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.
