Impulsive Highlighters

Ah yes, those Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros

No, actually I haven't been hiding in a cave or anything. I have indeed heard about the new MacBook Pros and I was probably expecting too much from Apple. I'm bored. They have no exciting new product I wish to purchase. And since the day the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros were announced happened to coincide with the day I got a Pentium 4 desktop (a Gateway, no less) on which I've been able to install a perfectly functioning, 10-second booting copy of 10.4.8, I no longer felt compelled to jump at the next line of laptops Apple announced.

Anyway, that's my story. As for the MacBook Pros, I expected that after waiting for two months more than the rest of the industry in coming out with Merom-based laptops, Apple would have more to show, especially since they've adamantly been telling everyone that they will no longer save all their most exciting announcements for Macworld or WWDC. Well, guess I'll scratch that and just watch out for Macworld '07.

Although this speed bump adds a number of features that current MBP users would be very glad to have, such as FireWire 800 ports standard, an extended RAM limit (& more standard RAM), larger hard drivers and a dual-layer burning drive on the 15" models, for a person who doesn't currently own a MBP, this doesn't exactly have, shall we say, that orgasmic quality to it that a lot of Apple's new products often carry… I am not going to be drooling over MBPs. Perhaps it's been a tough three months for Apple making sure that this batch of MBPs doesn't overheat or make high-pitched noises from under the keyboard… I'll wait for the reviews to come in.

One more thing that makes me look down upon this announcement is the lack of change in the graphics subsystem. In my opinion, the 17" MacBook Pro at the least should have an ATI Radeon X1800 or the NVIDIA equivalent. Shouldn't a vendor's highest-end notebook offering have the highest-end mobility graphics card? And shouldn't the 15" model also have this high-end card as an option? Am I not making sense here? Oh Apple…

Also, I guess I'll just keep waiting for Apple to reintroduce a 12" version in its Pro Notebook line. I hear rumours of 15.4" MacBooks but, to me, that's just plain nonsense; I don't see anyone craving for a 15.4" MB and the 14" iBook never sold even nearly as well as the 12" did. I do see people craving for a MacBook with a backlit keyboard slash a MacBook Pro in the same form factor as a MacBook but maybe I'm in touch only with raving lunatics… all the smart kids want 19" MacBooks and 24" MacBook Pros.

(Oh, yes, and check out how the iSight status indicator in the new MacBook Pros has vanished.) 

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