New MacBooks?

Chardee MacDennis

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/15/macbook-shipments-have-begun/ wrote:

Barrons reports on an analyst note from Citigroup's Richard Gardner who claims to have received confirmation that new MacBooks are shipping.

The report cites "field checks" as the source of the information and describes the new MacBooks with a "very thin aluminum casing, an LED-backlit display and an aggressive entry-level price point."

This description matches many of the circulating rumors, including photos that claimed to depict the new MacBook. Also, the "aggressive" price point could also represent the lower margins that Apple predicted for future quarters during their Q3 2008 Financial Results. At that time, Apple described a "future product transition" which could impact margins.

The most recent claims have pinpointed October 14th as the possible day for the MacBook release.

Sounds nice, but i still think its is an MBP for me next time i upgrade...

Breezer

I reckon Apple are going to have to seriously beef up the specs on the MBP if it's to stay competitive. With the new casing, the gap between the MacBook and the MBP will have shrunk to a bigger screen, a better graphics card and a backlit keyboard. I know they're designed for completely different markets, but there's a fair few people buying MBPs because they look better, who might think twice once this is released.

Passenger

Can they beef up the specs when it's that thin??

eVeNtInE

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ozt9vdujny3srf

Well at the moment, entry level for a macbook is 1000, so aggressive for them will be, at best, 800-ish.

eVeNtInE

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J-blk

Passenger wrote: »

Can they beef up the specs when it's that thin??

Nope. Look at the Air - most underpowered MacBook ever. That said, if the 2nd gen gets better specs and a lower price point I'd be tempted. Though I'd probably end up holding out for the mythical Mac tablet .

NiSmO

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forbairt

NiSmO wrote: »

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This is purely personally speaking ...

I bought the mighty mouse .. and it sits in its box ... I really REALLY didn't like it for some reason I've no idea why. I threw my usb M$ mouse onto the MBP and I quite liked it. I use the keypad most of the time now. Just my thoughts on it ... no idea why I didn't like it ... it just didn't do it for me for some reason

Edit: I'll say ... get the extra memory from crucial or similar .. you'll save 100's ... don't upgrade the hard drive ... get yourself an external ....

Chardee MacDennis

i like my might mouse but rarely get to use it, and forbairt is very right dont buy memory from Apple!

condra

It will be interesting to see the prices of second-hand current generation macbooks on adverts.ie after the new macbooks are announced.

Something for me to look forward to.

Ham'nd'egger

Breezer wrote: »

I reckon Apple are going to have to seriously beef up the specs on the MBP if it's to stay competitive. With the new casing, the gap between the MacBook and the MBP will have shrunk to a bigger screen, a better graphics card and a backlit keyboard. I know they're designed for completely different markets, but there's a fair few people buying MBPs because they look better, who might think twice once this is released.

Quad Core chips are being rolled out in laptops in the last few weeks, the Intel Penrynn seemingly being as low as 35 watts and with idling of cores for less intensive work as required. The logical next step is for a MBP to either offer quad core or two processors per machine. Given the price and heat issues involved with a quad core and the fact that a MBP is a fair sized machine, I dare say that the latter would be more viable without as much radical re-engineering inside. MBP did get a minor bump in the spring so I'm not expecting this big a jump quite yet; it's Macbooks we need to look out for.

eVeNtInE

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J-blk

eVeNtInE wrote: »

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I'm calling Photoshop on this! An MBP re-design (or any Mac re-design for that matter, rather than just a spec refresh) is not going to be unveiled via some random retailer...

merkuree

There is a perceived convergence in specs between the 'rumored' new macbook and the existing MBP specs. Apple will not allow a cannibalization of its own product line by allowing new macbooks sales to eat into MBP sales. So, I suspect that macbooks and MBPs will be updated at the same time and will be differentiated in terms of price points and features.

Apple is making inroads in the corporate market in the US through its seamless support of multiboot through bootcamp/Fusion/PDesktop. So I suspect that the next rev of machines will have specs which further support that functionality for corporate users.