01/21/2008, 1:45pm, EST
Monday, January 21stMacBook Pro to see multi-touch, Penryn soon?
The MacBook Pro will receive the multi-touch trackpad features of the MacBook Air in the near future as well as new processors, according to an alleged source supplying information to AppleInsider. The systems should receive new, extra-large trackpads that will allow the same pinch, rotate, and swipe gestures as the ultraportable; a release was planned in the general timeframe of Macworld but was delayed due to a need to switch resources to the MacBook Air, the insider claims.
Additionally, the tip also points to the 15- and 17-inch systems receiving 45 nanometer processors based on Intel's mobile Penryn architecture, which allows for higher clock speeds without increasing power draw and improves performance slightly over the outgoing models thanks to a larger Level 2 cache and new SSE4 media instructions. It also improves battery life regardless of speed. In the new update, Apple is most likely to pick the 2.5GHz and 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo models with 6MB of cache each (up from 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz with 4MB), the tip suggests.
Whether any other changes will be made to the design are uncertain, though AMD has recently introduced its Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series graphics chipsets while NVIDIA intends to release its GeForce 9M series in the near future.
Filed under: computers, Apple
Other story tags: Intel, NVIDIA, AMD, MacBook Pro, ATI, Penryn, multi-touch
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wanna!
Given that Intel has been shipping the chips since late last year, I'd imagine an Apple before the end of February, certainly during this quarter.
It'll be interesting to see what the specs are like, whether Apple bumps up the hard drives to 250gb, uses hybrid hard drives (with SS as an option), as well as whether they decide to include a blu-ray drive in any of the devices.
Based on everything I've read so far, Penryn will bring slightly better performance and battery life.
Regardless, June '07's Santa Rosa Macbook Pros are still excellent machines. Whenever the new models come out, I'd definitely consider an older model on clearance.