Say what you will about the price ($4,499 isn’t actually cheap), but Apple’s new 17in Macbook Pro arriving late January is finally giving us a reason to be excited about big, hulking desktop replacement laptops.
Weight
The new “unibody” Macbook Pro weighs 6.6 pounds (2.9Kg): compare that to Dell’s Studio 17, which weighs in at 3.57Kg. Apple also claims the notebook to be the thinnest 17in model on the market.
Now, desktop replacements aren’t designed to be portable, but we’ve always wished they were, because when you start considering movies watching, and portable presentations- sooner or later you’re going to want to cart that big screen somewhere.
Battery Life
Which brings us to Apple’s claimed 8-hour battery life (or 7 if you’re using discrete graphics). There has been all sorts of claims about battery life in 2008, includig a whopping 24-hours for an HP Elitebook, and 10+ hours for a Dell unit.
So far, we’ve yet to see anything that hit 10 hours on a single battery in real life – though Apple’s 8 hour claim comes close, if it’s accurate (a big if, if you consider the confusion over battery life ratings).
On the other hand, unlike most other notebooks, you’ll need to have an authorised repair person replace the battery if it does run into trouble – and this means you also won ‘t be able to carry a spare. Not a big deal for most 17in users though.
Price
The new Macbook Pro is expensive –$4,499 vs $1,999 for the top end Dell Studio 17 (which includes GB RAM, LED display and a 320GB HDD). Of course, that ignores the design aspects, including the thin and light chassis, the 8 hour battery life, or the 128GB or 256GB SSD option for storage.
Fans may still be waiting for the Apple netbook, but as far as 17in notebooks go, this one looks impressive, if you can afford it.
Specs supplied by Apple are as follows:
• 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200, glossy display;
• 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 6MB shared L2 cache;
• 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM;
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics;
• NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics with 512MB GDDR3 video memory;
• 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately);
• built-in AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• three USB 2.0 ports;
• one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
• ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
• one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
• glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
• built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; and
• 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.