Wincent Colaiuta's weblog: New MacBook Pros

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June 5, 2007

New MacBook Pros

I love the specs on Apple's new MacBook Pros (nice summary here). Now, I'm not personally in the market for a portable right now but I still think it's awesome the rate at which Apple's improving their hardware nowadays. Not like the dark and gloomy Motorola days when disappointing product announcements were made with great fanfare at MacWorld; now Apple routinely rolls out significant, regular hardware upgrades as a matter of course.

The new MacBook Pro is significantly more powerful than my own Intel desktop machine (an iMac) which is just over a year old. Comparing the two:

The MacBook Pro has the same screen size (17").
The MacBook Pro has higher resolution (1680 by 1050, compared with 1440 by 900 on the iMac); you can optionally take it even higher to an impressive 1920 by 1200 via a built-to-order option.
The MacBook Pro has a considerably faster clockspeed (2.4 GHz dual compared with 1.8 GHz dual on the iMac) as well as the architectural improvements gained in the move from the Core Duo to the Core 2 Duo.
The MacBook Pro comes with 2 GB of memory, standard, and can be upgraded to 4 GB; the iMac came with only 512 MB which crippled machine performance (I upgraded to the 2 GB maximum as soon as possible).
The MacBook Pro comes with a 160 GB hard drive, as large as the iMac's drive; and upgradeable to 250 GB.
The MacBook Pro comes with everything the iMac has: slot-loading SuperDrive, built-in iSight, Gigabit ethernet, AirPort Extreme (but the superior 802.11n standard, I believe the iMac came with the previous generation of 802.11), multiple USB 2.0, FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 ports, infrared remote.
And of course, some things you can't get on an iMac: the MagSafe power adapter and illuminated keyboard.

All in all, an impressive machine. Admittedly it costs more than a lowly iMac, but it packs one hell of a punch for such a small package. If I was on the move I would want one desperately.