new MBP specs leaked

13" MacBook Pro specs leaked, reveal "Thunderbolt" I/O port

For the lowend 13" anyway. They've dumped the 320m and opted to use the intel 3000, and for the base model they finally upgraded from the old core2 to an i5.

They've also added something they call thunderbolt which is more or less a draft, copper-based version of intel lightpeak, which will be on all models.

 

So, rumors have also said Sony is supposed to be an early adapter of light Peak, what will they call it?

 

Those are still rumors OP, just wait until tomorrow.

 

If the leak is accurate, it looks like I'll be skipping this iteration in favor of the next.

While the refresh is certainly a positive step introducing lightpeak and SB, it looks like an interim one whilst they perfect a next generation discrete GPU and integrated partial SSD for the 13".

 

Even if the specs sound good, I tend not to buy first revision Apple hardware.
I always had problems when buying newly released products from Apple and I think I'll wait and see if they are stable before pulling the trigger.

 

HD 3000 = Sad j0KER

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

I wonder if we'll see on Apple a chart like:

New Intel HD 3000 performs 6.912 times fast than previous Macbook.*************

 

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/23/macbook-pro-specs-lightpeak-known-as-thunderbolt/

It's confirmed.

Whats real crappy is the screen res. Intel HD 3000 apparently isn't all that bad and in some cases outperforms the 320m in the current 13" pros. Plus you'd probably get good battery life. But 1280X800?? That's a shame. Wonder what the higher end model will look like? Maybe a higher screen res upgrade option..

 

1280x800 is a deal breaker. :/

Although some sites are saying that 1440x900 will be a BTO.

Can't wait to see them and see reviews.

 

the HD 3000 is only better at lower resolutions... it doesn't scale as well, and the 320m can actually beat it at higher resolutions... of course with a 1280x800 screen... saying if people game at like 1024x640, they wouldn't see much of a difference.

Its a sad day if the upgraded 13" doesn't have 1440x900 and a real GPU.

 

this isn't first revision hardware, it's 5th revision... it's a variant of the system from oct 08.

there are slight changes to each revision across most components, so you'll be waiting for a long time i guess.

 

For the 13", it's a tad more than a revision. New main-board, chipset, processor family, new GPU are in and of itself qualifying for the previous poster's observation.

I don't think we really have to wait for a new case design to call it more than a mere bump in specs.

 

well if this is true my current macbook pro won't lose much value at all, in fact very little if I choose to sell it in favor of using my PC for my internship...

 

I guess you can look at it that way. I see it as 3rd* revision tech. Pretty much every model is going to get a new GPU, and maybe about half will get new chipsets and processor architectures. Plus, all that is out of Apple's hands. If you're perspective is that you don't want first revision Apple products, then a change of just mobo/cpu/gpu doesn't really affect anything. It's basically the same exact system with different intel parts. It's basically first revision intel hardware imo, and 3rd revision apple hardware.

Keep in mind pretty much every revision of apple's notebooks contain 1st revision intel hardware and gpu's.

 

When are MBP13 getting the rumored mSATA boot SSD? When are they going to reduce the weight of this thing?

Every time I look at the bezel it makes me think it's too large, meaning wasted space. And they should really remove the optical drive. I was expecting a reduction in weight, size, and longer battery power. Awwww. This was going to be my first MB. I'll have to see what they offer in BTO.

 

Oh, okay. Thanks for clearing that up.
I thought we are getting a brand new (even thinner) design with different chassis and materials or did I mix this up?

 

first, it's actually 3rd revision for the 13", 5th revision for the 15" - my mistake on that

second, since apple isn't responsible for the design of the processors, gpu, cpu, etc. - that is my rationality for calling this a 3rd revision part. it doesn't really matter that they are new if all apple does is put them where the old ones used to go

---

ok - that out of the way, it's just responding to rumors. originally the rumor was a redesign. now, the rumor is not a redesign, and honestly a pretty marginal change overall:

they swapped out an nvidia board with a core 2 duo for the intel board with the i5. the IGP is different, but it's part of the board, so that change is already accounted for... it's a new processor but overall that basically just makes it a little bit faster. it has maybe a slightly different port configuration (possibly exactly the same physical config), and an updated isight camera.

of course, we won't the changes for sure until they release it, which very well could be tomorrow.

 

I agree, if it's only updated cpu, gpu, etc... I also count that as a revision rather than a brand new model.

Well, I hope at least some retailers and sellers of Apple products will considerably lower the prices of their old model stock when the new ones arrive.

 

The new GPU is sad. I can understand why - the 320M was both a GPU and a chipset, but Intel wouldn't let NVidia get a chipset license to build chipsets for Core i# parts, so if a discrete GPU was added it'd be an extra chip, and Sandy Bridge already has a GPU on-die (which I believe should be grounds for an antitrust suit). What worries me the most however is driver quality. I understand Apple writes a major part of the driver code, but I'm sure some of it comes from Intel and like I heard on SemiAccurate, "Even a blind dog comes across a bone every once in a while, unless that dog works for Intel writing graphics drivers"..

 

it totally sucks that intel can just shut down an entire developer division simply by saying no to nvidia. its not new that intel has thrown their weight around for sure but to say no you cant make chipsets for my product only i can kinda sucks. especially when we are loosing a clearly superior part. In the end intel looses because they are loading up products with inferior parts. laptops were headed in a simply awesome direction graphics wise now that is shot to hell. intel needs to buy nvidia and stop crying.

 

I can't be lieve I held out waiting for this. I woud have been more happy with a 2.6C2D, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 320M and 1440x900 display. 2x usb 3.0 would have been abetter then this LP BS.

This 13in is a joke. I'm not paying for it.

 

I agree the 13" is sort of a sidegrade at best... it's odd.

 

You seem to be forgetting the pure fact that these are the leaked specifications of the LOW-END MacBook Pro 13". No matter how much we might have wanted to see 1440x900, mSATA or mini-PCIe SSD and whatnot you can't expect miracles on the cheapest version MacBook Pro 13".

The pure fact that Apple has finally managed to get their act together and gone Intel SandyBridge on their MacBook Pro 13" lineup is great by itself, no more one - two year old platform on the 13" anymore!

And you can't really blame Apple for the Intel GMA HD 3000 graphics, this is purely Intel's fault when they forced nVIDIA from creating motherboards and chipsets for their platforms. This is perhaps the main reason why Apple didn't go Intel Arrandale on the MacBook Pro 13" last year because that would mean Intel GMA 4500 HD or whatever was integrated on Intel motherboards with Arrandale and that would resulting in really crippling the graphics performance.


But you can't expect Apple to keep on going Intel Core 2 in 2011, that would be INSANE. So it was either SandyBridge and Intel graphics or keeping with Core 2 Duo and nVIDIA graphics? The choice is obvious isn't it?

Luckily we for the very first time have a half decent Intel graphics solution being almost on-pair with the previous GeForce 320M that's way better than the situation last year, and what's even better is the power consumption of the HD 3000 is far less than the 320M so we should see improvement in regars of battery life as well.. Did i mention it could better video decoding capabilities compared to the 320M? Might see some better QuickTime HD performance for a change.


The 13" model has never been about graphics performance anyway, it supposed to be light with good battery life but opposed to the Air it should feature a up to date platform which it does now that Apple has gone SandyBridge as well as having normal I/O which it does.

So it's pretty much what I at least expected the Low-End 13" model to be, I'm surprised we see Core i5 and not i3 on the lower-end model.. Remember that the Core i5 2Gen (SandyBridge model) is preforming better than it's Core i7 Gen1 (Arrandale) sibling so there is no lack of CPU performance this time around.


It's the very first notebook featuring Intel LightPeak as well, which is a good thing as LightPeak means we'll be getting Mini-Displayport to USB3.0 cables so we can finally utilize USB3.0 speeds and controllers for a change. And in regards of what Sony and other manufactures will name their versions of LightPeak I don't really expect them to be different, Intel will announce the first revision of LightPeak at the same time as we get the new MacBook Pro lineup so whom says Intel wont call it Thunderbolt and be using Mini-Displayport as I/O on computers?

 

you expected core i3 and intel integrated graphics on the 13" mbp? it costs 1100$. it's a disaster at that price.

 

I don't have a gripe about mbp13 using intel graphics, but wonder why the weight is still so high. 4.5lb for 13inch is heavy these days. Look at Sony z, or upcoming Sony SB. They even include discrete graphics in that small size. Apple could have put it in if they really wanted to. I think they are just trying to save cost. I wish the weight was 4lb as in some rumors.

 

I don't mind the 4.5lb weight myself. I came from a 7lb Asus though so shedding any weight was nice.

 

Sticking with my current MBP13, the new one seems pretty disappointing to be honest.

 

Same here, I bought mine last week because I was in desperate need of a new computer but the new ones aren't that appealing to me, I'll keep my 10 hour battery life thanks.

 

better battery life and better graphics performance.

the reason that the weight is the same is that they didn't redesign anything. it's still the same body, they basically just dropped in a different motherboard and cpu.

 

Apple will always choose the best mix of components to make the thinnest, lightest, most powerful, and battery friendly notebooks they can. What other laptops are the size of MBPs and have the same specs? It's ok to want more, but there is only so much design-wise that you can shove into an inch-thick, low-weight, aluminum chassis.

 

Actually Apple chooses their components purely on how profitable it will be for them... just like EVERY other company. The only difference is their focus. At the same price point, I'd rather purchase a slightly heavier notebook that is much more durable and better components such as an Elitebook or Precision.

 

Those improvements in battery life were 30% LESS time (10 hours to 7 hours). How is the HD3000 decoding better? I know the 320M has an H264 / VC1 decoder that can handle up to 1080p, what does the HD3000 have over it?

 

It's not 30% less. Apple is using real world time figures now for their battery estimate time. I bet it'll last longer than the core2duo's.
I remember the plastic macbook 13 was advertised as 10 hour, same as 2010 mbp13. Now they changed the way of measuring it, it is advertised as 7 hours.
I actually like this that apple is using a more realistic figure. You can probably still get 10 hours with least brightness, wifi/bt off, turn off whatever you can, doing nothing at idle. Nobody uses a laptop like that.

I don't know about whether intel's HD decoding is better or not, but I know for sure encoding is. You should look information on intel QuickSync. There's no reason HD3000 can't handle decoding 1080p video.

 

Epic Fail on my part, apologies all round. I didn't claim Intel's decoder can't handle 1080p, but I know NVidia's does so was wondering at what aspect is Intel's decoder better than NVidia. I know their ENcoder is, but I doubt most users of the 13" will care.