New MacBook Pros released

Apple's MacBook Pro page

-802.11n wireless
-Nvidia GeForce 8600m GT graphics (128mb or 256mb)
-2.2 or 2.4ghz Santa Rosa processors (800mhz FSB)
-Support for up to 4gb ram (2gb standard)
-667mhz DDR2 sodimms (compatible with previous memory)
-LED backlighting on 15" models
-30-60 minute battery life improvements (LED backlighting, smaller 45nm processor)
-8x SuperDrive
-7200rpm 160gb drive option (also 200gb 4200rpm)
-0.2-pounds lighter
-Optional 250gb 4200 hard drive on the 17" model
-Optional 1920x1200 display on the 17" model

This is exactly what I wanted. Bye-bye PC!

$239 for 4gb ram from OWC (save $511 over Apple)

$50 trade-in for your old ram from OWC (makes your 4 gigs cost $189 - save $561 over Apple)

RAM installation guide

Impressive. And the update is up about students getting a free nano

Sames said:

Impressive. And the update is up about students getting a free nano

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The deal is going on from June 5, 2007 through September 16, 2007. That gives me enough time to sell all of my PC equipment lol. Ah, bliss. Although I think I'm going to wait for OWC to release a cheaper 4gb kit - $750 my eye!

Sweet! With them announcing product updates/releases before WWDC, it makes me even more interested about the Keynote this coming Monday.

Any confirmation the displays are led? The store says nothing about it.

Mattlike said:

Sweet! With them announcing product updates/releases before WWDC, it makes me even more interested about the Keynote this coming Monday.

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I'm betting it's new iMacs. The rumors sites have been all over that one. I'm betting they'll have the Santa Rosa chipset and Terabyte hard drive options, at minimum. At any rate, I got what I wanted this time around - the MacBook Pro of my dreams!

kramer92911 said:

Any confirmation the displays are led? The store says nothing about it.

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Confirmation on the MacBook Pro page

Display’s the thing

A great video processor powers a great display. The new MacBook Pro is available in 15-inch models with a new mercury-free, power-efficient LED-backlit display and a 17-inch model with an optional 1920-by-1200 pixel display.

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Very tempting. I wonder what my CD MacBook Pro would fetch on eBay.

Mattlike said:

Sweet! With them announcing product updates/releases before WWDC, it makes me even more interested about the Keynote this coming Monday.

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I am thinking the same thing.

They have updated the MB, MBP and AppleTV in a short space of time all before WWDC. Looking at passed Apple Keynote info I found on the web Mr Jobs' likes to surprise people at his keynotes so it sounds like something else maybe on it's way to take centre stage.

Or the new OS X will have something totally new and unheard of in it.

amardilo said:

I am thinking the same thing.

They have updated the MB, MBP and AppleTV in a short space of time all before WWDC. Looking at passed Apple Keynote info I found on the web Mr Jobs' likes to surprise people at his keynotes so it sounds like something else maybe on it's way to take centre stage.

Or the new OS X will have something totally new and unheard of in it.

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I'm betting it will be the new iMac (at least according to all the rumor sites), but I'm hoping it will be a mid-range Mac tower. The rumor sites are saying they're going to be axing both the Mini and the 17" iMac, so they'll need something to be in the sub-$1,000 range. In his last interview, Jobs said that WWDC would be showing off Leopard as a "massive investment in desktops". I'm guessing part of that is the Time Machine feature, but also maybe that there will be a cheaper, expandable tower. They don't really have anywhere to go on the top-end Mac Pro (8 cores & 16gb ram is about as good as you can get unless they released a quad-processor model).

Killer update, exactly what I was hoping.

Nicholi said:

What i'm looking forward to hearing is whether the next MacBook Pro hardware revision will include the move away from the now AMD owned ATI GPU's, and to the new nVidia 8000m series.

It would make some logistical since, Apple is in cohorts with Intel, and nVidia is already in the iMac's.

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Hehe feels good.

Nicholi said:

Killer update, exactly what I was hoping.

Hehe feels good.

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Good call Definitely made sense! I'm a bit bummed there's no 512mb video card option in there though

I'm going to humbly raise a hand and ask a question, me be curious. I've read a lot of people raving about wanting the Santa Rosa processors. What's so great about them, are they some type of new technology? I can't seem to find much out about them. I'm just curious/geeky.

My mac keeps getting lower and lower in the iFoodChain

That is the final nail in the coffin... bye bye PC without question!!
woohoo.

dyinginavan said:

I'm going to humbly raise a hand and ask a question, me be curious. I've read a lot of people raving about wanting the Santa Rosa processors. What's so great about them, are they some type of new technology? I can't seem to find much out about them. I'm just curious/geeky.

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They're hardly faster than the previous Merom chips...from 2.33 to 2.4ghz and from 667mhz to 800mhz FSB. The big thing that's exciting is that you can now put 4 gigs of ram into a Santa Rosa laptop, which is ideal if you run virtual machines under Parallels - 2 gigs for Windows XP, 2 gigs for OS X for example.

stoldie said:

That is the final nail in the coffin... bye bye PC without question!!
woohoo.

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Same situation for me...this is exactly what I've been waiting for. I loved my old MacBook, but I need a dedicated graphics chip. Dual-core, 4 gigs of ram, good LED screen, and Parallels is working perfectly for Windows (no Photoshop lag!) - I can finally do a 100% switch.

Meh, it's nice for anyone who have been waiting or updating from a G5 or CD, but it doesn't offer anything extra I need from my C2D.

Before the $500 premium got you the chip, graphics and memory upgrade. Now you still get the same memory.

$750 for 2 GB of memory!! Ouch! Time to hit up Newegg.com and save a ton between cheaper memory and selling off the included memory.

dyinginavan said:

I'm going to humbly raise a hand and ask a question, me be curious. I've read a lot of people raving about wanting the Santa Rosa processors. What's so great about them, are they some type of new technology? I can't seem to find much out about them. I'm just curious/geeky.

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For the Macbook Pro's, Santa Rosa (in itself) didn't mean much. People were just generally looking for the MBP's to get updated.

Santa Rosa is the newest generation in Intel's Centrino Mobile Technology line for laptops.

It included a new set of Core 2 Duo procesoors (Memron 2), with faster speeds and more L2 cache on the models. There model numbers have odd numbering (7100, 7300 etc etc).

Another portion of the Santa Rosa package was an update to Intel's wireless cards for laptops as well, this time including Draft-N out of the box, for faster wireless connections. Also the new card is supposed to pick up better signal than its predecessor.

Intel's new X3100 graphics chip hopped on board as well, of course this wouldn't ever be enough for the MacBook Pro's, but will be nice if it ever comes to the MacBooks

An optional introduction of Intel Robson Turbo-Cache, either 512mg or 1gb of dedicated flash RAM to assist the harddrive, to improve performance.

Thats it for Santa Rosa, of course the only one of those we see in the new MBP's is the processor chip. Everyone shouting "Santa Rosa for MBP's" was more than likely just wanting to see it in order to see the graphics chip bumped from the x1600 to the DX10 capable 8600m

Interesting to see the departure from ATI graphics chips. That has to be related to the AMD/ATI merger and Apple's relationship with Intel. I'd expect the entire line-up to be nVidia in short order (fine by me).