Apple's MacBook Pro
By Marc Perton 
posted Jan 10th 2006 2:00PM
posted Jan 10th 2006 2:00PM
Yes, this is the one you've been waiting for (unless you've been holding out for an Apple tablet PC). It's the first Intel-powered portable from Apple, and it's called the MacBook Pro. That's right. Breaking from its long-standing PowerBook and iBook labels, Apple has created a whole new brand to commemorate its first Intel-based portable. As expected, the new portable is powered by an Intel Core Duo processor at either 1.67 or 1.83GHz, 512MB - 2GB RAM, built-in iSight, FrontRow, FireWire 400, two USB 2.0 ports, ExpressCard/34, MagSafe power, 802.11g (AirPort Extreme), Bluetooth 2.0 EDR), gigabit Ethernet, backlit keyboard, Apple remote input, 15.4-inch 1440 x 900 display, ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with either 128 or 256MB of RAM and dual-link DVI (for 30-inchers), an 80GB or 100GB drive, and dual-layer DVD burner. It'll cost $2,000 or $2,500 to start. It's an inch thick. It weighs 5.6 pounds. It'll run Windows. We think we're in love.
Where is my 13" 3.5 lb version :( :( :(
no firewire 800? pro my ass!
lame lame lame lame iwantone lame lame lame
And no FireWire 800...
this sucks they should have also started selling mac minis
"It'll run Windows." Do you mean through hacking? Or does it say it will run Windows?
I'm glad I bought a new PowerBook back in October after the latest revision now. >:(
It will run Windows? Says who?
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!
When does the 17in come out, and what's battery life like?
Do we know for sure that a regular user would be (relatively) easily able to install Windows on one of these? That's the thing that might get me to switch, but I'd have to be sure...
well, i'm still going to call 'em "powerbooks." macbook pro just sounds strange.
Damm, no ibook or mac mini update. I love the mac and all, but look at what you could get in the windows world for 2 grand.
hahaha, already ordered it. whoops.
It'll run windows... blasphemy. But I'm sure that will definitely be a selling point for some.
It's powerful but so mad expensive. 2k, WTF!!!!!!!!!
$2K, damn, well, there's always next year.
Ok well if this runs windows does that mean that the version on OSX it runs will run on a pc platform?
calm yourselves, everyone. just wait till all the bug notices start flying. heck, there were bugs with the last batch of powerbooks. i'd be wary of dropping $2k-$2.5k, just now. but i will say that it's about time. now keep it coming, steve.
Hmmm... As hot as this is... I might have to wait for the next incarnation.
This thing is pure fyah though.
So who wants to buy a slightly worn Powerbook g4 15" 1.5ghz? huh?
Hmmm, nice but I would have preferred the powerbook to be on the Merom Chip, and not Yonah. Yonah is not even 64bit.
I second Manny's question. Despite being an Intel processor, I would be very surprised if this will run Windows natively. Wouldn't it need a ton of Windows-specific drivers?
That rocks if it's true, though!
It will run windows until you try and right click!!!!!
Mmmm, if the new MacBooks are like the PowerMac dev kits and do run Windows I'll finally be able to have complete compatibility, well, you know, toss on a Slackware and go for a trio of platforms for fun, of course...
How sure are you about it running WINDOWS????????????
Did they say that?
Can we have a dual booot?
Man this is the dream machine I am waiting for a long long time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've got to get myself an Apple that runs Windows.
"i'll run windows" ? :)
STILL WAITING FOR TABLET!!!!!
no battery life specs on any pages??
same housings as the powerbooks? not that i dont love the aluminum casings....but im kinda let down....
No PC Card slot for an EVDO or HSDPA wireless card?
Think again of the Pro pals it all good but see something missing??? yeah thats the firewire 800 for all us editors and people that riquire Firewire 800 for an example external HDD thats sad.
How many people that are complaining about the lack of mac mini updates don't have a mac in the first place?
"It'll run Windows. "??????? WTF?
and where the ibooks at? I thought I could finally get apple for $700...oh well gotta wait
Will it dual boot Linux?
But I WAS hoping for a tablet Mac.
Seriously, the day Steve announces a tablet is the day I switch from Windows.
Is it just me or does it appear that the superdrive is single layer only?
What I want to know about is battery life. I looked all over the pages at the Apple site, and couldn't find anything.
Um... shouldn't they start discounting the Power PC versions?
Still no update on 12" model. Still no PVR capability. Still no multi-format card reader. Still no glare-type display.
Very disappointed.
Hey, anyone else notice that the DVD burner IS NOT dual-layer burning?
Perhaps MacBook Pro is all SATA, but there wasn't a slot-loading SATA DL burner available yet?
Also, there isn't a PCCard slot.
There's this thing called a ExpressCard/34 slot.
What is a ExpressCard slot?
http://www.expresscard.org/
Looks like the future, but for now, no EVDO for you!
Look for yourself, true believers:
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/whatsinside.html
Peace.
no PCMCIA slot? Has the express card slot replaced the PCMCIA? Until they start building in WWAN support like Lenovo and HP they should give us the option to use a PCMCIA aircard. BT tethering is not a convenient as a dedicated always installed aircard.
So complaints:
no FW800
no WWAN
no PCMCIA?
other than that they look like phenominal machines and once some hands on reviews start to appear I might just replace my thinkpad with one!
Hmm, I got the dev release running on my PC at home... don't know how that stacks up to the final release BUT it may offer an opportunity for those of us DESPARATELY awaiting the Mac Tablet that will never come.
1. Install OSX x86 on TabletPC
2. Convince native tablet drivers to treat digitzer overlay as though it were an attached Wacom
3. ????
4. Profit!
If anyone is brave enough to take this on with any tabletPC they've got lying around I WILL BUY IT WITH REAL MONEY. Promise!
looks like it is missing :
Dual-layer burning.
Firewire 800 port.
compared to the previous 15" that is. and the PC Card... being replaced with ExpressCard/34 ... of which there is zero info on the Apple site about.
This is a decent step but it seems like they had to make some design compromises to make it work [check out the position of the lock adaptor]. Plus the screen is actually slightly lower res [1440 x 900 vs. 960].
A great start though, bring on the 12" model [with higher than !@##@ 1024 x 768 damnit] and we'll talk.
Awww, lemme hear you say, "Skeet skeet skeet!"
So, how long until we
A) get pics of windows XP running on these?
B) get pics of Mac OS X 10.4.4 running on a new vaio?
Eh, I'm a windows person. I'm not knocking Macs, they are great computers, but It's easier for me to do all my stuff on windows considering I do a lot of video ripping, editing, and converting and haven't paid a dime for a single program since everything was free downloads. I'll consider getting one once it's easier to find all those freebie apps for the Mac. By the way, WHO CARES if it's not 64 bit! No one is using that yet. 64 bit apps won't be mainstream and easy to find for at least another year ( plus have you tried HL2 for 64 bit systems??? it SUCKS!)
Imagine if you could opt for Windows XP on the Apple store site.
One step closer anyway...
Your comments: Who wants to run windows on the awesome Mac... I run all windows PCs
right but I want to get a Mac Laptop. Now I just need the money...
I would be very supprised if this did not Run windows. They use an Intel CPU, intel chipset and off the shelf USB, PCI and AGP components that would have windows drivers already written for them by the vendor as par for the course before they were even a glint in Apples eye.
If apple wanted the system to be OSX only they could have crippled the BIOS in some way (I'm sure refalshing with a standard intel version would work fine).
As to running OSX on a non-apple hardware is not the same, I guess apple have soem encryption / verification logic or code in the BIOS or some chip hanging off the PCI bus for OSX to verify against. Windows won't be looking to do that.
Is there still just single click on this mac? i can't see it on the pictures.
I still don't understand why Apple continues to make the laptop hard drives the slwer 5400RPM variety though! What a huge bottleneck...a large processor and BUS, but the HD still spins at legacy speeds! Slap a 100GB 7200 RPM drive in there! I would also argue that the screen rez could be better. My 2 year old Dell has a screen rez of 1680x1050 and that is the MIDDLE of the line for them! Oh, and Firewire 800....
Still a beast of a machine. Maybe I will get one on the next go around.
Yeah I can't find battery life anywhere either. Maybe they don't want us to know!
The next question is... can we get Mac OS X to run on any PC?
why so many compromises on what is their flagship laptop? no modem, no Dual-Layer burner, no FW800, no pc card expansion and slightly lower resolution. What's up with that?
EVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
Now i dont have to hack my normal laptop to run osx86 (i didnt say that) Intel with mac design its gonna be fast. Dual boot here we comw!
Dayamz, and I bought a laptop in December. O well, time to jump on my first Mac Laptop. Since the world of Apple is taking over myLife. My Vpod rocks and will definitely buy the next one.
Prediction.
XM or Sirius with IPOD
Video of course
Digital Video Recorder
A digital video/camera add on
100 GB
FM radio with FM transmitter
Wi-Fi for internet use
Double the battery life or more.
I don't know how they are going to cram all that in an the next generation ipod but with 14M+ sales for it, I'm sure they're working on it really hard to wipe away other competitions. I don't think Toshiba will be any competition. As soon as you buy their new toy. Apple tops it with something better. I'll wait for the next gen IPOD. I'm still tripping on my 5G.
Time to dip into the savings for the new laptop. Woooohoot!
I take back the 7200RPM part of my comment. You CAN get it with a 7200RPM drive as an option.
Looks good, quite pricey though.
Im not a fan of the name. It is just too much to say.
I wont be buying one until there is a 12-13" model. 15" is way to big for me.
The lack of FW800 is very disappointing.
Color choices would have been nice as well.
what happend to the firewire 800? or the pretty apple logo on the top? ftl. O well, im sure it will run Final Cut, thats what im looking for.
Well, I've been pricing Dell laptops for $2k, the Inspiron 9300 Duo and 6000 and believe me, they're not drool-worthy, other than the super-duper HD 1920x1200 17" screen on the 9300.
What I'd like to see is how Tiger/Leopard runs on the MBPro compared to how Vista runs on the Dell9300Duo.
In europe it wil be 2689 for the $1999 model.
That's about $3200.
How SICK is that :S
I bought one over the phone, asked about Windows dual boot. Guy on the phone said they didn't have any specs in hand about that but said that he was fairly certain that that was a big thing for them.
Anyone have absolute proof that they will dual boot? or will OS 10.5 give us virtualization(is that what they've been calling it)?
I am stuned that Apple left out a right click button on the
mousepad....that one reason alone pretty much kills it as a XP
machine. Damn shame too, otherwise the new Powerbook would have
jumped to the head of my list
Whats the BATTERY LIFE? Does anyone have a frickin clue? It doesnt state it ANYWHERE.
When do you think we can expect the 12"? What's the cycle on these kind of Apple products?
Has anyone more info on the iSight cam incorporated in the MacBook Pro ?
Like resolution etc... Somewhere on apple.com it says double the old resolution, but on the specs page nothing more is mentioned but the feature.
what's up with everyone drinking the hateorade around here? take a step back from geek-world and realize that this thing is the HOTNESS! steve jobs is the man. and who wouldn't rather be cracking this bad boy open in the coffee shop than some crappo windows laptop? i mean, come on!
Why is it $1000 more expensive in Germany? (starting from 2600€)
Guess it likes to fly first class...
"I'd like to reserve a one-way ticket to Europe please. The name's MacBook, Apple MacBook"
Umm...The old battery was 65 watts, while the new one has an 85 watt battery...Thats all the info i was able to find.
The price increase is rough, so I went to do comparisons to PC makers. Dell's top of the line XPS laptop is close to $500 more and only offers a single core Pentium M. HP's flagship offering offers single core P4's (double the clock speed, but slower bus and based on icky NetBurst). Lenovo's most expensive thinkpad is 400 bucks less than the MacBook, but only offers a 1.7ghz Pentium M, 40GB HDD, and CD-RW/DVD drive. Alienware only offers single core Intel procs, but, they do have an AMD64 based laptop for $2,169. I don't think any of the aformentioned lappies have PCI-Express based architectures - but that's conjecture.
It's expenive, but it loks like Apple is slightly ahead of the game on features-per-dollar. Not bad, not bad at all.
So, anyone wanna buy a PowerBook G4, Mac Mini, and iMac DV SE? I'll let the whole lot go for $2,000.
Nice machine, a little on the expensive side, would love to know the battery life along with the others here. Dual boot would be nice to get confirmation on as well.
I can't believe the remote doesnt fit in the express slot!!!!! WTF??? also a 4X dvd burner? jigga please, I'll wait for the next batch
ZylogZ80 - pretty much every manufacture in the world introduced new dual core laptop's at CES, most of which will be out the same time frame as the new Mac....check out the Dell 9400 for example.
All I say can is they're far too expensive $2000 is one thing but here in the UK 1799! That's like $2500! Hell no I won't be buying one.
"why so many compromises on what is their flagship laptop? no modem, no Dual-Layer burner, no FW800, no pc card expansion and slightly lower resolution. What's up with that?"
who uses a modem these days....I mean seriously...dial up is so 20th century
dual-layer burner ~ I agree...would've been nice. oh well, at least it has a DVD burner
FW800 ~ Apple is moving away from FireWire (most evident in removing firewire support from the iPod). Plus, I don't think any Intel PC's support FireWire 800.
PC Card ~ they do have the slot for the new PCMCIA ExpressCard, which is the next gen mini PC Card. It's supposed to be faster than PC Cards.
Lower Resolution...they still need to sell the PowerBooks they have in stock
no Dual-Layer burner - slower burning
no FW800
no pc card expansion
lower resolution
no 64 bit processing?
no info on battery life (meaning NOT GOOD since the last release of the G4 PowerBook was ALL ABOUT battery life right?)
no new style - big deal
Did anyone else see that the "old" PowerBooks are still the same price on the store?! Sorry Apple, this is a no go for me.....and by the way (as I've said here before) the build quality on my new (november 2005) powerbook is total crap. The damn thing is even twisted! 2 of the corners are about 3mm above the table making it wobble with each sentence!
Um... yeah, can you run photoshop cs (and all the rest) compiled for the mac on it? Last keynote Steve said that you have to re-compile and re-release Intel friendly software versions... said that there is a cool little developers app that aids in this process. Did he mention any of this in todays keynote?
Lack of a modem is no big deal (I can't remember the last time I used one - this is like the floppy way back when. Lots of people screamed and yelled about that going away on the original iMac. Firewire800 is a dead end, so it's loss is also largely a non-issue. Firewire800 just isn't that fast, and it isn't going to get any faster. Then again, they didn't provide an alternative such as built-in eSATA. That is a shortcoming. I guess we'll have to add a card for that. phi - it has PCI Express expansion. They're calling it "ExpressCard/34 slot". I presume that's a standard. Anyone know for sure?
It's not going to run Windows, at least not off the bat and endorsed by Stevie-boy. I'm shocked that someone in Engadget actually thought this.
PS... as for iLife:
These additions all seem like they could have been made through software update. i don't see any big deal here...especially to pay so much. Does anyone else feel compelled in the least to upgrade? (I moan about it but you know, I'll t least be upgrading iLife...they have me hooked.) I really hope there are hidden features though that make it all a bit faster and more fluid from one app to the next.
I am also hoping they have improved the output of iDVD...the quality is not close to being something I feel ok about showing anyone. Anyone else have the same opinion?
PPS...as for iWork...no demo...no advertised additions that could possibly be meaningful....what a letdown! Way to drop the ball Apple! I sold my last copy of (what I call totally unfinished software) in October. couldn't stand it.
Please don't tell me apple did not put a right mouse button on this. I was almost ready to buy it until I saw that. Lord Steve, please look at 90% of computer mice. There is an important button for office suite users to the right, for the love of Steve.
"Why is it $1000 more expensive in Germany? (starting from 2600)"
EU taxes. Just a guess.
the new macbook is pretty nice, ... but you guys should look at the new acer travelmate 8200. This thing beats the new mac in pretty much every way (other than weight unfortunately). It has a much higher resolution screen (wsxga), 120 GB 5400 rpm hard drive, 8x optical drive, 2 ghz processor (same as in new high end imac), 2 GB ddr2, 4 usb ports (compared with the measly 2 in the macbook), built-in pc card slot (along with the same new expresscard slot), 3:47 battery life (tested by pcmag), 5-in-1 card reader; meanwhile it has many of the same features, such as the 1.3 megapixel camera builtin, dvi, hard-drive shock sensing, bluetooth/802.11g, x1600 with 256.
If you really need that 1.1 pounds of weight and can stand the lack of applications for mac os x, i'd say buy it right now. But if you would rather pay the same price for so much more, i'd get this.
Why are you people whining? This is an aweseome machine. For the musicians this is perfect! I have a USB 2.0 80 GB external drive and the 60 gb Video iPod. Faster proc, Bigger screen, built in camera (don't know how much use that will get.)
So the firewire isn't up to snuff with new standards, most likely it wasn't built for that. I think it's to encourage those who wer e considering high end win laptops like the thinkpad and toshiba to switch. I know I'm sold!
with the student discounts, this will only cost $40 more than the PPC and it has more features. This is great news, stop moaning about its shortcommings.
They offer a cheap external modem for those few of you that still use the ancient protocol, if you want a firewire 800 so bad just wait for the next gen. The average comp user doesn't care about the resolution being a little bit lower, it's still as bright as the cinema displays, and has all the wireless components built in.
I could care less if you can run Windows on this thing, I'm tired of windows, after 14 years of troubleshooting for my neighbors, colleauges, and relatives I'm ready for the simplicity of Mac.
Adios.
Unless Apple went with some completely silly proprietary drives or something there should be no problem running windows on it. It is using the same intel chipsets as all the other yonah laptops just announced, an ATI display adapter that already has windows drivers and is generally not any different hardware wise from any other intel laptop.
That being said, excuse me while I go spend my $2.5K on a laptop that doesn't have shitty resolution. Seriously, if you are spending an excess of 2 grand there is absolutely no excuse for 1440x900. My freaking toshiba m200 actually manages to get more pixels for only $1500, on a smaller screen with the wacom touch technology built in.
Speaking of the m200, if you are looking for a tablet keep looking towards toshiba and lenova. It will be a long long time (if ever) before you see something like that from apple. A tablet pc is more than just drivers for a wacom pad. It requires a system for accepting handwriting in damn near every app with a text field. Heck, it requires true, honest to god handwriting recognition which is not easy (I am still amazed that my wretched cursive is fairly accurately parsed). Apple doesn't have the expertise to develop that at the moment. They could go hire it, but I don't think they see a big enough market to justify that yet.
Oh, and is just me, or is Steve Jobs just asking for a swift kick to the baby maker for his condescension towards every other machine that use intel processors. I'm sorry, I happen to hate the design of the iMac.
Ugh!! Infra-red in 2006??
That IR sensor needs to be Clearasil'd away; why use line-of-sight when even games consoles come with wireless controllers?
Think I'll stick with Salling Clicker and my original 15" (1.25) AlBook, at least until the next Rev adopts:
- FW800 (they've brought back line-ins before)
- LED screen backlighting (a la SONY) for a thinner lid, longer battery life and much improved contrast
- Screen-mounted surface-emitting speakers (a la NEC)
- Slimline bezel (compare with the original TiBook design); that integrated, fixed iSight looks pretty ungainly for the use it'll get
- Higher res screen (1440 x 960 min.)
- 8x DVD-R DL (or Blu Ray?)
- Touchpad with support for use as a stylus (ideal for Photoshopping)
- More innovation!! Where's the design revolution that the transition from PowerBook G3 --> G4 brought?
On the upside, PowerBook G4s will be phased out before the iBooks go Intel, assuming they'll be "2x" as fast as the baseline 1.67 PowerBook? What a bargain!
I don't know if Apple is ever going to make a tablet PC, but handwritting recognition is standard in Tiger (10.4.x). It's called "Ink". You won't see preferences for it, though, unless you have a drawing tablet. When you hook one up, Ink preferences show up in the System Preferences. I can't comment on how well it works - I don't have a tablet.
i thought this is the first machine with robson cache technology...
admittedly, i'm not a pro in digital audio, though i do use pro music hardware, like the rme hammerfall with multiface IO box. oops! no more pcmcia. well, i'll just sell it and get the rme fireface 800 which has all the same high quality IO, but uses firewire. oops! no firewire 800. guess this failed the pro music test for me. they shouldn't tarnish their pro image with feux pro products like this. shoulda just called it the aluminium iBook. can't wait for the next one, though.
For everyone wondering if it'll run windows: Yes , it will. Apple promised that the new intel machines would dual boot.
Second, for everyone bitching about price... you really shouldnt. Go spec out a similar thing on Dell's page, and you'll see that theres less than 100$ difference for basically the same feature set. Apple's really on par w/ the price/performance ratio. This is a nasty piece of kit.
Dude, I could buy an aibo for that.
I suppose we can't know until someone actually gets one in their hands, but if it uses the newer EFI (rather than BIOS on PCs or OpenFirmware on PPC Macs) than no, you can't boot XP. Vista will support EFI, however, so maybe at some point.
I thought PCIe means bye bye PCMCIA, so what's the complaint? You want the old slot standard but the new bus standard?
That "Magsafe" power plug Steve wants to patent? I bought a deep fryer 2 years ago that has exactly that... a magnetically attached safety power plug. And, it makes french fries. Let's see the MacBook do that!
The ExpressCard is PCMCIA. It's the next generation apparently. Now that it is available, we should see lots of cards coming out soon.
The power cord thing is cool. I have had mine replaced 4 times by Apple Care due to cracking of the stress reliever. But now i wonder if it will just fall out all the time.
cyberfunk, I just told you of a machine that was the same price but had vastly improved features. Go check it out: the Acer Travelmate 8200.
I think there's a typo. You mean: "it will RUIN Windows." There, that's cleared up.
TO MarioR ya the 5th gen ipod is so awesome it plays video and plays music unlike the other hundred mp3 players that do that and many have betters screens and battery life. APple is always late to the game when it comes to features.
To the person comparing this to a dell... dells you can get top of the line then use a 750 dollar coupon or like a 35% coupon that they run basically monthly getting you a 2.5k machine for 1.75k with a 7800gt vid card.
dells also have a far superior screen and if you get an insipirion 9300 upgrade the vid carde with a replacement from dell for 250 (7800gt), upgrade power brick, pin mod it and you have basically an xps for
Did anyone else notice you can upgrade to a 7200RPM drive via the apple store website? How sweet is that!
you know that all other laptop manufacturers have had 7200 rpm hd listed for upgrades or standard for over 1 year now ryan g