Rab’s World

Your wishes come true!

MY PowerBook G4 1.67GHz book is now 3 years old.

Apple today announced long-awaited upgrades for both its MacBook and MacBook Pro portables, adding Intel’s 45 nanometer Penryn architecture for its Core 2 Duo processors. All systems now include the larger Level 2 cache, SSE4 media instructions, and reduced power consumption of the new chips. As the flagship, the MacBook Pro now receives the multi-touch trackpad from the MacBook Air and also adds the first LED backlighting option for the 17-inch display; choosing the high-resolution, 1920×1200 screen also adds the more color-accurate backlight and potentially extends battery life.

…MacBook Pro prices start at $1,999 USD for a 2.4GHz 15-inch system with 2GB of memory, a 200GB hard drive, a dual-layer Superdrive, and a GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB of video memory; the $2,499 mid-range model boosts speeds to 2.5GHz, expands storage to 250GB, and introduces a 512MB GeForce 8600M GT chipset. The 17-inch model sells for $2,799 and chiefly adds the extra screen area.

***MacBook news
…The standard 13.3-inch MacBook goes without the advanced trackpad but receives a major upgrade to both its performance and storage. The standard 2.1GHz model adds both the architectural leap of Penryn and boosts storage from 80GB in the earlier model to 120GB while keeping the DVD/CD-RW Combo drive of before. Moving to the mid-tier, $1,299 model increases speed to 2.4GHz, doubles the amount of RAM to 2GB, and jumps to a 160GB hard drive as well as a dual-layer Superdrive. No Blu-Ray reader/writer..yet!