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MacBook Pro Gets Santa Rosa Chipset, LED Screen

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-isn't-that-special dept.

frdmfghtr writes "TechNewsWorld is reporting that Apple has updated the MacBook Pro line with the Santa Rosa chipset from Intel. In addition, Apple is also introducing mercury-free displays with some models. 'When Apple presented new editions of its MacBook line last month, the company excluded the latest Intel Centrino chips, dubbed "Santa Rosa," which had been released just days prior. The chips have found their way into Apple's new high-end MacBook Pro notebooks, which the company revealed Tuesday. Certain models use mercury-free displays, falling in line with the company's recent ecological promises.'"

23 of 452 comments (clear)

  1. How about... by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...a link to the actual MacBook Pro web page and specifications, since that's what people here probably care about, as opposed to a "TechNewsWorld" article being the only thing linked in the summary?

    Also, while Apple folks and other tech-savvy folks may know the Intel-based Macs run Windows, why does the news article not even mention that? For many people even considering buying a Mac, the fact that a laptop like this can easily run Windows natively or seamlessly alongside Mac OS X with packages like Parallels Desktop at least bears repeating.

    1. Re:How about... by alxbtk · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah it can run windows, and it's also the first Mac to get a DirectX10 compatible GPU (Nvida 8600 here) which could be a good thing for gamers.

    2. Re:How about... by freedumb2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Serioulsy, does anyone even really miss it these day? Tapping on the touchpad with two fingers for a right-click really does not make me miss a second button.

    3. Re:How about... by daveschroeder · · Score: 2, Informative

      How come they don't mention they come with iLife?

      The article does mention that.

      "the notebooks come with [...] iLife '06. iLife '06 includes Apple's next-generation digital lifestyle applications: iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand and iWeb."

      How come they don't mention the OS has a *nix underbelly?

      Because that's not relevant to the much, much larger number and percentage of people who might have casually considered Mac OS X and Apple hardware, might not yet understand these things can easily run Windows or any other x86 OS. Yes: people who might have at times considered a switch might not understand one of the most aspects of the Intel-based Macs: not having to give up the applications you may still need on Windows, and finally being able to do it in a practical, usable way.

      How come they don't mention that Macs plug into the wall?

      They actually do. Twice.

      "All models include [...] Apple's MagSafe power adapter [...]"

      "[...] the MagSafe Power Adapter [...]"

      Perhaps Apple itself wants to position its hardware away from Windows and being "PC-like."

      Uh, this isn't from "Apple". It's from a tech publication.

      Which is the point.

      Perhaps it's not relevant to the discussion regarding a simple hardware revision.

      By that standard, nearly everything that is actually mentioned in the article is even less relevant.

      Perhaps that comment is just a desire to see any Apple news be a commercial.

      The fact that you even say that proves my point that the fact that Intel-based Macs can run Windows is kind of an important element in the decision of many purchasers. In fact, mentioning that it has the capability to easily run Windows makes it less of an Apple "commercial", by all of the previous wildly contradictory comments you made.

      If you're going to troll, at least do a decent job of it, or at a minimum RTFA, and try to hide your jealousy a little while you're at it.

      Terrible. F.

    4. Re:How about... by Niten · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, Santa Rosa is just the codename for Intel's next-generation Centrino platform: Wikipedia

    5. Re:How about... by foniksonik · · Score: 2, Informative
      Some new news then... Parallels 3 is coming out soon yes-you-heard-rightparallels-desktop-30. Here's the new feature /. readers probably care about most:

      3D Graphics: You asked for it, and we delivered. Kick around your favorite Windows-only OpenGL and DirectX games and apps in a virtual machine on your Mac, without shutting down OS X!


      --
      A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
    6. Re:How about... by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Informative

      And many, many people still don't fully understand that, yes, it really, really can run Windows. And yes, your Windows app will really, really work. Yes, even that one. Yes, really.

      That is very true. People don't understand Virtualization and Confuse it with Emulation. Emulators tend to have a lot of problems with compatibiliy because anything that the programmer didn't think of will not work. Virtualization is having the program run nativly and only emulating a few Low Level calls (Memory Containment, Video, Hardware). So if it request some strange opt-code from the processor the processor will nativly handle it, as well the other OS is running so unlike Wine which translate system calls to the host OS. Virtualization handles the OS's System Calls. But historically before Mac Going Intel Everything needed to be Emulated so some stuff didn't work or work well.

      As for boot camp people don't understand where the Hardware code stops and the OS begins. Some people think boot camp is Windows Running on Top of OS X (Like a single user virutalization) Leaving resources reserved for OS X to keep it alive. All boot camp does is work as a boot loader for Windows and once windows is loaded Windows has full control of your system.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    7. Re:How about... by PriceIke · · Score: 2, Informative

      > But if you're running games, why are you using a laptop. I can understand using a laptop for a couple simple games, but if you're really hardcore into games, then why wouldn't you get a full sized computer

      For some of us, our laptop is our primary computer. When I am home, it is plugged into a keyboard, stack of HDs, full-size display, scanner, Ethernet network and so on. These days there's little reason to invest in a computer that I can't take with me should I need to.

      --
      It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
  2. updated features by swissfondue · · Score: 3, Informative

    30-40 minutes estimated additional real battery life for the 15". Although apple isn't saying if most of the additional power saving is coming from the LED-backlit screen.

    --
    Rubies and Pearls are not what you think.
    1. Re:updated features by RMH101 · · Score: 4, Informative

      it's not just from the screen. santa rosa can slow down the whole bus, not just the CPU, making more power saving.

    2. Re:updated features by dave420 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not to mention its new wireless adaptor and the ability to turn off the second core if needed... and the PCIE, the graphics adaptor, etc. Intel made power savings across the board - Apple don't state where the power savings come from, because Apple doesn't know.

  3. I bought one! by MBCook · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've got an early '05 Powerbook G4 (first-gen HD motion sensors represent!). It's a great little thing but as I do more photo editing and such I'm starting to feel it's lack of power. I've used Intel Macs with C2Ds and they are very nice. I decided that during the next refresh I would purchase one.

    So when I checked the Apple store yesterday and saw it was down, I was thrilled. I had been expecting it (I follow rumors sites and Apple Insider had some detailed possible specs on Monday). When I got to work the store was back up and I ordered one immediately.

    It's about time that Apple put 2 gigs in the MacBook Pros by default.

    It's expected to come as soon as Friday, and I can't wait. Geek Sugar has pictures of the new one, and they that the display is noticeably brighter, despite the fact it's not supposed to be (according to Apple, there is a mini-interview on Gizmodo).

    I can't wait!

    Now I just need Leopard...

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    1. Re:I bought one! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Even Dell & Sony do that too, take a look at their websites and customize a laptop.
      They all must have found some expensive 2GB modules :-)

    2. Re:I bought one! by jcgf · · Score: 2, Informative

      People using it for more professional work can really benefit from the optical audio jacks if they work in that kind of environment.

      The regular macbook can do optical out also.

      See the following:

      http://www.apple.com/ca/macbook/specs.html

  4. Re:How about color quality? by TheBig1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am very interested in this as well, and have been looking around various photo forums for the past few weeks (in expectation of this announcement). The general consensus seems to be that the color gamut is superior on LED displays than traditional ones; whether this first generation one will work this way we'll have to wait and see...

    However, from what I understand, the iPod screens have been LED based for some time; while I don't have one myself, from what I've seen the colors are very nice on them.

    Take that as you will 8-)

    Cheers

  5. Re:Why did the LED take so long. by petermgreen · · Score: 2, Informative

    I presume LED in this context means an LED based backlight, backlighting an LCD screen right is pretty difficult, whatever light source is used it must provide illumination with a suitable wavelength makeup and have its light spread evenly accross teh screen.

    the normal way to do this is with a very thin mercury floursencent lamp that runs along the bottom of the screen and then some clever optics that spread the light vertically.

    LEDs tend to concentrate thier light at a point rather than along a strip which i would imagine makes spreading the light much harder. White LEDs also tend to have an unusual spectrum which may be an issue too.

    --
    note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  6. Re:How does the chipset help? by k_187 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The big thing is that it will let the macbook pro address a full 4gb of RAM. In the previous revisions only 3GB could be addressed. I'd imagine there are also other power/performance improvements.

    --
    11 was a racehorse
    12 was 12
    1111 Race
    12112
  7. Re:How about color quality? by TheNetAvenger · · Score: 2, Informative

    Colour accuracy and laptop LCDs do not go hand in hand

    Um, no...

    Laptop screens have been very capable of fairly accurate color for quite a while. This might not be true of the last gen Macbooks that had 250K displays, but for most people in the graphics world, we buy the high end screens on our laptops and can do just as accurate color as when sitting at a desktop display. (Even go back to the Theater displays from Toshiba in 2002 1600x1200 on a 15" screen with a fairly high contrast ratio, refresh speed, and more than a simple 16 or 18 bit display.)

    I know these resolutions and quality is unheard of in the Mac notebook world, but is pretty common on any laptop in the PC world for over 5 or 6 years now.

  8. MacBooks already have a better solution by slart42 · · Score: 2, Informative

    You don't have to reach to the control key to do a right-click. Just click the trackpad button with two-fingers on the touchpad. Voila, there's your right-click!

  9. Re:How about color quality? by jddj · · Score: 5, Informative

    The LEDs do just provide the backlight.

    The color spectrum that a given LED provides will necessarily be different than the spectrum that CCF backlights generate, and different from the spectra that the various CRT monitor phosphors generate.

    If a given portion of the spectrum is not present in the "white light" (using that term very loosely here) backlight, no amount of filtering by the LCD screen overlay can put it back. If this is not intuitive, imagine trying to create blue using only a pure-red LED backlight. (You can't do it - the backlight must have at least some blue).

    So if, for example, the LED backlight has more green and red light available in its "white light" spectrum than a CCF backlight has, the LCD overlay so-illuminated can produce yellow tones (since red and green are the constituent primaries that make yellow) that a LCD illuminated with a CCF cannot. That gives the LED-illuminated LCD a wider gamut.

    However, if both the LED-illuminated and the CCF-illuminated LCD overlays only filter light at a resolution of 8 bits per channel, they will both be able to display the same amount of information about color, but because the gamut of one is different from the gamut of the other, in many cases they will not be able to display the same colors.

    The "6-bit" comment in my earlier post refers to the fact that Apple has been shipping 6-bit displays on its Powerbooks and MacBook pros for a while. I believe there has been a /. post on this situation.

    If a manufacturer provides more bit depth (more than 8 bits per channel, f.e.) the LCD overlay will be able to filter the available light more finely than 8- or 6-bit displays can do. In general, an 8-bit display should in fact have a larger (but not necessarily wider) gamut than a 6-bit. A 10-, 12-, or (allow me to dream here) 16-bit-per-channel display would have still larger (but again, not necessarily wider).

    In an LCD display the spectrum of the backlight will determine how wide the gamut can be at its absolute maximum - if a color is not present in that spectrum, it cannot be filtered into existance by the LCD overlay. By the same token, the bit-depth-per-channel of the LCD overlay will determine how many individual color tones are in that gamut.

    In reality, it's a lot more complicated than this, but this is the gist of it.

  10. Re:How about putting some Zoom in the low end? by williamhb · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is not a bad choice. There is nothing wrong with the built-in Intel graphics (GMA950 etc) for 95% of uses. If you plan to play games such as World of Warcraft or Quake then you would want the dedicated ati graphics. It is only clueless whiny mac fanboys who have a hang up with the Intel graphics. I am sure someone can post a long list of benchmarks that show that the Intel graphics are slow, but they won't be able to show a list of how that actually effects the user. Unless you fire up WoW you aren't going to notice.


    That's a very backward-looking comment. Going forward, more and more developers may rely on Hardware T&L that the GMA950 doesn't support but most other cards, including Intel's newer integrated graphics, do. 3D will not be "just for games" for much longer. (And a previous poster noted that already a 'casual' game from 2005 -- Civ 4 -- relies on Hardware T&L not for performance but just because the developers relied on its presence; if it's not there, it won't work. Developers are coming to expect its presence.)

    A few examples of every-day applications that might expect Hardware T&L in a year or two: Better 3D mapping applications; Mocking up corporate display stands and being able to see what they'd look like assembled; designing your kitchen; 3D cooking animations to explain the method of a recipe, etc.

    In fact, the 3D maps is going to be the killer: MS Research and Cambridge Uni have already developed systems that can calculate building geometry from photos taken at different angles; Google Streetview has an awful lot of photos of buldings taken at different angles. Care to guess how quickly a fully-walkable Streetview Map relying on some of the 3D features of your video-card will take? (A 'better' Google Earth or MS VirtualEarth that uses hardware T&L and photo data to give a less 'warped' view...)

    So, if you want your laptop to be able to work with interesting non-game software coming out in 1-4 years' time, that GMA950 could be a right pain.

  11. Re:How about color quality? by morcheeba · · Score: 2, Informative

    Color gamut reproduction is a function of two things:
    1. the red-green-blue filters used in the LCD
    2. the quality of the backlight.

    Yes, you can create two whites that look identical (same x,y coordinates and therefore color temperature) but have different gamuts. LEDs offer a highly saturated green (and, to a lesser extent, a saturated red). If the filters pass these saturated colors, then the display will look much more vibrant. If you've seen an LED-lit tv in person, the difference is pretty obvious... of course, it all depends on the filters, so I don't know if apple has expanded their gamut.

    Yes, I'm somewhat of a color expert. I designed the equipment that calibrated millions of LED-lit LCD displays for my company.

    --
    HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
  12. No 8600M GT drivers for Bootcamp? by Zhe+Mappel · · Score: 2, Informative
    According to this thread, Apple hasn't updated Bootcamp yet to work with the new MBPs. See:



    http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=31067 6