Opinions on when the next MBP refresh will be?

I'm in the market for a notebook and after a lot of hard looking, I'm 90% sure I'm going to go with a Macbook Pro. Now that I've made that decision and have come to terms with the fact that this is going to cost me $2000-3000, I want to make sure I get it right and while nothing is future proof, I'd be really pissed if I bought a new MBP and then Apple announces the updated model a couple months later.

That said, I also do have some slight qualms with the current MBPs that make me consider waiting besides the improved performance and battery saving features of Penryn. The biggest of these is that I can't really get the screen configuration I want right now. I would like an LED backlit screen with at least a resolution of 1680x1050 which is currently impossible.

So I guess my question is, when do you guys think the next update will be and do you think Apple will either A) bump the resolution on the 15" MBPs finally or B) go to LED backlighting for the 17" MBPs?

 

No one can tell you the answer, but my guess is probably not for a long time. B) will come before a) will.... but I think that is still a year away for b). Its more likely that the 13" mb will be the next to get LED backlighting...unless the mythical 13"mbp arrives! Also given that the mbp's were just refreshed, there is unlikely to be another refresh until xmas.
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I would guess that they won't be updated until penryn is released. I mean what else is there to upgrade to from santa rosa? Nothing as far as I know.

 

Thanks for the responses guys! I guess my problem is that I consider Christmas or around then to be in my 'too soon' time frame. If it was February or March, I'd say screw it but if it's late November or early December I might just wait to see what it is. I just can't understand why Apple doesn't bump the resolution up on the 15" Macbook Pros. I mean Dells have 1680x1050 standard on 15" notebooks for God's sake and my hatred of what I consider 'low res' is already pushing me to buy a 17" MBP even though I really don't want something that big.

 

They would then just wait until Macworld in January. Don't look for updates in Nov/Dec timeframe. If it happens this early, it will either happen when Leopard is released, or Macworld with latter being more likely, IMO.

 

I understand what you mean. But at the same time many people forget that Apple isn't Dell or HP; Apple doesn't sell as many computers as them. Dell and HP sell around 5 million computers a quarter; Apple sells around 1.7 million.

Apple can't have fifteen computer models, with all resolutions, every type of processor, every type of hard drive, every type of graphics card, offer worldwide next-day service to all customers and still expect to be profitable, or even expect to not have a loss. They just don't have the demand or sales to justify the cost of designing fifteen models and signing contracts with every single parts manufacturer. Now as Apple continues to grow, more options and services will become available, but don't expect everything Dell and HP offers to be offered from Apple until Apple gets to the level of Dell or HP, which they currently are not at.

 

Oh yeah, I totally get that Sam. I just thought it was funny they added the option to pick either 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 on the 17" MBP but no such option on the 15".

Oh there's one more thing if someone could clear this up for me. Based on what I've read about Penryn, it sounds like at least some people think you'll be able to drop a Penryn processor into a Merom/Santa Rosa machine. Do we know one way or another yet for sure?

 

Pretty sure the processor in the MBP is soldered on, so even if you could "drop in" a Penryn, might not exactly be that easy for this laptop.

Someone correct and slap me if I'm wrong there.

 

Well SR and penryn both use socket P so I don't see why not except that apparently it's soldered on. I don't know why you couldn't just unsolder it though.

 

It'll happen when 45nm cpu kicks in...

 

That's a bit of a bummer if it is soldered. I could probably remove the solder but I'm not sure I'd want to risk it.

 

it wouldn't be that big a deal. i think people have unsoldered macbook pro cpu's before. steady hand and a little guts. penryn will still be "core 2 duo" though. how big of a deal is it? probably not that much. a little better power saving. don't look for a macbook pro update until next year. something new will have to come out first lol.

 

I've never heard of anyone doing a CPU swap on a MBP, and it would take a hell of a lot more than a steady hand and guts to pull it off.

No regular soldering iron is going to be used to yank a CPU off of one of these multi-layered boards. It would take a lot of skill and the proper equipment to do this. You aren't going to walk into your local RadioShack and find the stuff to get it done either.

Swapping CPUs on a Mac notebook is way more trouble than it's worth, and it's truly impossible for any putz with a soldering iron to get it done.

 

Besides Penryn, is anything on the horizon that would stoke Apple to refresh the MBP?

 

It's not worth it to try and manually upgrade the CPU in a MacBook Pro. It'd be better to get a more modular PC laptop in this case.

The next semi-major update to the MBP will come when Penryn is released at the beginning of next year (or very end of this year). The video card won't be updated until the next generation of GPUs are out or maybe if the 8800 is released at the alleged 25 watt requirements. Still, Apple doesn't market toward gamers, so I'd assume they'll just upgrade to a normal clocked 8600m GT when they switch over to Penryn. That won't be much, considering the GPU in the MBP is only underclocked about 5% overall in this generation.

RAM will be updated to DDR3 when the next gen "Core3" Intel processors come out next summer.

For most people (older than 26), 1440x900 will be the sweet spot resolution for a 15.4" screen. 1650x1080 or whatnot is best on a 17" screen. Out of that range, you either need excellent eyesight or glasses to go higher.

As a gamer, I like that I don't have to push 200 thousand more pixels while I game, it helps keep the frames up.

 

Nopes. Apple doesn't like to update its products that often. Its had to update more often now because whenever Intel releases something they're expected to update as well.

 

Wouldn't Leopard take care of this? So your icons, fonts and whatnot will all be just dandy at whatever size you want while you will still have the desktop space. It's much the same with Vista. I don't see a downside now days for a high-res screen. Now, I am not sure how Linux handles this stuff though.

 

You make a great point. I'm so used to XP (I JUST got Vista and OSX) that I forgot you can pretty easily increase the size of text and icons. Does this work well in Vista? It's absolutely hideous in XP and it doesn't work very well at all. Not all text scales up properly. I hope Leopard does it well.

Otherwise, the only reason I can think of to stay with the low resolution is if you are a gamer. Lower resolution means you don't need to push the video card as hard and will get higher frame rates, something hard to get on a mobile system.

 

I can't say I'm an expert in this field, but I heard that Leopard is going to be resolution-independent...

 

Yeap, and it works pretty well in Vista as well. However, if the app you are using has not been updated for Vista, it probably won't have the icons/rez for it.

 

Just buy if you are going to buy. The next major "upgrade" of the MacBook pro won't be 'till the fall of 2008 when the Nehalem processors come out. What is so great about this new architecture? Perfectly simple, it uses an enhanced hyper threading, and I am sure it will come on the mobile versions as well. Basically expect "4" virtual cores running on a notebook, pretty sweet. But I expect possibly 3 cores in this new architecture, as Nehalem will come in different cores, 1-8. But 8 cores won't be conventional in a notebook computer, unless you want little life. And we certainly don't want that in the MacBook pro line. Otherwise, I suppose 800mhz DDR3 will be available which is pretty sweet. So if you want your laptop now, get it! Or wait for another year or so, it really isn't worth waiting a year, or it might be, for me, I'll just save up to get it, and sell this macbook pro, so I can get this sweet new computer. Trust me, it will be amazing. Now what about the video card? Since the G92 comes out for desktops in November, I fully expect a new line of mobile video cards, in possibly 45nm? Who knows, but it would certainly be extremely powerful. Back to the processor. Expect clock rates of 3GHz to the least, 45nm will mean much higher clock rates with less temperature and power consumption. I certainly can't wait for what will come next year in the computer market. Most of this stuff is merely predictions, but the processor is certainly true, and the nVidia G92 series is definitely certain. I don't know about DDR3, if it will be ready for the mobile market before 2009. It probably will be, since it will use less power.

 

I'm not talking about waiting for Nehalem. That's too far off for me to wait for me to wait for without having anything in between. Obviously that is the bigger update versus the Penryn update, but I don't think Apple would wait until Nehalem to refresh either. I'm sure they'll have a model based on Penryn between Merom and Nehalem.

I supposed I could go the "buy now, upgrade to Nehalem in 1 year" route but that just seems like a waste of money as I'm sure in the mean time my theoretical MBP would lose a significant amount of it's resell value and I'm not really trying to spend $4500 in 12-18 months on laptops.

 

now is a good time to buy in my opinion.

the penryn update won't bring much to the table. its not going to happen until next year (penryn has to come out first. hah)

 

Mind you, it doesn't really matter, Macs are known to last beyond the ages. They aren't Windows-based machines. You can probably upgrade to Mac OS XI when it comes out. (Which will be a rather long time!) Just get it, you'll be happy with your purchase, I would be too if the darn thing would come in already! >=O

 

When I said Xmas, I meant that there maybe a refresh in-terms of a speedbump for the cpu. But that will be it. Like most others have said, don't expect to see any major changes until Feb-March next year.... at the earliest.
a


ps you can wait for ever, there will always be a better laptop around the corner....better off basing your decision on when you need a laptop, not on when mythical "X" will be released.