New MacBook Pros launch at last, but where are the MacBooks?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 24 October 2006 20:35

Your IT - Entertainment

Apple’s designers still trump any of the PC notebook designs out there – the MacBook Pros certainly are sleek machines, as the PowerBook and MacBook range has been for some time now. They’re really the iPod’s of the notebook computing world – when will a competitor really come up with something just as beautiful and iconic?

The 15.4-inch model comes with a 120Gb hard drive as standard, while the 17-inch model sports 160Gb. 200Gb is an option if you need it, although this will spin at the slower speed of 4200rpm, not the faster 5400rpm of the smaller HDDs.

The base 15.4-inch model comes with a 2.16Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 1Gb of RAM (expandable to 3Gb), the 120Gb hard drive, ATI graphics card with 128Mb SDRAM, a 6x DL-DVD Superdrive, 1 Firewire 400, 1 Firewire 800, 2 USB 2.0 ports, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, Gigabit Ethernet, ExpressCard 34, an illuminated keyboard, built-in iSight webcam, included iLife software and more, weighing 2.54kg and being only 1-inch thick. This model is AUD $3199 (or at the much nicer sounding US $1999).

The upgraded 15.4-inch model comes with a 2.33Ghz processor, ups the memory to 2Gb, has a 256Mb ATI graphics card and retails for AUD $3,999 (or US $2499).

The 17-inch model has the same 2.33Ghz processor, 2Gb of RAM and 256Mb graphics card, boosts the hard drive to 160Gb and gives you an 8x DL-DVD Superdrive for AUD $4399 or US $2799.

I’ll certainly be venturing into a store to check out the new models, and am keenly awaiting an announcement from Apple Australia which is usually coupled by a special press launch to introduce the new models to Australian journalists eager to see the speed demons for themselves.

How soon a Core 2 Duo 13.3-inch MacBook model becomes available is anyone’s guess... it could happen before the end of the year, it could be in January to coincide with MacWorld alongside those rumoured iPod phones and widescreen 6G iPods, or it could simply be down to how many processors Intel can supply.

Everyone manufacturer wants Core 2 Duo computers in their range, and with 1 million notebooks expected to be sold by Apple alone over the holiday season, the Core 2 Duo 13.3-inch MacBook might just have to wait until early next year for more stocks to arrive.

Until then, if you’ve been waiting for an excuse to upgrade to a Mac, here it is!