15-inchMacbookPro
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MacBook Pro (early 2011) with Thunderbolt hands-on
We just got our new 15-inch MacBook Pro review unit, and although it looks almost exactly the same as the previous MBP, it has that fancy new Thunderbolt icon on the side, which ought to make I/O nerd hearts flutter the world over. Unfortunately, there aren't any Thunderbolt peripherals on the market yet, so we can't really test the new connection yet, but we can report that backwards compatibility with Mini DisplayPort performs as advertised and that all of our display adapters worked without issue -- the first time we can ever remember Apple switching a standard and not requiring all new dongles. As for performance, we were given the $2,199 configuration with a 2.2GHz quad-core Sandy Bridge Core i7, discrete AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics, 4GB of RAM and a 750GB HD, which clocked a preliminary GeekBench score of 9647. We'll have tons more testing in our full review, including detailed comparisons of the discrete chip with Intel's new integrated HD Graphics 3000. Apple did give us a quick demo on the new system with a prototype Promise RAID unit and a stock Cinema Display connected over Thunderbolt -- remember, Thunderbolt just uses a Mini DisplayPort connector, so displays can be daisy-chained right in. Apple's demo was a variation of the same thing Intel's been doing for a while -- they played four uncompressed HD video streams off the RAID simultaneously, which pegged the Thunderbolt throughput meter at 600-700MBps. We also watched a 5GB file transfer in just a few seconds -- all very impressive, but we're definitely anxious to try some of this stuff ourselves once Thunderbolt devices start shipping sometime in the spring. Apple also told us that Thunderbolt is running on copper and not optical cables (like the Light Peak protoypes) so that it can support bus-powered devices -- there's 10 watts of power available on the bus, up slightly from FireWire's 8 watts. Up to six devices can be daisy-chained from one port, and since Thunderbolt is based on PCI Express, it can even support FireWire and USB adapters. That's great news for the future of the interface, but the MacBook Pro still has two USB 2.0 and one FireWire 800 port, so it's not of critical importance right this second. We'll have much, much more in our full review -- check back in a few days! Update: We got a closer look at Thunderbolt working with some peripherals this afternoon -- believe us, you don't want to miss the video demo. %Gallery-117510%
Apple quietly updates MacBook Pro with optional 2.8GHz Core i7 processor
Sure, Apple's "Back to the Mac" press conference was all about software and a manila envelope or two, but Cupertino also sent out a silent love letter to its MacBook Pro lineup. Specifically, the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro laptops can now be configured with a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 processor, up from the 2.66GHz model they were limited to before, for the primo price of $200 more. That's a pretty penny to pay for a simple 140MHz boost, but base clockspeed is only part of the story -- this is almost certainly the Core i7-640M that Intel owned up to just last month, which can turbo to a lap-scorching 3.4GHz under load. If you feel like buying one, do be a dear and let us know for sure? [Thanks, Steven H.]
MacBook Pro (mid 2009) in-depth impressions
Let's be straight here: we're a little perplexed by the new MacBook Pro line. On one hand, Apple didn't really make enough changes to warrant a whole new review of the unibody lineup, and minor speed bumps aside, briefly using one of the new machines feels pretty much like using most any recent Mac: it's OS X on a really nice, albeit extremely glossy screen. On the other hand, after a week in the trenches, it's clear that all those seemingly minor changes will have a big impact down the line -- especially the move to sealed-in batteries across the board, which is a decision with decidedly mixed consequences. What's more, we think these changes impact the 13-inch and 15-inch models very differently -- the $1,199 13-inch configuration might have a shiny new Pro label on it, but even Apple admits that it's an entry-level consumer machine, and consumers and professionals don't have the same needs. So while this isn't going to be a full-on review, we think just slightly more than just our usual bullet-pointed impressions are in order -- and we think it's important to actually break things down by model. How do Apple's latest laptops stack up? Read on for more.
