Apple has upgraded its MacBook Pro line

Marina Freri
Tuesday, 25 October 2011 16:44

Your IT - Mobility

Apple has upgraded its MacBook Pro Line, enhancing the processor performance of the whole MacBook Pro family.

Details of the new generation of the MacBook Pro - which have been part of the Apple product portfolio since 2006 - have been posted on the company's Australian web site.

As of today, the 13-inch MacBook Pro can be purchased with either a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor or the dual-core 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 - up from 2.3GHz and 2.7GHz .The entry level 13-inch laptop now ships with a hard drive of 500GB, up from the previous 320GB. The high end model's drive capacity has been boosted from 500GB to 750GB.

The entry level 15 inch model has gone from 2.0GHz and 2.2Ghz processors to 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz and the 17 inch from 2.2GHz to 2.4GHz, all using Intel Core i7 processors Graphics also have been enhanced to ensure, for instance, smooth 3D playing or video editing.

'The 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro models automatically switch to discrete AMD Radeon graphics that let you see more frames per second and experience better responsiveness,' Apple stated. Battery life has also been improved. Apple now claims the MacBook Pros can support 7 hours of web surfing with a single charge.

Apple claims these improvements will bring performances twice faster than those of the previous generation thanks to the deployment of Intel Core architecture, which puts the processor, cache, memory controller and graphic engine on a single chip, enabling data to travel shorter distances and thus faster.

'They perform up to twice as fast as the previous generation, breezing through demanding tasks like editing HD video, compiling audio or rendering a multilayered image file,' Apple stated. 'And since OS X Lion is designed to take advantage of every processor core, it captures every last bit of performance from the processor.'

According to Apple, performances can be faster if users require it. In fact, the processor-intensive Turbo Boost application enables a 15 or 17-inch MacBook Pro to speed up to 3.6GHz.

Another new feature of the MacBook Pro family is the Thunderbolt technology, which can support different high-performance devices through a single port.

'Thunderbolt I/O technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10Gbps of throughput in both directions,' Apple explained. 'You can move data to and from peripherals up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0 and up to 12 times faster than with FireWire 800'.

Prices start at $1399 for a 13-inch MacBook, $2099 for a 15-inch and $2899 for a 17-inch MacBook Pro.