Hasta La Gadget!

In a world of sophisticated electronics these days, there’s always risks to being an early adopter. Alas, it appears that our latest victims are owners of Apple’s Thunderbolt-laden MacBook Pros. Since launch, a number of frustrated customers have been reporting that their new unibody laptops — of all three sizes — are causing random flicker on both 24-inch and 27-inch Cinema Displays when connected via their Mini DisplayPort / Thunderbolt combo port, and now we have video proof to share the pain. Some also confirmed that even replacement machines from Apple are exhibiting the same behavior, though a source of ours says this doesn’t seem to be a widespread issue, and that the company’s hardware engineers are already looking into this. Either way, we’re likely to see a firmware fix for this bug soon — it’s no good having a large monitor constantly blinking at you. One more video after the break.

[Thanks, Armando]

Continue reading Some Thunderbolt MacBook Pros causing flicker on Cinema Displays, Apple investigates (video)

Some Thunderbolt MacBook Pros causing flicker on Cinema Displays, Apple investigates (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Mar 2011 14:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Apple, sja3274 (YouTube), rustybrick (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments

If you were expecting your new 13-inch MacBook Pro’s Core i7 CPU to Turbo Boost its way north of that default 2.7GHz clock speed, we might suggest discontinuing your anticipation. Two separate reviews of the laptop are reporting the curious case of its Core i7-2620M processor failing to automatically overclock itself the way it should. Intel’s dual-core chip is capable of a maximum speed of 3.4GHz, but reviewers weren’t able to get it any higher than its stock setting while testing Apple’s latest 13-incher. High temperatures were identified (north of 90C / 194F) as the likely culprit, with Notebook Journal also finding its machine throttled down to 798MHz due to heat dissipation issues. PC Pro theorizes that Apple intentionally disabled the Turbo Boost functionality on this particular MBP model in order to preserve your lap and your pride from being scalded by melting components. That would make sense to us, and hey, it’s still a fast machine, just not Turbo fast.

[Thanks, Markus]

Update: AnandTech‘s findings contradict the above, with Anand asserting that “there’s absolutely no funny business going on here, the dual-core 2.7 is allowed to hit its maximum frequencies.” Seems like we’ll need to keep digging to get to the bottom of this one.

Update 2: We’ve confirmed with Apple that there are no specific hardware or software limits to block the Turbo Boost function, however we’ve also discovered, through less direct sources, that the company is providing new low level software tools to diagnose cooling issues with the 2011 batch of laptops. Ergo, the speed limits that PC Pro and Notebook Journal encountered might have been caused by inadequate heat dissipation, which arguably is no less troubling than an Apple-mandated de-Turbo-fication.

Intel Turbo Boost is MIA on new 13-inch MacBook Pro? (update: negatory) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 05:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  PC Pro, Notebook Journal  | Email this | Comments

There’s no question that the new MacBook Pros are blazingly awesome. The whole line has been rejuvenated with Sandy Bridge processors, better graphics and a lightning fast Thunderbolt I/O port. But one thing has been bothering us about the update, or rather, lack of update: The 13-inch MacBook Pro still has a lower resolution screen. There’s not even an option for a higher-res screen, like the 15-inch Pro. More »

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 Pro family with Sandy Bridge processors, AMD graphics, Thunderbolt I/O tech, and FaceTime HD cameras

Apple refreshes MacBook Pro family with Sandy Bridge processors, AMD graphics, Thunderbolt I/O tech, and FaceTime 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