.g. ExpressCard, though, since the 802.11 on the pre-unibody generations
appeared to be mini-PCIe, I do wonder if there's hope for a combo wifi/wwan
card, even aftermarket.

[2] I'm a huge fan of the Cradlepoint PHS-300

~~~
daniel02216
There is an ExpressCard/34 slot on the 17" MBPs, and there isn't really room
for one on the 15" and smaller sizes.

~~~
mmt
I'm aware, but the 17" is just too huge. The 15" is just right, and I wouldn't
mind it being larger, as in previous generations, if only from squarer
corners.

I'm not convinced there's an issue of space _per se_ , since the SD card slot
is only slightly smaller, and, even there, a card is not completely contained
within the chassis when plugged in. Doing this with ExpressCard would be
better than having none at all, IMO.

------
shareme
Its the first MacBook Pro that I have wanted to buy

~~~
pclark
What has made it such an improvement over the previous models?

~~~
reustle
He likes the shorter battery life.

------
xubz
No BluRay combo drive.. I was very much expecting it to be present in the
series update.

~~~
xuki
Apple will never include a Bluray drive. Period.

~~~
beaumartinez
Why?

~~~
xuki
Apple won't add a new technology to a product for no reason. I can't think of
a reason why the mainstream users of MBP would be interested in BluRay.

Moving forward, I hope Apple will get rid of the optical drive or offer an
option to replace it with a 2nd HDD.

~~~
jokermatt999
_I can't think of a reason why the mainstream users of MBP would be interested
in BluRay._

For those of us without excellent internet connections, it's the only feasible
way to get HD movies.

~~~
xuki
Oh, well. Maybe because I live in Singapore here where internet connection is
damn fast I took it for granted.

------
PHPAdam
In other news Dell XPS Laptops Add Premium Audio, 3D Video, Sandy Bridge
Processors.

------
brudgers
TL;DR A year and a half after quad core i7 mobile processors become available
(and two and half years after the first quad core mobile processors were
released), the MBP gets them.

~~~
icefox
The first ones ran hotter/used more power than the case was designed for.

~~~
brudgers
The reason was Apple wanted to sell older processors at a high markup. It was
not as if Intel kept their roadmap a mystery or that Apple was not capable of
designing a new case and by the time unibody 17" MBP came on the market Penryn
had been out for more than a quarter.

------
marknutter
I remember when Apple used to have events for their notebook releases. Sigh.

~~~
ugh
They never had events for speed bumps.

~~~
KeithMajhor
I've never seen a more beautiful laptop. What can they really do besides
include faster components and add features to software?

~~~
ugh
Ditch the two spinning drives and build in a SSD by default? That would allow
for a redesign as well as a larger battery and would certainly warrant an
event.

After the MacBook Air, it’s only a matter of time until they do just that,
maybe next year. (I can only hope. I’m actually seriously considering
schlepping my 2007 MacBook Pro around another year.)

~~~
KeithMajhor
I understand that there are pretty HUGE technical differences between SSDs and
traditional HDDs. But from a user perspective it's just a faster component
that uses less power...

~~~
ugh
It’s not the SSD per se, it’s the saved space. A speed bump is a necessary but
not sufficient requirement for an Apple event ;-)

