Apple launches new MacBook Pro

This one is definitely for you Apple fanboys out there. Apple just a day ago launched a MacBook Pro refresh that gave their top tier laptop family some badly needed i7 and i5 processor power. With Intel’s crop of Core i5 and i7 processors getting rave performance reviews, Apple took its time giving us this new MBP bunch, the last refresh was June last year.

Are you ready for the juicy details? Here we go.

The new MacBook Pro family comes in 13, 15 and 17-inch models

What’s Inside

Processors/RAM – the 13-inchers are unfortunately sticking to Core 2 Duo procs, with a choice between 2.4Ghz and 2.66 Ghz models, both much faster than what the old 13-inch model had. Users of the 15-inch MBP will have  a choice of i5′s and i7 procs, topping out at a 2.66Ghz i7. The 17-inch model will be stuck with a 2.53Ghz i5 proc — although in the customize options, a 2.66Ghz i7 proc is available for an additional $200. We say it like its a bad thing, but if you know your processors, you’ll be happy with these new changes. All units will come with 4GB RAM, upgradeable to 8GB in some models (whew!).

Hard Drive and Optical Storage – The 13-incher comes with a 250GB HDD (looking at that number, I feel the need for a FireWire Portable Hard Drive), with the higher units topping out at 320GB and 500GB — all 5400rpm drives. For $50 more, you can get a 7200rpm drive. For the low, low price of $1300 (*wink*), you get a 512GB Solid state drive instead. As for the optical drive, your standard DVD Superdrive burner is still there, Steve Jobs still not biting into the Blu-ray drive hype. This is a problem we have actually solved, as we unboxed our DIGISTOR USB Blu-ray Burner, tested compatible with our current MacBook Pro.

Graphics, Video controllers – The higher end models are all getting NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 330M graphics, with some 512MB of video RAM. They will also employ some sort of processor/GPU usage switching, depending on what applications are open and using video resources. The 13-incher get NVIDIA GeForce 320M scraps. For reference the 330M is twice as fast as its 320M counterpart, something you should consider if you are a power user.

LCD Screens and Displays – On the 15-inch you can pick between a 1440 x 900 “glossy” display, or a 1680 x 1050 glossy display for $100 more — and an anti-glare hi-res display for another $50 on top of that. 17-inch users are stuck with 1920 x 1200 glossy (antiglare version available for $50 more).

Battery life – Because of the lower power usage of the Core 2 Duo procs on the 13-inchers, Apple is confident you will get 10 hours of battery life from them. And because of the Proc/GPU switching, a very palatable 8-9 hours on the biggies. Not bad at all.

Say what you want, but darn if that ain't pretty.

Features

Unibody design – Apple has continued to stick to their patented unibody technique – the whole enclosure of a MacBook Pro is carved out from one single block of aluminum. Pick up one of these babies and you will see the difference — it’s lighter, looks polished and freaking sleek.

Longer battery life - For reasons previously discussed (processor, graphics), and because they just put in a better battery to this MBP family, you will get a whole new world of battery performance with this MBP batch — 8-10 hours of computing is certainly above the average for portable computers.

Ergonomic Backlit Keyboard – The rigid aluminum keyboard webbing has been cut precisely to hold the keys, and the keys are curved to fit fingers. It’s one of the most ergonomic keyboards you will encounter. The keyboard is also illuminated — an ambient light sensor activates the illuminated keyboard in low-light conditions such as airplanes or conference rooms — so you can always see what you’re typing. That, is just plain class, and immeasurably cool to boot.

The all new MacBook Pro Trackpad – The first thing you might notice about the MacBook Pro trackpad is the button — or the lack of it. The entire trackpad is the button, so you can click anywhere. Without a separate button, the trackpad gives you plenty of room to move on the large, silky glass surface — yes, it is made out of freaking ETCHED GLASS (what?!?). It recognizes all the multitouch gestures you’ve come to know and love on the iPhone. Use two fingers to scroll smoothly up and down a page with inertial scrolling. Pinch to zoom in and out. Rotate an image with your fingertips. Swipe with three fingers to flip through your photo libraries. Swipe with four fingers to show your desktop, view all open windows, or switch applications. If you’re coming from a right-click world, you can right-click with two fingers or configure a right-click area on the trackpad. (Oh God, to have one of these on a Windows-based system! *groan*)

Connectivity – We’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Left side panel - 13-inch MacBook Pro

Left side Panel - 15-inch MacBook Pro

Left side Panel - 17-inch MacBook Pro

Conclusion

There’s a LOT to like about this new batch of MacBook Pros, and by God, someone in Apple REALLY knows how to do hardware right. These things are light, classy, pretty, without sacrificing internal processing beefiness. Pretty and smart to boot, yes. We still raise our hands in defiance (not very loudly, of course) at the lack of Blu-ray technology on this. On something this beautiful, you should be able to watch Blu-ray movies. You can connect a USB Blu-ray burner and burn high-definition videos to Blu-ray media, that much we have tested and found out. It’s just a shame to not be able to enjoy the complete Blu-ray experience on one of these babies. Well, you really can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Enjoy more MacBook Pro eye candy as our parting shot. We will be thinking long and hard about getting one of these very soon. MacPCWiz out.