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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Apple destroys MacBook Pro

FW3200 spec is finalized. No one is using it yet. USB-3 is supposedly about ready to go and I think lots of companies will jump on that one. If Apple doesn't, they'll be shooting themselves in the foot. I don't know if we'll see USB-3 by the end of this year... It's usually a 6-8 month period from finalization to first production chipsets hitting OEM channels. I'm not interested in a new notebook until the quad-core i7 mobile CPUs arrive anyway. My 2.33GHz C2D MBP I bought in October 2006 still keeps up with the current models just fine except the GPU is too weak at some things (only an ATI X1600). My plan is a quad-core, possibly a hexacore, notebook w/ 8~12GB of RAM once they're available. I would like that system to be a 17" MBP, but won't care too much if it's not. If FCS3 sucks when it's released, then I won't care at all. FCS2 is pretty much dead to me now anyway. I much prefer CS4, especially for RED workflow, and I need Blu-Ray capability that DVDSP doesn't offer. While I prefer OSX over Windows or Linux, and I love my iPhone, Apple is really choking in most other areas over the past 2 years. Their customer service thru AppleCare is still awesome though. I had a Mac Pro die on me and they're replacing it with a fully decked-out 2.93GHz Nehalem Octomac. Can't complain...
 
Chris Parker said:
which is why they should make a super duper Macbook Pro. Macbook Ultra Pro, or whatever you want to call it.
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I would just call it what it is. A PC.

*ducks*
:sifone:

MBP batteries are replaceable aren't they? I could have sworn my friend was swapping a battery in his MBP last week. Just pop off the bottom panel. Looked as easy as replacing a set of AAs.
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
MBP batteries are replaceable aren't they? I could have sworn my friend was swapping a battery in his MBP last week. Just pop off the bottom panel. Looked as easy as replacing a set of AAs.
Click to expand...

They worked out that they could make the battery something like 40% bigger without all the packaging and locking mechanisms required for a removable battery, so the new ones are not user-replaceable. I think you can take it in and get a new battery put in for something like $150 though.
 
This also means no Matrox MXO2 with the new MBP... Matrox must be very happy.
And no more integrated CF reader via an ExpressCard adapter.
I'm glad I bought my 15" MBP before this "upgrade".
They could at least have added an E-SATA port. I don't understand this company any more, they used to make things simpler for editors, now they're just making everything more complicated. No longer being able to swap batteries easily is also not very nice. I suspect they are doing this to avoid people buying compatible batteries for a 1/5 of the price they are selling them.
 
USB 3 is whats currently used in the macbook air isnt it?or at least a modified version of usb 2 in order to power the port to use the disk drive since the disk drive is unusable for macbook pro's as an external one to go along side the main one...
I think apple are trying their approach of forcing manufactuers to change...
i.e. the dropping of the old display port for this new mini display port...
same thing with the sd slot...making manufactuers come up with ideas to use it the old ports uses...

its just what apple does these days...either way we'll see how the 17" pans out when they revise it after snow leopard release (which they will for i7)
 
Bruce Allen said:
But then I've also thought it's ridiculous you can't get a 1920x1200 screen on the 15" model either (which PCs have offered for the last 5 years)...
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I've never understood this either. My decaying 15" HP laptop is actually six years old and has a fantastic 1920x1200 display. I don't want to have to lug around a hulking 17" laptop but I hate giving up almost 40% of my screen real estate just because there's no 15" Apple model that touts a full HD screen. I don't even care if they offered it as a cost-added "upgrade;" it should still be available - especially in this day and age.
 
I must be the only person on earth that thinks that the 17inch macbook pro isn't as big as people seem to act like it is.
Maybe its just because I've only ever owned the 17 inch, maybe its cause the 15inch PC laptop I had was twice as thick and that I'm used to seeing other 17inch/15inch PC notebooks that make my macbook pro and powerbook look like an air... and maybe it's just me.
It's probably just apple deciding that they don't want the 15inch to have a higher resolution screen than the 17inch, if the 15 had a 1920 option the 17 would have to have a 2560 option... and does such a screen even exist? I mean it would be cool if it did but I don't know that it does.
 
Jobs isn't even gone yet and they are doing dumb stuff like internal batts. Pulling the express slot is unbelievable.

I just had my 17" last gen have it's second slo mo explosion battery episode.

If you have the last gen MBP and the trackpad button stops clicking or seems stuck pull the batt out, if that solves the clicking problem it means the batt is exploding, slowly. Put it on a table and take a timelapse of it. It's like a loaf of bread rising.
 
Forgot to add that you will no longer be able to use the new MBP directly with SxS cards either, which was one of the very nice features when shooting Sony EX cams.
 
Bah!

Bah!

Every complaint I've read so far is how you can't do something that you're already doing now. If you are doing it now, you presumably already have a computer handling that capability. Apple uses new hardware to lead its customers into newer capabilities. Longer battery life doesn't come without some tradeoff. The loss of the ExpressCard speaks more to how few third party manufacturers were taking advantage of it than to how Matrox and Sony had a product or two. Apple is the company that dropped dedicated mouse ports in favor of USB because they were looking ahead. I'd liked to have seen multiple FireWire ports, even a FireWire 3200 port, though. I bet more third party manufacturers develop peripherals for the SD slot (even Sony, Panasonic and Matrox) than ever did for the ExpressCard.
 
Ex34 will be back.

If you look at the decision to drop Fw from the MB and its return, it's either a case of Apple feeling out the market, or just a packaging issue on the 15'. Either way I suspect the next rev will return to Ex34.

It puts the 15' at an odd place in the market. The 13' makes a great travel laptop, while the 17' is obviouosly aimed at the media professional market. the 15' is the unwelcome stepchild in the relationship. Large screen, but low resoltuion; higher power graphics but very few ways of getting enough data in and out of them.

This is one of the few Apple updates where I'm not wishing I could replace my old product for the new one.
 
Chris Parker said:
SD slot? WTF good is that???
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I think SD cards will be how the mass market finally gets affordable SSD drives. Right now $99 bucks gets you 32 Gigs at 8 MB/s (64Mb/s) transfer speed. 64G and 128G are just around the corner.

Still, the way Apple has castrated their laptops is unbelievable. Why not add an SD slot AND an Expresscard slot? Hell, why not throw a CF slot in there as well? With those three slots you cover the entire professional photography market and most of video as well!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the $$$1200 upgrade for an extra 4 Gigs of memory. That is 10 times what the same upgrade would cost if you did it yourself!

WHY wouldn't they include an external Esata port? There is already SATA inside the damn case! They could do that for the cost of a single little connector!

How ridiculous is it that some of the new laptops have 120Gig drives?!? I didn't know you could even get those any more!
 
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