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Quad Core, Thunderbolt In New MacBook Pros

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the get-yer-cult-on dept.

Although as I write this the store is still down, the Apple web site has officially published the specs for the revised MacBook Pros, which top out at 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 for the 17" as well as offering a 512GB solid state drive. Somehow I don't think my boss will let me expense the one I want.

24 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Reduced battary life by kingtheseus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apple is now using a more realistic battery life testing suite: "Apple is using a new, more rigorous battery test that measures the results you can expect in the real world â" like surfing your favorite sites in a coffee shop or catching up on the latest web videos."

  2. Thunderbolt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is Intel's official name for the technology formerly codenamed Light Peak

    http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm

    No, it's not an Apple made-up name.

    1. Re:Thunderbolt by TheSeventh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Odd that Intel would use "Thunderbolt" when it is also the name of the latest Android phone coming out for Verizon (was supposed to be out today), and although Intel claims to have a trademark, Verizon actually has one: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4008:ncmpfb.6.1

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    2. Re:Thunderbolt by patniemeyer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      LightPeak is a much cooler name... and less ambiguous as a search term... and less childish sounding.

    3. Re:Thunderbolt by eobanb · · Score: 3, Funny

      You've obviously never worked in IT support then.

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  3. How many slashdot icons does Apple get? by Missing.Matter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They have the Apple logo, iOS logo, iPhone, and Macbook. Why does apple get so many special Slashdot icons?

    1. Re:How many slashdot icons does Apple get? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most of the Apple "news" tends to be advertisements. Like this story.

    2. Re:How many slashdot icons does Apple get? by Rary · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They have the Apple logo, iOS logo, iPhone, and Macbook. Why does apple get so many special Slashdot icons?

      Meanwhile, Microsoft gets a dated sci-fi reference attached to a dated image of a guy who doesn't work there anymore.

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    3. Re:How many slashdot icons does Apple get? by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most of the Apple "news" tends to be advertisements. Like this story.

      And yet pretty much every tech site feel a need to post what is essentially free slashvertisements for Apple, otherwise people think they're out of touch with current trends. Of course slashdot being full of IT people and engineers hate all that branding, advertising, marketing and so on but you can't deny that the free publicity is a huge, huge business asset. Dell or HP or Acer releasing a new laptop model gets a meh on a few computer sites, that's all..

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    4. Re:How many slashdot icons does Apple get? by internic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Firefly was pretty well liked and dates from the 21st century.

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    5. Re:How many slashdot icons does Apple get? by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And yet, somehow, these make sense. Apple is known widely for its recent products, while Microsoft is mostly known for its older ones and for Gates. The Ballmer years have not been kind to them.

  4. Re:Resolution by Missing.Matter · · Score: 5, Informative
    13-Inch

    Supported resolutions: 1280 by 800 (native), 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio stretched; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio stretched

    15-Inch

    Supported resolutions: 1440 by 900 (native), 1280 by 800, 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio stretched; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio stretched

    17-inch

    Supported resolutions: 1920 by 1200 (native), 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1280 by 1024 pixels at 5:4 aspect ratio; 1280 by 1024 pixels at 5:4 aspect ratio stretched; 1600 by 1200, 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 1600 by 1200, 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio stretched; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio stretched

    http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html

  5. Re:iPad by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or Apple could get really crazy and issue a firmware update that allows the iPhone/iPad to optionally wirelessly sync in the background when at home/on the charger, so that "syncing" could take advantage of wireless networking and network storage capabilities(which things like the time capsule indicate that Apple can certainly handle) rather than being pretty much exactly identical to what Pilot 1000 owners were doing in 1996...

  6. Re:On the graphics side by Sancho · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You can get an idea right now, since the HD3000 has been out for a while. Basically, in raw GPU performance, it's pretty lousy. There are places where the memory bus improvements can make up some of the difference, but frankly, I consider this a step back. It's a shame, too--I'd been planning on picking up the 13" MBP after this refresh. Now I'm going to start looking at other notebooks.

  7. Re:The 15 inch quad core price is very disappointi by glennpratt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought the same before using a MacBook Pro every day for work for a year.

    You just don't get the stability, performance, battery life and build quality in a cheap Windows notebook (I've bought tons of them after much research when I worked in IT). Runs for months on end, 80 hour weeks, never shutdown, rarely restarted, basically never gets in my way.

  8. Re:Number of Apple stories in last three days by commodore6502 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >>>un-checking the "Apple" category

    I don't mind reading Apple stories.
    I mind reading the SAME "rumors about macbook" story three times in three days.

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  9. Macintosh quality by Relayman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I walked into an office recently and a coworker saw my MacBook Pro and said, "I wish I had that instead of this Dell POS. Just look at the screen resolution!" Put a four-year old MacBook Pro next to a four-year old Dell laptop and you will be able to see the difference. There will not be any missing cheap plastic pieces on the Mac.

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    1. Re:Macintosh quality by donny77 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      And here we go with the circular argument.

      1) Apple is overpriced, I can get by with a $600 PC

      2) Yeah, but Dell's are crap!

      3) Dell isn't the only PC manufacturer. Not a fair comparison.

      4) Who? Alienware? Now they aren't cheaper than Apple!

  10. Re:Resolution by jovius · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In addition there is Hi-Res option for 15" devices: 1680 x 1050.

  11. Re:Resolution by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Informative

    Notably, the 15" one can be upgraded to 1680x1050 at build time.

  12. Re:Reduced battary life by LordNimon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm pretty sure Adobe is working on an update that will allow all four cores to run at 100%.

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  13. Re:now the cheaper macbook pro is better then mac by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3, Informative

    As someone who has benchmarked the living crap out of all of Apple's 2010 hardware, I can tell you with certainty that the Mac Pro will still leave these in the dust on any real work. The 2010 Mac Pro is 3 to 4 times faster than the 2010 MacBook Pro i7 in any reasonable benchmark you want to talk about. Maybe it's only 2 to 3 times faster now.

    Until Intel releases Xeons based on this same stuff, then it will probably be 4 to 5 times faster.

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  14. Re:Number of Apple stories in last three days by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dozens.

    Overkill much?

    Quad Core, Thunderbolt In New MacBook Pros 247 Comments
    Apple in Talks to Improve Sound Quality of Music Downloads: 429 Comments
    MacBook Pro Specs Leaked, iPad Event March 2: 352 Comments
    Apple To Unveil Light Peak, New MacBook Pros This Week?305 Comments
    Last.Fm Founder Criticizes Apple Over Music Subscription Fees: 218 Comments
    Steve Jobs Health Worries Escalate: 520 Comments
    Apple To Keep 30% of Magazine Subscription Revenue: 381 Comments
    Why Dumbphones Still Dominate, For Now: 618 Comments
    Will the Apple TV Become a Gaming Platform? 194 Comments
    Vatican Bans IOS Confession App: 323 Comments
    iPhone Attack Reveals Passwords In Six Minutes: 186 Comments
    Pirated App Sold On Mac App Store: 334 Comments

    Yeah, overkill. Slashdot's really ramming this down our throats. It's not like we're screaming at Slashdot to keep publishing Apple stories or anything.

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  15. Re:Buyer's remorse or Buyer's rejoice? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Intel® Core i7-740QM processor (quad core 3.6 GHz)

    Not sure where you got that from. The i7-740QM is a quad-core 1.73GHz part. In the highest Turbo Boost mode, it is a single-core 2.93GHz part. It doesn't have a 3.6GHz mode. It's also the last generation (Clarksfield, 45nm) part, while the MBPs use the newer (Sandybridge, 32nm) ones. The slowest that the 17" MBPs come with is the Core i7-2720QM, which is 2.2GHz in quad-core mode, up to 3.3GHz in single-core mode.

    Given the other features of that machine, the CPU looks pretty anaemic.

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