New MacBook Pros get dissected, look like old MacBook Pros

We'd love to tell you that during AnandTech's dissection of the "new" MacBook Pros they made a shocking discovery about the internals of the systems that brought into light significant changes and / or upgrades to the computers. We'd like nothing more then to say that it appears Apple has completely reworked the architecture of these machines to be harder, better, faster, and stronger. But honestly? They're exactly the same as the old models, save for those little Penryns, and as a result, kind of boring. Don't believe us? Take a look at the photos -- you'll see.

[frederik Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:05PM]

Honestly though, the amount of design innovation that Apple implemented toward their product is probably reaching a point of saturation. Let's just look at it this way:

iMac G3 (the gummy drop one) is pretty similar in comparison the 128K, Classic and Performa. The thing that makes the G3s unique is because Apple delivered them in so many color schemes (13 when I searched the Wikipedia) that there was probably one color that suited a person's taste. Anybody still remember Indigo, Ruby, Sage, etc.?

iMac G4 (the Pixar Lamp one) is probably one of those strokes of genius that Apple came up with. It was simply a head turner and I could not describe it any more elegant than that: it was just a head turner.

iMac G5 and its Intel successor are technically not considered a design innovation because many people probably expected it already. After all, the only way you could woo people more is by getting thinner and/or disappear behind the screen.

If Apple could reinvent the iMac in an even more radical design, I would probably write a letter to the Holy See promoting Steve Jobs for sainthood.

That's on the desktop side of the equation. Mac mini is just a rebirth of G4 Cube and the PowerMac/Mac Pro will always be in a tower form.

On the portable camp, laptops will always be laptops. You have to open it before using one. If you don't have to open it, then it is probably a handheld which comes with a thumb-sized keyboard (though I often derided it as nail-sized). Mag-Safe power cable is definitely a Live-Safer for those who know the nightmare of having their notebooks yanked because somebody accidentally snatched the wire. Magnetic latch is definitely a nice feature and the ambient light sensor for the keyboard is another stroke of genius. Beyond that, you probably have to keep getting thinner and thinner. Adding a swivel to make it like a tablet PC would definitely be great but I am a little bit against the idea of writing over my computer screen. I like it clean and spotless. What else can we do with a laptop?

[usman Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:43PM]

My current MacBook with 2.0GHz Core2Duo has a 4MB shared cache, and the new entry level (2.1GHz) has 3MB shared? I'll take 1MB cache over 0.1GHz anytime.

[Mongoos150 Posted Feb 27th 2008 3:36PM]

This has been heavily discussed elsewhere - the new Penryn architecture makes more efficient use of L2 cache, the 3mb cache should perform as fast if not slightly faster than the last gen 4mb L2 cache.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2008 1:32PM]

I really don't understand why people want Apple to change the design of the MBP. it's easily one of the best industrial designs available today, and since when did changing something just for the sake of changing it ever have good results? The new Penryns are a nice change in and of themselves, I'm not sure what else people want.

[blampright Posted Feb 27th 2008 9:14PM]

WHY MESS WITH PERFECTION? I along with most other macbook pro owners love the current form-factor, I don't see a whole lot of room for improvment at this point. The only thing I would change is a 1680x1050 resolution option in the 15" LCD. Other than that it's far and away the best notebook on the planet IMO.