The rumored NEW MacBook!

[Mike Lucey]

Hi Mac Users (and watchers ),

I've been reading about the possible NEW MacBook which may be announced shortly. I was a little shocked to read that Apple may be doing away with the 17" MacBook Pro, my lappie of choice, but on further reading I think I see the logic.

It now seems that Apple are moving with the times and getting rid of the optical drives from their laptops. I don't know when I last used mine and think I could live without one integrated provided I had a low cost plug-in for the times I may need to read / create a CD.

Not having my 17" screen was, as I said, a bit of a shock! But the only reason I opted for the 17" screen in the first place was for it 1920 x1200 resolution. Working on my iPad has proven to me that I really don't need a big screen, its the resolution that important. I can just move closer to it (screen).

The move now looks that it will be towards a 13" and 15" NEW MacBook, the latter sporting a whopping 2880 x 1800 retina display and hopefully a low price SSD.

I don't think it will be long before we will know for sure what will be on offer but again there is quite a bit of life left in my 17" MacBook Pro yet ...... still temptation is a terrible thing

Check out the rumors here, http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12 ... k_pro.html Also the attached image show the possible NEW specs.

Mike

[Pixero]

Here's some more even better rumored specs: http://9to5mac.com/2012/06/05/possible- ... in-as-air/

Oh, I soo want one of these...

[Jeff Hammond]

they're supposedly updateing their whole lineup at once (macpro, iMac, mbp)??
I guess we'll know for sure on the 11th

[Rich O Brien]

It finally landed and at €2,500 to €3,500 it's a tad expensive.

Though highly impressive that they squeezed all that grunt into such a sleek case.

[Jeff Hammond]

It finally landed and at €2,500 to €3,500 it's a tad expensive.

Though highly impressive that they squeezed all that grunt into such a sleek case.

the trick is wait a few months then buy the refurbs.. usually around $4-500 cheaper.

regardless, I thought euros were stronger than $?

the 15" maxed out with the 2.7quad is $3000 in the u.s.

[Mike Lucey]

Yes, the basics are costly and the high spec at $3,828.00 is indeed highly priced but on the other hand I think a person would have to look at a 3 year investment and still have a decent trade-in value of approx. $1000+ after that.

I think a basic MacBook plus a decent iMac might be a better proposition!

[Paul Russam]

In Nov 2008 we had our house broken into and both our laptops stolen (amongst other stuff ) My wife's was a Sony 17" and mine was a MacBook Pro, The insurance replaced both.

Can you guess which one is still going and looking as if its brand new and which one went in the bin many many moons ago?

I run Parallels on my iMac and at the instance of my wife installed it on the Macbook Pro last week (loves the mac, hates OSX ), now apart from the fact the the MBP has only 4Gb ram and therefore I've only allocated 2Gb to the Win7 VM it runs perfectly.

A quick look at ebay and 2008 15" MBP's are going for £550 - £750, try investing £1400 in a Windows laptop and getting that after 1 year let alone 3 1/2.

Oh yea, I nearly forgot, about 2 months ago the aluminium cover came unstuck in one corner from the screen/lid, I booked an appointment at the Apple store and took it in, now remember its 3 1/2 years old and out of warranty.
They looked at it and their response was "Oh, that's not good, what time would be good for you to pick it up?"
They replaced the entire lid/screen without so much as a tut or sucking of teeth, I had an almost identical experience with a iPad smart cover this weekend.

Yea, they cost more but you damn well get a hell of a lot more for the money

[kobus]

I recommend installing "undercover" from orbicule to all Mac users I run into.

[Mike Lucey]

Looks like apps will have a bit of catching up to do!

http://gizmodo.com/5917651/some-third+p ... na-display

original.jpg

[Jeff Hammond]

I was hoping for a more significant Mac pro update.

mine is six years old now.. nothing wrong with it and I wouldn't say I NeED a new desktop but im itching to get something with 12 cores for rendering.
I can't believe they still have those old ati cards in there

the rumor mill has the macpro shrinking into something more like the macminis except stackable.. that would be awesome.. maybe that's what Tim cook was alluding to in his latest email to a user? (no link now.. I'll put it up later)
but I can definitely wait another year. (except that messes with my laptop upgrade system.. I'll be due for a new laptop late next year.. I don't think I can update both at the same time)

[bmike]

Glad I grabbed a 17" when I did.
I'd love a retina display - but I'd be curious to see what quadrupling the pixel count does to the graphics, even with the faster chips.

Looks slick though. The retina screen is awesome on my iPhone. Wish I had waited for the iPad3, as I use it for presentations. (not that the 2 is bad...)

2 years in when I save some pennies again they'll likely have all the bugs worked out... then I'll buy.

[Mike Lucey]

I think its now looking like retina on the new MBP might be premature! While Apple have updated their core apps, it will be some time before 3rd party vendors catch up. I imagine its not a 10 minutes job!

I see Chrome has taken a lead in this area but they have Google behind them. What surprises me is that they did not have it done already!

On the other hand this could be a move by Apple to get users to start using Safari .... could be clever or not, time will tell.

I won't be making the move until all the apps I use are retina optimised. I think I may just swap out my HD for an SSD in the meantime.

[bmike]

I won't be making the move until all the apps I use are retina optimised. I think I may just swap out my HD for an SSD in the meantime.

I'll be doing that next year on my 17".
And likely pulling the optical drive, using this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/DDAMBS0GB/

And moving to 16g of RAM (currently have 8)

[Jeff Hammond]

If you could design your dream laptop, how would you describe it?

Superfast. Superthin. Superlight. Superlong battery life. Immense storage. Enough memory to keep lots of programs open at once. Stunning screen, comfortable keyboard, terrific sound. Fast start-up, rugged body, gorgeous looks.

And, of course, inexpensive.

The new Apple laptop that went on sale Monday hits an impressive number of those high notes in one radical swoop. As you might guess, the one it misses by the biggest margin is “inexpensive.”

[solo]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/257717/v ... _last.html

[Rich O Brien]

“Applications must support the Retina Display with suitably high-resolution graphics, and if they don’t it’s a recipe for visual disaster. Apple’s own Mail, Calendar, Address Book, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Aperture and Final Cut Pro are all Retina-optimized, but most third-party apps aren’t, and the difference between them is brutally obvious.

This would be a major reason for not purchasing. Why pay such a price to only frown at the screen each time your unoptimized app is running.

A non-retina version should be available also. I fear that websites will hurry to get retina-ready to only slow load time on web pages.

I recently looked at the retina on the iPad and it's incredible but is the web ready for it?

Also are 17" MacBook Pros upgradeable to 8gb RAM?

[Jeff Hammond]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/257717/vizios_ultrabook_pcs_real_macbook_air_rivals_at_last.html

i'm not sure why they're comparing that to a macbook air.. size wise, it's more in the realm of the macbook pros in which case, the mbp is way better..

for reference, here's a picture of an 11" macbook air next to an iPad.. it's not even a laptop, really…

mba_ipad.JPG

This would be a major reason for not purchasing. Why pay such a price to only frown at the screen each time your unoptimized app is running.

A non-retina version should be available also. I fear that websites will hurry to get retina-ready to only slow load time on web pages.

I recently looked at the retina on the iPad and it's incredible but is the web ready for it?

Also are 17" MacBook Pros upgradeable to 8gb RAM?

yeah, 8gb in the 17s for a couple of years now.. the new ones (mid2012) can take 16.. (but the 17" model has been discontinued as of this week..)


re the resolution.. apple has implemented a sweet scaling scheme into the mix.. (i.e.- different than running the screens as a non-native resolution)

according to anandtech :

Even at the non-integer scaled 1680 x 1050 setting, the Retina Display looks a lot better than last year's high-res panel. It looks like Apple actually renders the screen at twice the selected resolution before scaling it to fit the 2880 x 1800 panel (in other words, at 1920 x 1200 Apple is rendering everything at 3840 x 2400 (!) before scaling - this is likely where the perf impact is seen, but I'm trying to find a way to quantify that now). Everything just looks better. I also appreciate how quick it is to switch between resolutions on OS X. When I'm doing a lot of work I prefer the 1920 x 1200 setting, but if I'm in content consumption mode I find myself happier at 1440 x 900 or 1680 x 1050.

i have the 1680x1050 hi-res (i guess i gotta quit calling this thing hi-res ) 15" and it's amazing.. so the reviewer is saying it looks even better when run at this size so….
it's easy to switch and i assume some little utilities will come out soon which makes it very easy to switch..

so that + the ability to go to 2880 ? (and really, i don't think it will be too long until most things catch up with the resolution.. including other manufacturers.. apple is paving the way on this one)

not sure about whether or not the internet can handle it but it's in motion now.. consumers can't stop it from happening so why worry about it (actually, consumers are going to be the driving force behind it and anyone that want to cap resolution is more likely than not, sol )

[Jeff Hammond]

[
A non-retina version should be available also.

there is:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/s ... pro/select

same innards but cheaper (but if you get the ssd in there, the prices will get much closer to one another..)

[edit] actually, the non retina version is more expensive if you upgrade it to the comparable 512ssd which ships standard with the retinas..
?
or maybe i'm missing something

[Rich O Brien]

But aren't the non retina version just the older shape?

I'm talking about getting the latest in non retina.

[Jeff Hammond]

But aren't the non retina version just the older shape?

I'm talking about getting the latest in non retina.

yeah. it's the old body. (a hard drive still fits in there where as it wont fit in the new form.. it's weird that apple has this going on too.. usually, once they decide to make a change (no cd-rom / ssd) they make a sweeping change with no intermediate models)

[Rich O Brien]

This cleared up a bit of the whole retina concept. Good read.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-33620_3-57454 ... -displays/

[bmike]

But aren't the non retina version just the older shape?

I'm talking about getting the latest in non retina.

yeah. it's the old body. (a hard drive still fits in there where as it wont fit in the new form.. it's weird that apple has this going on too.. usually, once they decide to make a change (no cd-rom / ssd) they make a sweeping change with no intermediate models)

Agree, but I guess that the production is pretty limited on the retina. My bet is that next year the airs and pro line will get it. What was known as the MacBook will fade into those 2 lines.

[Jeff Hammond]

re: apple pricing


hmm.. i think it might be time for me to switch to pc.. or at least, do any online travel reservations on a pc


http://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/25/orb ... mac-users/

Travel shopping site Orbitz is offering more expensive hotels to Mac users because the company found Mac users prefer more luxurious rooms, reports the Wall Street Journal.


Orbitz noted that it was is not showing different prices for the same room to different users, but was presenting pricier hotels more prominently to Mac users than those using Windows. Users can rank hotel options by price and get the same listings no matter what platform they are using.

[EDIT] or sht.. maybe i should just eat my words.. i'm on my way to miami today for a month.. will i be staying at motel6?

nah.. a sweet little villa on the beach

23-1.jpg

[Rich O Brien]

Nice!

[Jeff Hammond]

Nice!

well, the client is paying for it so I don't think it counts towards this orbitz thing..
he uses an iPad for his computer but I think the acct dept is on pcs.