Hasta La Gadget!

Apple's new MacBook Pros gained faster chips and a new connectivity standard. Image courtesy Apple.

Apple on Thursday refreshed the MacBook family with faster processors, more-powerful graphic cards and, most notably, a new connection port called Thunderbolt.

Ranging from 13 to 17 inches in screen size, the notebooks ship with the brand-new Thunderbolt connectivity standard that Apple co-developed with Intel.

Thunderbolt can transfer up to 10 Gbps, which is theoretically 12 times faster than the previous FireWire 800 connectivity standard. This is usually where you’d connect an external accessory such as a hard drive.

Apple has historically been nimble with pushing new connectivity standards. Apple created the FireWire connectivity standard before it became widely adopted in the PC industry.

The updated 13-inch MacBook Pros include Intel’s newer Core i5 and Core i7 chips, which were previously codenamed Sandy Bridge. Meanwhile, the 15- and 17-inch notebooks get quad-core Core i7 chips.

For anyone who cares, the MacBooks have updated graphic cards: the 13-inchers get the Intel HD Graphics 3000 chip; the 15- and 17-inchers have the AMD Radeon HD processor with up to 1GB of memory.

All the MacBook Pros have a reported battery life of 7 hours, according to Apple — lower than the previous generation, which got up to 10 hours battery life. This is presumably due to the speedier chips and graphic cards.

The MacBook Pros range from $1,200 to $2,500 and are available today at Apple retail stores or Apple.com.

We just got our new 15-inch MacBook Pro review unit, and although it looks almost exactly the same as the previous MBP, it has that fancy new Thunderbolt icon on the side, which ought to make I/O nerd hearts flutter the world over. Unfortunately, there aren’t any Thunderbolt peripherals on the market yet, so we can’t really test the new connection yet, but we can report that backwards compatibility with Mini DisplayPort performs as advertised and that all of our display adapters worked without issue — the first time we can ever remember Apple switching a standard and not requiring all new dongles.

As for performance, we were given the $2,199 configuration with a 2.2GHz quad-core Sandy Bridge Core i7, discrete AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics, 4GB of RAM and a 750GB HD, which clocked a preliminary GeekBench score of 9647. We’ll have tons more testing in our full review, including detailed comparisons of the discrete chip with Intel’s new integrated HD Graphics 3000.

Apple did give us a quick demo on the new system with a prototype Promise RAID unit and a stock Cinema Display connected over Thunderbolt — remember, Thunderbolt just uses a Mini DisplayPort connector, so displays can be daisy-chained right in. Apple’s demo was a variation of the same thing Intel’s been doing for a while — they played four uncompressed HD video streams off the RAID simultaneously, which pegged the Thunderbolt throughput meter at 600-700MBps. We also watched a 5GB file transfer in just a few seconds — all very impressive, but we’re definitely anxious to try some of this stuff ourselves once Thunderbolt devices start shipping sometime in the spring.

Apple also told us that Thunderbolt is running on copper and not optical cables (like the Light Peak protoypes) so that it can support bus-powered devices — there’s 10 watts of power available on the bus, up slightly from FireWire’s 8 watts. Up to six devices can be daisy-chained from one port, and since Thunderbolt is based on PCI Express, it can even support FireWire and USB adapters. That’s great news for the future of the interface, but the MacBook Pro still has two USB 2.0 and one FireWire 800 port, so it’s not of critical importance right this second.

We’ll have much, much more in our full review — check back in a few days!

Update: We got a closer look at Thunderbolt working with some peripherals this afternoon — believe us, you don’t want to miss the video demo.

MacBook Pro (early 2011) with Thunderbolt hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Come on, you knew this was coming! Oh yes, Apple’s pulling the curtain off its new MacBook Pro family, and compared to the last refresh cycle, there are a serious amount of updates. Just as we had heard, all three will be getting new Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors, AMD Radeon HD 6000M graphics (bye bye, NVIDIA!), FaceTime HD cameras, and some super fast Thunderbolt I/O transfer speeds. There are two new 13-inchers, two 15.4-inch versions, and one lone 17-inch model. How much will they cost you and what are the exact specs? You’ll want to hit the jump for all of that and the official press release.

Continue reading Apple refreshes MacBook Pros with Sandy Bridge processors, AMD graphics, Thunderbolt I/O tech, and HD cameras

Apple refreshes MacBook Pros with Sandy Bridge processors, AMD graphics, Thunderbolt I/O tech, and HD cameras originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Apple  | Email this | Comments

So it’s perhaps not the most original moniker that Apple and Intel could have chosen, but it’s here just the same. After years of waiting Apple has launched its implementation of Intel’s Light Peak standard and it’s called Thunderbolt. It’s making its appearance on new MacBook Pro models and it’s promising 10Gb/second transfer rates. That’s dual-channel, too so you’ll get 10Gb/sec both to and from your devices. Apple suggests this will be useful for external RAID arrays, Gigabit Ethernet adapters, and also mentions support for “FireWire and USB consumer devices” along with HDMI, DVI, and VGA over DisplayPort. Apple expects that Thunderbolt will be “widely adopted as a new standard for high performance I/O,” but we think the USB 3.0 crew might have a thing or two to say about that. Full PR is embedded below.

Update: Intel has thrown up its page on the technology, and it looks like the Light Peak name is officially no more. Intel indicates this speed will be enough to transfer a full-length HD movie (roughly 10 – 20GB in size) in less than 30 seconds. Intel also reinforces that this is compatible with existing DisplayPort devices and it also uses the PCI Express protocol for enhanced compatibility. Daisy-chaining will be possible, along with bus-powered devices, and cables can be made using either optical or electrical construction.

Continue reading Apple and Intel unveil Thunderbolt I/O technology

Apple and Intel unveil Thunderbolt I/O technology originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Apple, Intel  | Email this | Comments

After a lengthy four-month beta trial, Apple’s decided that it’s about time to make FaceTime for Mac available to the masses, meaning any Mac user can finally do video chat with other Mac or iOS users. Unlike the app’s free iOS counterpart, though, you’ll have to chip in $0.99 on the Mac App Store for some enlarged video chat sessions. But hey, it’s totally worth it, especially if you have a 27-inch screen to play with.

[Thanks, kariminal]

Apple FaceTime for Mac finally out of beta, available on the Mac App Store for $0.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Mac Rumors  |  Mac App Store  | Email this | Comments