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MacBook Pros Upgraded and Shipped 467

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-waiting-for-wow-benchmarks dept.
Moby Cock writes "Apple Insider is reporting that Apple has started shipping the new MacBook Pro with an upgrade to the CPU clock speed. The two models now sport 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz Core Duos (up from 1.67 GHz and 1.83 GHz). A 2.16 GHz upgrade is also available. The price point remains the same." Dear Apple: Slashdot needs to review 5 of these indefinitely. Thank you XOXO ;) Seriously, i'm waiting for someone to give good benchmarks on these- especially testing for Warcraft. Now that it has a new Universal Binary I can't wait to see how it holds up against a modern windows machine.
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MacBook Pros Upgraded and Shipped More

MacBook Pros Upgraded and Shipped

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  • Great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by FunctionalMethod ( 751923 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:15AM (#14715907)
    So that means it is 6 times faster right? RIGHT?

  • Still Rev 0. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) *
    It is still rev 0. Ill personally wait for Apple and Intel to get the major kinks out of their perspective products. Mabey next year. But still I am glad the CPU speed it is shipping is a little higher then advertised becaues other laptops were shipping now with the faster chip.
    • If it was a PowerPC-based Mac with internals done by PowerPC-partner then I'd wait. Seeming this is designed by Intel with way way more in debt experience making personal computers I wouldnt worry as much. The external casing is still basically a tried & tested Apple Albook so I wouldnt worry too much.

      If you're a pro user with a need for native Adobe & Macromedia apps then I'd wait for the universal binaries that are expected late this year or 2008. By that time OS X 10.5 Leopard is expected to be o

    • Re:Still Rev 0. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mikey-San ( 582838 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @11:20AM (#14716489) Homepage Journal
      Revision 0, except that they kept the majority of the major form factor improvements from the last several years of PowerBook G4 design and engineering.

      This isn't just a "first rev" like so many Mac users seem to think. Honestly, Apple did a really smart thing by keeping the previous form factor: it effectively means that the new-architecture notebooks inherit a huge amount of engineering from their predecessors.

  • So many upgrades, so little time. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mattness ( 636060 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:18AM (#14715935) Homepage
    I was just warming up to the idea of a 1.8 this 2.16 Ghz is gonna take some getting used to. Can I handle that much speed?

  • WoW (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:19AM (#14715938)
    Ahhh. WoW - the single most important universal binary released so far. I hope Blizzard listens to their customers and releases universal binaries of thier existing OS X compatible games (WC3, SC, Diablo2). With regards to the story, cool that Apple bumped everyone up a notch on the speed pole for free.

    • Re:WoW (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:25AM (#14715999)
      I wouldn't hold your breath. Blizzard has already said (can't find the link) basically that you can use Rosetta for all their other OS X games. If you want to install Starcraft or Diablo 2, they tell you to download the OS X installer.

      They've implied that there will be no fat binaries for their existing games other than WOW.

      I'm not too upset, and I play a Warcraft 3 custom map almost daily. I really haven't noticed any speed issues, but it does crash sometimes.
    • As if your 2 Ghz machine is going to be hard pressed to play Starcraft or Diablo anyway. I'd wager a bet that even through Rosetta your machine will have more than enough power to play those games. WC3 might strain it a bit, but I'll probably still be playable too.
    • No, it's not a free bump up the speed pole. The cost of a faster processor has already been built into the price of the machines, it's just like that bag of M&Ms that says you're getting 35% more for free, it's just a marketing gimick.

      • Re:WoW (Score:3, Insightful)

        by abes ( 82351 )
        Is the glass half full or half empty? People have already paid (including me) for their Macbooks, not to mention the Macbooks are majorly backordered (if you didn't order early, there is close to a month waiting period). At least from my POV, Apple doesn't gain much from bumping up the speeds (at least sales-wise short term) except making their customers happy. Which, could very well increase their sales long term.

        What is the price of something other than what someone is willing to pay for it? I was willing

  • Hotcakes (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Peregr1n ( 904456 )
    It's a shame they haven't been available to review yet, but to be fair, Apple aren't really missing anything. They will sell like hotcakes to start with, even if they turn out to be bricks with LEDs strapped on.

    • Shh... That's a secret. (Score:5, Funny)

      by DaedalusLogic ( 449896 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:46AM (#14716173)
      even if they turn out to be bricks with LEDs strapped on.

      They've been working on the iBrick for years. I heard it makes the satisfying Apple boot sound when you throw it through a window.

      • Hey now be careful, some Macs play the sound of breaking glass when the machine doesn't POST properly. Though I liked the sound of the car crash on the first generation PowerMacs when the machine would not POST. IIRC all of the Blue and White G3 Macs and newer Macs have boring, but actually useful beeps when the machine can't POST.
    • Ugh, don't remind me of the Powerbook 5300, the real Apple laptops that are bricks with LEDs. I won't get into details, but there were several problems with this model, from batteries that caught fire to motherboards that needed major reworking to be even somewhat stable, not that the version of MacOS at the time, which was MacOS 7.5.5, was very stable in the first place. It would take some major screw-ups for Apple to put anything remotely as bad as the Powerbook 5300.
  • What happened to the people who preordered a 1.66GHz for the same price as the 1.83 when they hard launched? Did they get the prototype they ordered or the real deal? Note to self: never preorder new tech!

    • Re:what about preorders? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:25AM (#14715994) Homepage
      ppened to the people who preordered a 1.66GHz for the same price as the 1.83 when they hard launched? Did they get the prototype they ordered or the real deal? Note to self: never preorder new tech!

      macrumor.com says [macrumors.com] that they're getting the upgraded model.

      Cheers,
      Ian

    • I just called Apple and confirmed that all 1.67 orders will be upgraded to 1.83 and all 1.83 orders will be upgraded to 2.0. You should receive an email about the changes with any revised shipping date within the next day or two.

      I had the same question, I had ordered the 1.83ghz and didn't want to get screwed by this little change in plans.

    • Re:what about preorders? (Score:4, Informative)

      by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) * on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @11:11AM (#14716390)
      Um, they weren't "prototypes", and never were. Yes, the MacBook Pros shown at Macworld were preproduction models (a far cry from something that could be called a "prototype"), and probably didn't have all their agency approvals, but is it any surprise that they were preproduction models since they weren't shipping yet, and Apple clearly stated that when they were announced?

      Everyone who ordered a MacBook Pro simply gets the upgraded models that are actually the ones that will be shipping. Apple obviously knew it was going to be kicking the processor speed up for a while now, and just announced it today. The 1.67 changed to 1.83; the 1.83 changed to a 2.0; and there is a new option for a 2.16.
    • I actually just called the apple order status line to check on what would happen to existing orders since I have one that will be shipping soon.

      They have a recorded message, if you chose Macbook orders, that says that all orders placed through Feb 13 have been upgraded to the new CPU's; 1.6 is now a 1.8 and the 1.8 is now a 2.0.

      So good news all around.

      1-800-676-2775, option 1 for english, then option 2, and lastly option 1 for the message.

  • 'Shipping' versus 'Delivery' (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ford Prefect ( 8777 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:23AM (#14715969) Homepage
    Had another quick look at my order (I'm in the UK).

    MBPRO 15/1.67 CTO. Estimated shipping date: Feb 15, 2006.

    Estimated delivery date: Feb 22, 2006.

    Still, if it comes with a faster processor, I won't be too disappointed - but with it being leading-edge hardware, it'll probably explode in my lap and permanently neuter me...

  • I can't wait until you guys realize (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cyberbian ( 897119 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:24AM (#14715983) Journal
    That there's a TPM chip installed shipping enabled, with no end-user controls to verify the trust settings match the security context in which it's installed. Like my maxed out iMac Core Duo... Privacy Commissioner in T-10 days... still no response from Apple Privacy... Check the documentation http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/specs/bestpra ctices/ [trustedcom...ggroup.org] You'll see what I mean... Caveat Emptor.

  • Faster, better, funner (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:28AM (#14716026)
    Seriously, i'm waiting for someone to give good benchmarks on these- especially testing for Warcraft.

    So you are spending close to $2000 so you can have slightly better graphics in WarCraft? ;)

  • Why, kiddies? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:32AM (#14716057)
    Does anyone else here get the irony of /.-ers spending virtual lifetimes bashing 'Doze, hating every byte of M$ kruftware, and yearning for an environmental catastrophe in Redmond, then getting all excited about the potential of running XP on a new MacBook?

    Am I alone here when I utter a collossal WTF?

    Now, I do think native speed virtualization would be a major boon for the platform. And, yes, native x86/DirectX gaming on a Mac would be nice.

    However, with all of the talk about Mac performance gap, *NIX on the desktop, Win Sux, etc, one would think that the community would get very excited about fast portable, Darwin on dual-core, i.e all of the great native things already going on, and more extensible than Doze will ever be.

    Yet, what we hear is crying that, unless it runs Windoze, it is useless or somehow disappointing. WTF, again I ask.

    My 550 TiBook is a classic piece of machinery, like the NeXT Cube (got one), Sparc 10/20 (got two), the compact Mac (got two), and other timeless designs.

    These new machines signal new life for Apple's manufacturing, and innovation for years to come, thanks to a high-speed portable line and its revenue stream. Get excited about that!

    First time I see someone booting XP on a Mac, I'm gonna kick them in the nuts, Roshambo style.

    • Does anyone else here get the irony of /.-ers spending virtual lifetimes bashing 'Doze, hating every byte of M$ kruftware, and yearning for an environmental catastrophe in Redmond, then getting all excited about the potential of running XP on a new MacBook?

      Am I alone here when I utter a collossal WTF?

      Believe it or not, there are different kinds of people on Slashdot! Whoa!

      Some people don't like Microsoft. They probably still don't.

      Some people do like Microsoft, and take exception to the fact that they've
    • When non-technical users look at buying Apple, one of the first things they typically will hear is that it isn't 100% compatible with Windows programs (Virtual PC isn't perfect)*.

      That creates a degree of trepidation, and in some cases is enough to discourage a sale. That is why it is called a "switch" rather than an "add" campaign.

      If supporting Windows is so terrible then why does WINE exist?

      Yes, you and I might not use Windows, but some people do. And some people do actually need it for running custom pr

  • Battery life? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by merdaccia ( 695940 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:33AM (#14716060)

    Does anyone have any idea what the battery life of these things are? It was previously unannounced because they were still testing pre-shipping versions. Well, now they're shipping. And the only thing on the technical specs [apple.com] page is a footnote that says

    1. Battery life depends on configuration and use.

    Yeah, that helps.

    • We'll know soon enough.

      Steve Jobs has said that the battery life should be about the same as the previous PowerBooks, meaning 4-5 hours.
      • Eh, "previous powerbooks" like the PowerBook G3 Pismo have battery life approaching 15 hours when equipped with both batteries. And the PowerBook G4 line, while advertised at 4-5 hours, get 3-4 hours in real use.

  • Price Drops? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by richdun ( 672214 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:38AM (#14716111)
    So, we all know that Intel releases incremental speed bumps nearly every quarter or even more frequently, and this seems to have worked well for Apple here. But what about the quarterly (or more) price drops? A series of cuts is scheduled for the Pentium D over April and Q3 2006 that will almost half some prices. Will Apple catch things into even better margins, or will we see much more quickly update specs AND prices?

    • Re:Price Drops? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Fahrvergnuugen ( 700293 )
      Apple hardly ever, as in never, moves their prices around. They have a preset price tier and they slide upgraded products into the price points instead of lowering prices on the existing products. The only case where this wasn't necessarily true was with the PowerBook. The price of the 17" dropped around 500 dollars over the course of a year because of their inability to update the processor. It was stuck at 1.5GHz for over a year.

  • More Important: What Doesn't Work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeCommodore ( 567479 ) <larry@portcommodore.com> on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:42AM (#14716144) Homepage
    As a long-time Mac user (with Macs at work) I am more interested in learning what doesn't work on the new Intel Macs than what does.

    So far Classic is a dead issue (pun intended, but unfortunate for us and Apple) and I'm sure there will be more.

    To me it's just another cycle of waiting (hoping) vendors update thier products (as well as making the upgrades affordable) or manufacturers bother to re-code thier device drivers to work on yet anothewr new Apple platform.

  • 64 bit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dusanv ( 256645 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:45AM (#14716168)
    You do realize these laptops are 32 bit only? The 64 bit portable CPU (Merom core) will be available by year end (together with the matching desktop core - Conroe). It also seems that the current core (Yonah) has 64 bit instruction set support (AMD64/EMT64/x86-64, whatever you want to call it) although it has been disabled by Intel. The interesting bit for me will be the upcoming iBook. I want to see how Core Solo stacks up against the G4 (seeing that Duo doesn't really clean out the house against the single G5). I think there may be a couple of surprises.
    • You do realize these laptops are 32 bit only? The 64 bit portable CPU (Merom core) will be available by year end (together with the matching desktop core - Conroe).

      True, yes, but I think the general realization for 64-bit processors is that unless you're one of the few people who absolutely *needs* them (and you'd know it if you were), there's no benefit for most people. All other things being equal, 64-bit processors are SLOWER than the 32-bit equivalent, because you need that much more memory for pointer

  • Opposite (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jonoid ( 863970 )

    This is actually the opposite of what happened a few years ago. When Apple came out with the G4 desktops they planned on releasing them in 400MHz, 450MHz, and 500MHz configurations. Due to supply problems or whatever, they ended up downgrading each configuration by 50MHz (so 350, 400, 450) and kept the prices. Of course there was a huge uproar and IIRC Apple ended up discounting the machines.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/10/14/apple_down grades_power_mac_cpus/ [theregister.co.uk]

    It's good to know that Apple is now

  • $270 under educational pricing for the upgrade from 2.0GHz and 2.16GHz, and they don't say there's any increase in FSB, either. Regular pricing is probably even higher. Not worth it!

  • What's great about the MacBook again? It it not compatible with PC Cards, and there are zero available peripherals for its ExpressCard/34 slot. It has no way to read a CompactFlash card except for a USB reader. It has no modem, except for a USB modem. It has no GPRS/EDGE/EVDO/1xRTT wireless WAN card, and no slot for adding one. It has no SmartCard reader. The battery life, although unannounced, is expected to be average.

    As far as I can tell, the MacBook lacks any kind of feature that sets it apart, ot
  • Has anyone been able to stop by their local Apple store and see if they have display models out? I'm sure they won't have walk-in inventory for a while, until they free up their order backlog, but it would be nice to get a little hands-on time before plunking down real money.

  • I Was Down at the CompUSA The Other Day (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @11:03AM (#14716317) Homepage Journal
    Taking a G4 Powerbook for a test drive. The sales droids there were seriously downplaying the MacBook Pro -- "No one knows when they're going to ship, it could be a month or more" and "Almost no software will run natively on them when they're first released" were the two lines I heard the most from several of the sales droids there. I'm going to have to go back when they get their first units in just to see how much the tune has changed. "These are radically faster for not much more money" and "You can run all previous software in an emulator" are the lines I expect to hear then. Sorry guys, but I'm not inclined to buy a machine from a sales droid who went out of his way to mislead me. I'll just find my machine online if I decide to buy one. Pfft.

  • 30" display (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eccles ( 932 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @11:20AM (#14716477) Journal
    Does anyone know why the MacBooks, with x1600 mobile radeons, can drive an external 30" Apple display at full res, but the iMac, with regular x1600s can't?

    Also, anyone know why the 17" iMac can't have 256 MB of VRAM but the 20" can? Is the VRAM something that is potentially upgradeable, or do you have to buy it installed?

  • WoW performance (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stradenko ( 160417 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @11:28AM (#14716547) Homepage
    I run max res (1600x1280, or something like that), with textures at full distance/quality, and I get minor choppiness (off and on, once things load it's smooth) in IF by the bank/AH. Gryphon filghts are amazing (not only can I see the landscape, with great clarity, I can see OTHER gryphon flights cross my path -- something I could never do before)

    All this using the 20" Imac duo, with 1G memory. (The universal binary vs. Rosetta made little difference in performance). IMO, the only thing that could kill the laptop is disk latency, but with those 5400rpm SATA drives in the macbooks, I doubt it will.

    One thing I have noticed with Mac WoW vs. Intel WoW -- zooming out (like, with the scroll wheel) goes maybe 15 yards back in the Mac version and double that in the intel version. (e.g.: on the IF bridge in front of the AH, I can stand in the center and zoom out, straight up, and my visibility is almost exactly the length of the bridge -- on my intel box, the visibility is double that (I can see quite a ways of of the bridge)). Sadly, Blizzard has not responded to my support request regarding this.

  • Verb tense (Score:3, Insightful)

    by richmaine ( 128733 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @12:06PM (#14716907)
    I know it is a bit much to expect from a slashdot posting, but those of us who can read English learned long ago that there is a difference between "has started shipping", which is what the slashdot posting says, versus "will begin shipping", which is what the article actually says.

    Yes, the article said "this week", which is pretty soon. But I still maintain that there is a difference between the future an dthe past. Conventional of me, I know.

  • The truth about the shipping (Score:3, Insightful)

    by piecewise ( 169377 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @10:53PM (#14722011) Journal
    I ordered a MacBook Pro on January 10th. I ordered the top of the line (at that point) standard configuration. My first ship date was Feb. 15. My next ship date was Feb. 28. Today, I received confirmation that my NEW order date would be March 3.

    Needless to say, I'm livid with Apple. I cancelled my order. I then called my local Apple Store (Newark, DE). They said they would be receiving MBPros next week.

    In other words, Apple's priority is to ship MacBook Pros to people who have not even purchased them yet, rather than those who have been waiting for what will be nearly two months.

    As a twenty-year Apple customer, I am ticked to say the least.

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