MacGeek Pro

Courtesy of MacRumors.com

This morning Apple held their “The Spotlight Turns to Notebooks” event and surprise, they released new notebook computers! In all honesty, this is an event I’ve been waiting a long time for. Now, I love my iPhone to death, and use it countless times every day, but it is time for the Mac to shine again.

Sure, Apple had the MacBook Air in January, but the Air didn’t really apply to me. I want two things in a notebook: storage & power. At the time of my last notebook purchase, the MacBook satiated me compared to my iBook G4 of yore. Two years later, I am toying with the idea of upgrading within the next year. My next logical step would be the MacBook Pro, but the thing has looked like an old PowerBook G4 for it’s 3 year existence. 

Well, Apple stepped up the sexiness factor of the MacBook Pro today. Take a look after the break.

MacBook Pro running Aperture. Courtesy of Apple.

Nice, huh? Apple took design cues from both the iMac and the MacBook Air. What is interesting is the main casing is crafted out of a solid piece of aluminum, which gives the MacBook Pro a great deal of sturdiness over its predecessor. It also has a new trackpad unlike any other found in a computer before. It is a buttonless pane of glass that uses multi-touch gestures just like the iPhone. 

The MacBook Pro also sports two graphics cards: an integrated NVIDIA 9400M that shares up to 256 MB memory with the system RAM, and a discrete NVIDIA 9600M GT with dedicated 256 MB (or 512 MB option) of memory. The application of having two GPUs is cool. When battery life is essential the MacBook Pro relies on the lower power integrated graphics, but when performance is needed, the machine can be bumped up to the dedicated GPU for a lot of extra muscle. 

Apple also refreshed the MacBook Air with the new NVIDIA 9400M integrated graphics, a 120 GB hard drive (vs the previous 80 GB hard drive) or a 128 GB solid state drive (vs the previous 64 GB SSD), and also switched out the mini-DVI port for a mini-DisplayPort.

One More Thing…

It’s been a while since CEO Steve Jobs has used his famous “One More Thing” tagline, but we got a nice dose of it today. Mr. Jobs lastly unveiled a complete redesign of the MacBook. Can you guess what it looks like?

MacBook running iMovie. Courtesy of Apple.

It’s like the MacBook Pro’s little brother! And it is virtually them same specifications, too. The only thing the MacBook lacks that the Pro doesn’t is the FireWire 800 port, the dedicated NVIDIA 9600M GT, and two inches of screen. Otherwise the computers are identical. Oh, and the MacBook has smaller speakers.

I am curious how the MacBook’s reliance upon integrated graphics will fare this time. My MacBook has extremely limited graphic capability thanks to the weak Intel chipset. This new NVIDIA 9400M chipset sounds like it is pretty impressive, especially for integrated graphics.

Let’s just say I can’t wait to visit the Apple store. Here’s a parting shot of the entire MacBook family. Enjoy!

MacBook Family. Courtesy of Apple.

*”Teh” is an Internet meme that I was using. It is not a misspelling. This entire explanation is for you, Mom. ;)

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