New Macbook Pros With Thunderbolt

That’s right folks, Apple unveil their new Sandy Bridge based Macbook Pros today. Intel announced the new Thunderbolt technology which is available on the new Macbook Pros. One question though, since Apple got first dibs on Thunderbolt-what happened to Lightfoot? If you didn’t laugh go watch the movie and come back. Anyway, first the new macs.

We have new 13in, 15in, and 17in models. I go over them one at a time here. But I would like to point out that Apple finally made the transition back to AMD for the graphics. Good call as Nvidia is struggling to keep up, though they still do a good job. This could also have something to do with recent problems with Nvdia chipsets that were used both on Mac and PC laptops. But I digress, onward to the new Macs.

The 13in models come in two options. With the first having a $1199.00 price tag it comes with an Intel Core i5 at 2.3 GHz, 4GB ram, 320GB hard disk and Intel HD Graphics 3000.  When stepping up you get a Dual core i7 at 2.7 GHz and a 500GB hard disk for $1499.00. Both models can be upgraded to 8GB memory and up to a 750GB hard disk or a 512GB Solid State drive for a considerable higher price tag as normal.

The 15in models are $1799.00 and $2199.00 respectively. The first with a quad core Core i7 at 2.0 GHz, 4GB ram, 500Gb hard disk and AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256MB dedicated. When stepping up you get a quad core Core i7 at 2.2 GHz, 750GB hard disk, and AMD Radeon HD 6750m with 1GB dedicated. Both feature Intel Graphics as well for switching to save battery.  Both upgrades are the same as the 13in models, except with the higher 15in you can opt for a 2.3 GHz Core i7.

On the 17in model at $2499.00 you get the same as the higher priced 15in. All models are rated with 7 Hours of battery life.  Other than the normal ports and DVD burner, the only other addition is the Thunderbolt connection.

Thunderbolt is Apple’s and Intel’s new way to transfer data and connect devices. The important thing is the speed at 10Gbps with data traveling in both direction at the same time. That’s faster than USB 3.0 which in and of itself is faster than firewire. In fact, I see this as Apple’s replacement for firewire.