MacBook Pros go Core 2 Duo, at last

Well, that took long enough but they're finally here. Without fanfare, Apple finally got around to updating their MacBook Pro lineup with a taste of Merom just in time for the big holiday shopping season. While we were only expecting a ho-hum bump in performance especially after the Core 2 Duo iMac sibs only saw a 10% increase, Apple touts these new Merom-based MBPs as being a full 39% faster. The 15-incher ships with your choice of a 2.16GHz or 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor while the 17-incher ships only with the 2.33GHz proc. It also looks like the 15-incher now comes with FW800 like its big bro while upping the base disk capacity to 120GB and a faster 6x SuperDrive to boot. The 17-incher now starts with a 160GB disk and 8x SuperDrive to keep the cost premium viable. Both models max-out with up to 3GB DDR2 memory and 200GB, 4200RPM disks. Pricing still starts at that same $1999 though, so get out there kid, enjoy it, the long hard wait is over.

[Chris @ Oct 24th 2006 12:38PM]

The screen protector is unnecessary. At least in my experience with my MacBook Pro. I've had it for over 6 months and there has been no apparent contact between the keys and screen.

[Chris DiLisio @ Oct 24th 2006 3:25PM]

I'll take it

Seriously

[Greg @ Oct 24th 2006 6:51PM]

I'll take it even faster... :)

[slasherx @ Oct 24th 2006 9:14AM]

This is wonderful news, however I'm still worried that these might have overheating issues just as the last generation Macbook/Macbook Pro's. I really hope this isn't the case and that the fans actually turn on without having to be patched for firmware later on.

[CJW @ Nov 11th 2006 1:12PM]

No heating issues, I just got mine. It runs cooler than the G4s

[cory @ Oct 24th 2006 9:20AM]

Also worth noting, the new core 2 duos support 3 gigs of RAM and a 200gig (4200rpm) hard drive.

[Michael R @ Oct 24th 2006 9:18AM]

Yeah. Now how bout some Merom love for the MB.

[farukates @ Oct 24th 2006 9:26AM]

Correction: they both now support up to 200GB and up to 3GB of RAM, each. Previous max's were 120GB and 2GB RAM.

[Ashley Williams @ Oct 24th 2006 9:20AM]

Hopefully the normal macbooks will be upgraded soon... :)

Ashley

[Intrepid @ Oct 24th 2006 9:25AM]

Well it's good to see that Apple is again using Intels new technology to sell their products. Yes, it's 40% faster - as are Dell, HP, and Acer machines that use Core 2 Duos.
I hate that companies (not just Apple) can't find anything good about their product other than someone elses input.

[helio9000 @ Oct 24th 2006 9:33AM]

Okay Miles, will me your shameful Core Duo and I will do the suing. Most likely. I would also like to sue to get a gd SD reader built into one of these.

The best part is that now there won't be posts in every single XP Core Duo 2 lappie annoucement exhorting Apple to do the same.

[dan @ Oct 24th 2006 9:34AM]

Where are they getting that the C2D iMac is only 10% faster than the CD iMac? The iMac page at Apple says it has a 50% performance increase. As a user of both machines, and just going on using the machine and not benchmarks, I would agree there's a big improvement between the two.

[LittleJoe @ Oct 24th 2006 9:39AM]

Damn... it was nice being on top while it lasted. Long live the 2.16 duo!!!

[Didou @ Oct 24th 2006 9:50AM]

I'm also interested in a possible heat decrease/increase with these new Macbook Pros. Maybe the new one are shipping with new motherboards & a proper thermal management (read less thermal paste).

[jeeeez Looouise @ Oct 24th 2006 9:55AM]

Well done Apple! Only a few months behind the rest of the pack but best late than never; when do normal Macbooks get the new Duo?? Anyone know?????

[Randy @ Oct 24th 2006 12:05PM]

I'm primary a web developer and graphics designer, lookin to purchase my first mac product..

Is the $600 (CAD) price difference betweeen the 2.16 and 2.33ghz versions worth it? I dont play games so I dont see the additional video memory being beneficial.

I see a piece of 1GB DDR PC2-5300 can be hand for about $175 USD.

Should i save myself the $600?

[monkeypox @ Oct 24th 2006 10:14AM]

@randy

for the purposes of web design, cpu speed (especially a paltry 200mhz) won't make any difference, but RAM is your friend. save the $600 and max out the RAM.

[pirco @ Oct 24th 2006 10:59AM]

unless you do lots of flash development. flash rendering takes up processor power. as a web developer myself, i just got a macpro and decided to go with the medium processor and 3GB of RAM because flash takes up about 50% of my work load.

[disciple83 @ Oct 24th 2006 10:01AM]

Dan, the 50% increase comes from iMac's G4 processor comparison. The difference between CD and C2D is only 10%. However the major advantage of C2D over CD chips are their further reduction in power consumption and cache sizes.

soupbanana, the 200GB disks are only 4200RPM, the 160GB is 5400RPM, and the 100GB is 7200RPM.

[Jonathan Norris @ Oct 24th 2006 10:08AM]

there is no 100 GB version for the 15", kinda a dissapointment. I am looking forward to the actual real world speed comaparisions between the CD and C2D, should be interesting.

[Jonathan Norris @ Oct 24th 2006 10:06AM]

Nope those are 4200 rmp disks, thats so 5 years ago :P. i got my 2.16 CD MBP with a 100 GB 7200 rpm HD. I have heard that it helps start-up times alot, it certainly is speedy. I don't think i would buy a laptop with that slow of a HD, even for the extra space (thats what an external HD is for).

[James Whited @ Oct 24th 2006 10:07AM]

Well, aside from the hard drive upgrades (which I can upgrade mine at home myself on my 17" MBP CD 2.16) Its not much of a spec bump for me. Although, I hope they release an upgrade for older CD users to be able to use the 3 Gigs fo RAM on our MBPs. That shouldn't be to hard, should it Steve.

[catrat @ Oct 24th 2006 10:33AM]

glossy screen is an option now for mbp, is this new?

[disciple83 @ Oct 24th 2006 10:20AM]

that reference came from the 17" model, I wouldn't even look at the 15", its too small for me ;)

[Dan McNevin @ Oct 24th 2006 10:14AM]

The iMac page currently says that the delta between the 20" 2GHz CD iMac and the 20" 2.33GHz C2D iMac is 1.5.

While I am willing to believe in actual benchmarks there's only a 10% increase.. I just pointed this out because the post uses Apple's 39% increase numbers for the new MBPs. Although, having just come out this morning, I doubt that anyone will get a chance to benchmark it for real for a few days at least..

Me? I'm just waiting for the unboxing post!

[bc @ Oct 24th 2006 10:16AM]

This update really sucks... I wouldnt buy it...apple needs some new... "flair" ...lol

[ZAMBONO @ Oct 24th 2006 10:22AM]

This is great news but I will wait for the Santa Rosa platform, i have waited long enough for these macbook pros, i can wait another 6 months. My old powerbook as old as it is, is still going very strong. Only thing I can't do efficiently is render in Maya and to my knowledge there is no Universal version of Maya just yet.

[mark burban @ Oct 24th 2006 10:24AM]

i will be interested to find how these benchmake against the coreduo macbook pros.. seeing i bourght one two weeks ago *sigh*, but it was a great price of ebay & is still very nice.. still hearing that you can stuff a whole extra gig of ram in them, well that makes me excited!

[apeguero @ Oct 24th 2006 10:43AM]

I just checked with Apple Store. This one is 64bit processing which means it will work at 64bit with Leopard. Note though, nothing in it will take advantage of 64bit processing until Leopard comes out next year. Also note, iLife will also come out when Leopard is released next year. The rep told me that Apple always includes the latest software with the computers it sells. As much as I want to get the new MBP released today, it would make no sense for me to spend the $$ now and then spend an additional who knows how much to then upgrade to Leopard and iLife. I think I'll hang on to my decently performing MBP Core Duo. At least Apple kept the same kind of RAM on these so I'll be able to remove my 1gb extra RAM from my MBP and transfer to the MBP 2 I will buy next year when Leopard comes out...

[Baffled @ Oct 31st 2006 10:54AM]

It's not "who knows how much", it will be $129 for both. They have sold their last 4 OSs for $129 and there is no reason to assume anything different. Leopard will include the newest iLife ('07 is probably a good guess) with it.

[M. Rod Von Hugenstein @ Oct 24th 2006 10:55AM]

On the plus side of all these upgrades is you can now get a 2.0Ghz MBP Core Duo for $1449.00 refurbished. So, if you don't mind the "outdated" Core Duo, that is pretty sweet.

I recently bought a Dell Latitude D620, Core 2 Duo, and have to say, I am very glad I can return it. The displays that Dell uses in thier laptops are absolute junk. I am so sorry that I gave up on Apple. So, as soon as I can hide enough money from the wife, I will pick up one of these new C2D MBP's, to match my awesome MacPro.

I hope you rot in hell Dell!

[Randy @ Oct 24th 2006 12:08PM]

When the 17" MBP's came out, they had a brighter screen (33%? brigher than 15"?).

Do the new 15" C2D's have a brighter screen? compared to the CD's...

[crescentdavid @ Oct 24th 2006 11:09AM]

Typical iBoast "test" results- Jobs says 39% faster and the rest of the world says around 10-12% faster. Reminds me of the old Apple "but Motorola IS faster" b.s. with "special test measures" or cooked results. We all know the reality of those claims.

[E @ Oct 24th 2006 11:29AM]

4200 RPM HD???

HAHAHAHA.

[Dave @ Oct 28th 2006 11:00PM]

what's so funny?

thats the standard speed for a 200 gig drive at the moment.

[daddy @ Oct 24th 2006 11:20AM]

FInally, FW800. Wish it had the 100GB 7200 as an option for the 15". 17" is a pain to lug around. I'm buying though, been waiting since september for this.

[patchmonkey @ Oct 24th 2006 11:27AM]

M. Rod - I also just got a D620, and I'm extremely pleased with it. The screen is excellent - I've heard that there are quality issues based on where the notebook was produced, but I'm finding it to be a solid, fast computer with a very nice screen.

I wanted a MacBook, but I wanted C2D more - I'll probably end up selling or giving this D620 to my sister or my dad after Leopard comes out, though.

[Nahmeanz @ Oct 24th 2006 11:44AM]

any idea when they will stuff a blu-ray or hd-dvd drive in these things?

[ChillyWilly @ Oct 24th 2006 11:54AM]

My 6 month old MBP CD 15" is doing great, so no need to upgrade just yet. The added features (6x DL SuperDrive, FW800, C2D chip) are nice, but I don't do anything today that would garner the upgrade. Now a year from now or maybe next summer, I may look at upgrading.

[G Money @ Oct 24th 2006 11:57AM]

Heres an honest question. Now that Macs are intels and can run windows, why hasnt anyone successfully reversed enginneered a way to run osx on a pc?

[Randy @ Oct 24th 2006 12:01PM]

Google 'osx86' ...

[spinteews @ Oct 24th 2006 12:46PM]

Hey, question for you mac users... i've been using pc for a while and since the Memrom chip is out, i'd love to try the mac book pro. The main thing is since Apple has bootcamp, how good is this with running bootcamp with windows and playing games? I'm a advid gamer so i'd love to play around with a mac and also play games.

any input?

[Mike @ Oct 24th 2006 1:17PM]

@spinteews:

don't go with bootcamp - it requires you to restart your computer and choose which partition you want to run. I have been using Parallels now for a few months on my MackBook (not pro) and love it - of course, you need a copy of windows and any ther program you would want to run on your windows OS, but if you get a big enough hard drive to accomidate everything you want to run on it, and enough ram to handle it all, it should run fine. i have 1GB RAM and a 10GB partition to run windows and it works great for all the office applications and some minor web work i do that requires windows OS, but if you are going to do gaming, etc, i would max out your specs wherever you can.

[brendan Sheehan jnr @ Oct 24th 2006 2:32PM]

I have been using BootCamp for playing Windows games on my iMac for a while. It's excellent, adaquate and free! Enjoy the switch! A virus free world awaits ;)

[wackybit @ Oct 25th 2006 7:47AM]

@spinteews:

Bootcamp works OK on a laptop since you cannot 'tap' on the trackpad and you need to hold the apple button and then click to perform a right click. Right clicking with this method works in most games though. I play counter strike with my trackpad regularly and right clicking is just as easy and fast. But the apple+click doesn't work in GTA because you either click a dedicated right mouse button or an assigned keyboard button, I assigned caps lock for that. Other than the problem of not being able to tap, the MacBook (Pro) works fine in Windows.

[Dave @ Oct 28th 2006 11:00PM]

I use a standard macbook and have played a lot of games via bootcamp and had no problems. The games have all worked fine up to my systems specs. With the macbook pros graph card the performance should be even better for games.

[Edward Colton @ Oct 30th 2006 5:49PM]

Gaming is awesome w/ no lag on MB CD. I have COD2 & Q4 both run smooth & fast.

[Al @ Oct 24th 2006 1:01PM]

Anyone have any information on when Leopard is supposed to be released by Apple? I think Jobs said January when he unveiled it recently, but is that still accurate? Trying to figure out if it is worth waiting another couple of months to get the most up to date MBP available? Hmm, I wonder if there would be any other changes, like to the body, at that point?

Thanks.

[David @ Oct 24th 2006 1:40PM]

@Al

Jobs said "next Spring" at WWDC. Nothing to go on besides that.

[limwebdesign @ Oct 24th 2006 1:20PM]

What Parallels software did you use?
Thanks!