Macworld 2009: 17-inch Apple MacBook Pro
After boring us senseless with two out of the four of their big announcements, Apple has finally woken us up with the launch of the 17-inch MacBook Pro at Macwold in San Francisco today.
Not-Steve-Jobs Phill Schiller, heralded the arrival of the world’s lightest, thinnest machine for the size with a series of press quotes from high end US journos who have called this the best MacBook Pro yet. Well, it would be a bit silly if it wasn’t.
The matte finish display resolves at 1920 x 1200 with a healthy contrast ratio of 700:1 and a colour gamet apparently 60% better than the last. It even comes in an optional extra anti-glare version for £34.99 for those who liked to have laptops stolen from them in city parks.
It offers a viewing angle of 140 degrees in the horizontal and 120 in the vertical which, if you bob your head from side to side on the screen you’re currently looking at, you’ll see is rather good.
Powerwise, you can get up to a proper beefy 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM for a seriously pricey extra £839.99 and it comes with the support of a new 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo CPU for a bonus £210. Still a good 4GB of RAM and 2.66GHz processor for the basic model.
The new ‘top comes with a 320GB HDD (upgradeable to either 128GB or 256GB SSDs for £350 and £630 respectively), a GeForce 9400M / 9600M GT graphics card and a rather plush sounding all glass trackpad for maximum perfect control.
The only other area of tech interest is the Li-polymer battery which is non-removable but will last for 8 hours and 1,000 charges. It’s larger than the old removable models but better because of the custom shaped lithium cells. The precise shape of these cells has not been disclosed but I’d take a guess at thousands of tiny little apples.
The basic price of the new MacBook Pro is £1,949. The specced up model, I’m too scared to calculate.
Related posts: Macworld 2009 liveblog | 15″ MacBook Pro
