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New iMac and MacBook touchscreens debut, thanks to Troll Touch
Troll Touch -- the fun little company with the unfortunate name -- have announced more of their award-winning analog resistive touch kits for 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs as well as unibody MacBooks. Prices for the iMac kits themselves start at $1099, or you can order new machines with the kits pre-installed starting at $2299. For laptop owners, your touchscreen kits start at $699. Not cheap at all, but you know what the song says: You've got to pay the troll's toll. Delivery slated to begin before December 1, 2009. If you've never seen a video of someone using a touchscreen, you're in for a treat -- we included one after the break. You're welcome.
Unibody MacBook (late 2009) review
We'll just come out and say it: we're totally underwhelmed by the new plastic MacBook. Hell, we were underwhelmed by the old plastic MacBook back in June, when we reviewed the refreshed unibody MacBook Pros -- we said we were "honestly left wondering" why the $999 plastic model continued to exist when the $1,199 13-inch Pro was obviously superior. So when we heard the first whispers that Apple was working on a total overhaul of its low-end MacBook, we naturally assumed that it would either gain in features or drop in price -- but neither one of those things happened. The new plastic MacBook remains priced at $999 in its only configuration, and while it's been updated with the same unibody construction as the Pros, it's also lost some features along the way. So... what's going on here? Did Apple just blow a huge opportunity to totally re-think its low-end formula, or is there more to the MacBook than the spec sheets and price tags say? Read on to find out. %Gallery-75975%
MacBook strips off its polycarbonate unibody shell for the expected teardown
That thumbs up means exactly what you think, and just like all the other new MacBook (Pro) models, that "non-removable" battery in the new polycarbonate unibody MacBook is more of a guideline than an actual set of rules. iFixit's currently doing its traditional teardown process -- so far, other than the battery and hard drive swapping places, the internal geography looks about like its predecessor. Letting your eyes venture into forbidden territories is just a mouse click away at the read link below.
A video walkthrough of Apple's newest additions (Unibody MacBook, iMac, Magic Mouse)
Sure, you've seen the hands-on posts and the PR, but have you really gotten a look at Apple's new gear? Join us for a quick and spirited walkthrough of the goods. You won't be disappointed. Or you might be. It really depends on how picky you are.
MacBook goes unibody, available today
Like a bat out of hell, Apple has just shuttled a new, unibody MacBook in the gadget world's direction. The new model -- which looks like an arctic, glossy version of the familiar 13-inch MacBook Pro line -- will be landing in stores today (yes, today), with a familiar price tag: $999. In terms of changes, besides the new, high-test plastic casing (built in the same fashion as the aluminum MacBook Pros) the 13-incher boasts a LED-backlit display, new glass multitouch trackpad, and a built-in, "7 hour" battery. Inside the single SKU will be a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM (upgradable to 4GB), an NVIDIA 9400M GPU, 250GB hard drive and the old standby SuperDrive. We had a chance to play around with the laptop, and it's pretty snazzy for a hunk of plastic. The surface is super slick (AKA super fingerprint friendly), though the base of the laptop utilizes a soft-touch, non-slip surface that's nice to handle. The display certainly is brighter and better looking than the previous model, though the one on the desk we saw was slightly dimmer than we would prefer -- in its defense it was sitting right next to a super bright iMac. As stated, the new model can be picked up right this very second at stores around the globe, and we'll have a much closer look very soon -- so stay tuned! A full spec breakdown is after the break. Update: Check out our hands-on! %Gallery-75975% %Gallery-75964%
Telcast T56 PMP promises full 1080p output, unibody enclosure
Looking for a PMP that outputs full 1080p video? Then you've no doubt noticed that your options are pretty limited, even from PMPs (and phones, for that matter) bold enough to call themselves "HD." It looks like China's Telcast could be about to swoop in and beat some of the bigger players to the punch, however, at least if its new T56 PMP actually delivers as promised. While it's 5-inch screen doesn't make it as portable as some may like, it does indeed supposedly boast full 1080p output from its HDMI port, or a standard 800 x 600 resolution on the screen itself. No word on storage just yet, unfortunately, but the rest of the specs seem to be fairly high-end across the board, including built-in GPS, an FM tuner, a memory card slot, and an "all-metal stamping process" -- which appears to be an actual unibody-type enclosure. Of course, there's no word on a price or release date either, so we could end up waiting a good long while for this one.[Via thegadgetsite]
HP and Dr. Dre team up to shill a limited edition Envy 15
When we saw the HP-branded Envy leak a whole four days ago we certainly didn't expect to get any news on the beast so soon, but 'lo and behold! The new Envy is here, and we've been getting plenty of positive feedback from HP fanboys the world o'er regarding the new sub-brand. Who could find fault with a Windows machine that features everything we love about those new MacBooks, including the chicklet keyboard, unibody aluminum chasis, thin-and-light physique, multitouch trackpad, and all the Microsoft OS action you so obviously crave, wrapped ever-so-lovingly in a Hewlett Packard shell? We'll tell you who: Lady Gaga. That's right, the popular recording artist and all-around good American just found out that HP has teamed up with Dr. Dre to create a limited edition Envy 15 laptop and is a little perturbed that she wasn't involved in the branding. How dare they think that a matte black chassis and bright red "Beats" logo would be enough to sell this bad boy? We'll tell you what -- if you feel for her plight, you might think about spending some of your heard earned cash on a pair of her headphones. The rest of us can feel content to peep the gallery below and think about what might have been. %Gallery-73404%
HP ENVY 13 and 15 bring luxury to the everyman, look like MacBooks
There's no getting around it, so we'll just say right at the outset: HP's new ENVY 13 and 15 laptops might've been built on the "Voodoo ENVY legacy," but they sure look a lot like Apple's unibody MacBook Pros. Of course, there's much more than meets the eye. The ENVY 13 is a bit of a mix between a traditional 13-incher and a real thin and light, weighing in at 3.74 pounds and packing in Radeon HD 4330 discrete graphics, but still forgoing an internal disc drive. The 13.1-inch WXGA display is the real draw, offering impressive colors (82% color gamut) and brightness (410 nit). The other big winner is the optional Slim Fit extended life battery, a slice which snaps onto the bottom of the laptop, hardly protrudes, and more than doubles the standard 7 hour quoted battery life. The laptop body is magnesium coated with aluminum -- which gives it the texture of a MacBook Pro, but a bit less of the weight. In our non-scientific tests the build wasn't exactly as rigid as a MBP, but still quite a bit stronger than the average laptop -- and quite nice to the touch. The MacBook-style glass clickpad, however, is not an exciting addition in our book, since the software to support the automagical detection of left and right click -- not to mention zoom, rotate and scroll gestures -- just wasn't very tight. Please, give us back our buttons. HP's ENVY 15 isn't much of a "thin and light," really, more of a straight up premium 15-incher crammed into a 1-inch thick 5.18 pound form factor. It keeps the ENVY 13's unibody-style construction, and, sadly, the single button glass trackpad, but also works in a new Core i7 processor, makes room for dual SSD drives and adds high-end Radeon HD 4830 graphics with 1GB of VRAM. The 15.6-inch LCD isn't quite as stellar as the 13, at 300 nits, but HP did manage to include support for a Slim Fit battery for the ENVY 15 -- though with non-switchable discreet graphics, you're not going to get much longevity out of this laptop either way. The two laptops start at $1,699 and $1,799, respectively (a far cry from the original ENVY 133's $2,100 starting price), and will be available on October 18th with Windows 7 pre-loaded. Check out video of the ENVY 13 after the break. %Gallery-72803% %Gallery-72809%
Re-defining "Pro": The 13" MacBook Pro
Once again, Gruber called it (aside, I wish I had his sources); the naming distinctions between the unibody 13" MacBook and the 15" MacBook Pro are now gone: say hello to the 13" MacBook Pro. Complete with a lower price (starts at $1199 and goes to $1499 in stock configurations), and more features (SD card slot, FireWire 800, 7-hour battery), the 13" MacBook Pro will likely continue to be Apple's best selling laptop.This is an interesting reversal of branding. When the unibody MacBooks were released last fall, they appeared nearly identical to the larger, "Pro" labeled companion. The two big differences (aside from screen size) were the video card configurations (integrated for the MacBook, as opposed to integrated and discrete in the MBP) and the lack of a FireWire on the "amateur" edition. Many of us speculated that the removal of FireWire was done primarily to distinguish between the two lines and try to move consumers up to a pricier model. There was a lively debate in the posts about FireWire's exodus from the unibody MacBook about what constitutes a "pro" machine from something that shares the same design but is smaller in size. Without rehashing the whole debate, it pretty much mirrored those "my dad is richer than your dad" fights that always seemed to break out at high school parties in my district. In my experience, when arguments essentially become "you're only a pro if the label says so," the real-world distinction is gone.
Apple's new MacBook family: non-removable batteries, lower prices
Apple just let loose a new 15-inch MacBook Pro at WWDC 2009, with what appears to be the same built-in, non-removable battery (or, non-user serviceable, if we're being proper) as in the current unibody 17-incher. Phil asserts that the cell will last the average user around five years (1,000 recharges), and could last around seven hours under ideal conditions. There's also an SD card reader rather than an ExpressCard slot (seriously Apple -- replaced? -- why not just add it like every other Wintel laptop available today?). Oh, and the starting tag just dropped to $1,699. Starting at $1,699 (down from $1,999 in prior lineups) $1,699: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard $1,999: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard $2,299: 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro remains the same specs-wise (it's the only Apple laptop left with an ExpressCard slot), but it's getting a price cut to $2,499. Shipping today Not enough for you? The 13-inch unibody MacBook has been beefed up and revised, and it's now part of the MacBook Pro line as well. Yep, all the aluminum machines are now Pros, with the same built-in battery promising seven hours of life. The littlest Pro also gets the SD card slot, a FireWire 800 port, up to 8GB of RAM, upwards of 500GB of storage and a backlit keyboard as standard. You just knew Apple couldn't let its remaining white MacBook outperform its more expensive unibody for long, right? It'll be available (today, we expect) in two configurations. $1,199: 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 160GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard $1,499: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard Wilder still? A new MacBook Air, which starts at $1,499 (while the SSD unit gets going at $1,799). Yeah, that's $700 less than before. $1,499: 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 120GB HDD $1,799: 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 128GB SSD
Updated white MacBook gets benchmarked, outperforms unibody counterpart
The white MacBook may look a little out of place among Apple's current laptop offerings, but those looking for the best bang for the buck may want to give the newly-updated model some serious consideration, as it actually outperforms its more expensive unibody counterpart. That word comes from the folks at MacWorld, who ran some benchmarks and found that 2.13GHz white MacBook was about five percent faster than the 2GHz unibody MacBook on average. That's obviously largely attributable to the faster processor, but the speedier 800MHz DDR2 memory didn't hurt things either, even if it still lags a bit behind the unibody's 1,066MHz DDR3 RAM. For comparison's sake, Macworld also found that the 1.8GHz MacBook Air was a full 12 percent slower than the white MacBook, while the 2.4GHz MacBook Pro offered a 10.5 percent performance gain, and displayed an even bigger advantage when its higher-end graphics came into play.
Reader's unibody MacBook Pro catches fire!
At 1:30am, Ken Brinkman awoke to the smell of burning plastic. His unibody MacBook Pro was on fire. As he details in his Mac-Forums post,"Smoke was pouring out the seam between the unibody and bottom enclosure. I actually burned my hand pretty badly ripping the adapter out. Oh man. This is reallllly scary because what if I didn't wake up? It could of burned my house down."Ken e-mailed us this morning, understandably freaking out. Two weeks ago, Mel reported on a San Jose lawsuit alleging that the MagSafe power cables Apple uses for its portable computers are a fire hazard. We've seen Flickr evidence of melted or scorched MagSafe adapters in the past, but Ken's pictures take that to another level. Ken's primary concern, after his safety, of course, is what Apple will do about the problem. Personally, I think a new computer is a given -- though I would also want some sort of assurance that Apple is testing its MagSafe cables for consistency. No one wants to wake up to find this on their desk. UPDATE: Ken wrote in to clarify what happened and told us he's getting a replacement. Read more after the jump.Thanks Ken!
Apple firmware update aims to fix vertical line issues on 17-inch MBP
Apple's latest firmware update for the recently shipped 17-inch MacBook Pro sure is light on details, but one thing's for sure: it reportedly nixes those weird vertical line issues that have plagued so many. Unfortunately, the "MacBook Pro Graphics Firmware Update 1.0" doesn't point out whether it was an overheating problem or a GeForce 9600M quirk that was wreaking havoc, but so long as it works, we guess it matters not. Hit up your Software Update when you get enough courage to suck down 770KB of problem-solving goodness.[Via MacRumors]
17-inch MBP fan / overheating issues causing GeForce 9600M to bug out?
Oh, brother. We can already tell this one's going to be a fun, enjoyable journey to follow. Shortly after Apple's 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro began making its way out to early adopters, small legions of owners have reported all sorts of bizarre graphical glitches. While we first assumed that it was NVIDIA's GeForce 9600M causing all the mayhem, further investigation has led us to believe that faulty fan controls could be the culprit. Granted, all of this is just speculatory at the moment, but it seems that some users have noticed that their fans aren't kicking into high gear when they should. 'Course, some folks have seen those RPMs spin up while the funky lines and psychedelic colors remain, so it's still hard to pinpoint a definite root cause. We're told that folks from NVIDIA and Apple are spending their weekends working to figure it out, but we can't help but be reminded of an eerily similar string of events with overheating MacBook Airs just last year. Hopefully a fix will be out soon; till then, just pretend those erratic colors are some new curative feature.Read - Fan grumblingRead - More discussions
NVIDIA's GeForce 9600M causing issues in 17-inch MacBook Pro?
It's hard to say at this point whether we should point the blame at NVIDIA, Apple or right in between the two corporate campuses, but it seems that an uncomfortable amount of 17-inch MacBook Pro owners are having some serious issues with their GeForce 9600M graphics card. For those unaware, there is actually a 9400M in there too, but word on the street has it that the random green lines and nasty artifacts are only showing up when the more potent card is kicked into action. Most folks are saying that a reboot solves the problem momentarily, but eventually it returns to bother, annoy and sadden new owners. Anyone else out there pulling their hair out over this? Here's hoping a firmware update is all that'll be needed to bring closure to yet another NVIDIA-Apple related fiasco.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Update: We just got word from an NVIDIA spokesperson, who had this to say: "Our understanding is that Apple is investigating this, and if they need our help we will certainly support them. But right now it's unclear what the issue is, so jumping to conclusions at this point is premature." We'll keep you posted!
MacBook Pro 17-inch unibody review
There's not much that can be said about the 17-inch version of the MacBook Pro that hasn't already been said about the 15-incher (and to some extent, the MacBook). Still, the big, big brother of the family has a few key differences that make it stand out from the rest of the gang. The first being its non-removable battery, built out of tech which Apple claims will result in groundbreaking lengths between charges. The second difference, available only as an option, is a non-glossy display -- an addition which many have pined for since Apple's full throttle decision to move to extremely high-glare screens. Are these changes compelling enough to induce users to upgrade? Will previous 17-inch fans find a slam dunk or a dud underneath the unibody exterior? Read on for the full scoop. %Gallery-45838%
MacBook Pro 17-inch unibody unboxing and hands-on
Now this is more like it. Our favorite dude in the world (AKA the FedEx guy) just dropped this slab of nasty Apple magic on our doorstep. Not only is this system kitted out with a 256GB SSD, 8GB of RAM, and a 2.93GHz CPU, but the screen is -- yes -- anti-glare. We're actually kind of stoked to put this one through its paces and see just exactly what it feels like (since we've already seen the other two new unibody models). And of course, we're very eager to know just how robust that non-removable battery really is. So we'll be covering the 17-incher a little more in-depth in the coming days, but for now, get a load of the unboxing.%Gallery-45838%
MCE's OptiBay exchanges unibody MacBook optical drive for HDD
As we've seen with the MacBook Air, Apple clearly feels there are a select group of you out there who can live without an optical drive on your laptop. Now, MCE is giving you unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro owners a similar option. The OptiBay is essentially a second hard drive that is installed internally in place of the optical disc drive, giving MB and MBP users the ability to vastly increase their storage space or tap into a RAID setup. The company has announced that said solution is shipping today to those interested, with options including 250GB, 320GB and 500GB drives. Oh, and if you're worried about that optical drive you'll be removing, fret not -- these guys have a nifty external enclosure designed specifically to give it another home. How quaint.[Via Macworld]
17" MacBook Pro houses mega battery
As usual, the fine folks at iFixIt immediately took apart the newest piece of Apple hardware to arrive at their offices, a unibody 17" MacBook Pro. The whole process was detailed with step-by-step photos, some of which reveal an internal battery roughly the size of a baby dolphin. In case you're curious, and we know you are, that's a 7.3V 95Wh (12820 mAh) battery, Apple model #A1309. It contains no mercury (Hg) and weighs in at 1.5 pounds (0.7 kg)! The folks at iFixIt note, "It's only a matter of time until you'll be able to buy this battery online from companies like us." It reminds me of the battery that came in the clamshell iBooks (in size at least). It sure looks easy to replace... [Via Ars]
17-inch unibody MacBook Pro gets disassembled, examined
The battery on the now-shipping 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro may not be removable for average, warranty-abiding users, but that didn't stop the folks at iFixit from removing it and just about everything else that isn't soldered on. As you might expect, however, apart from that over-sized battery, the internals aren't too different from the 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro, although the 17-incher unsurprisingly has a pair of noticeably larger fans to keep everything cool, and iFixit describes the component density as "amazing." Hit up the link below for the complete teardown, and try your best not to imagine a matte black MacBook Pro after catching sight of that battery.[Via Mac Rumors]
