Last month, Apple made some rather forgettable upgrades to
its MacBook lineup. Apple failed to upgrade the machines to Intel's new Santa Rosa platform despite the fact that it had launched a
week earlier.
This time around, however, Apple is making more drastic
updates to its MacBook Pro lineup. The company announced that its new MacBook
Pros are now built on the Santa Rosa
platform and features the latest GeForce 8 series mobile
GPUs from NVIDIA and LED backlighting on 15.4” models.
“With Intel Core 2 Duo performance, more memory and
state-of-the-art graphics, this MacBook Pro is a portable powerhouse for
creative and professional users,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president
of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Apple’s notebooks have always led the industry
in innovation with features like built-in 802.11 and the MagSafe Power Adapter,
and now the industry’s first 15-inch LED-backlit display is another step toward
completely eliminating mercury from our displays.”
The $1,999 entry-level MacBook Pro features a 2.2GHz Core 2
Duo processor, 2GB of DDR2-667 memory, 120GB 5400RPM HDD, NVIDIA GeForce Go
8600M GT (128MB) and a 15.4" 1400x900 LED-backlit display.
If you fork over $2,499, you'll be greeted with a 2.4GHz
Core 2 Duo processor, 160GB HDD and a 256MB version of the NVIDIA GeForce Go
8600M GT -- all other specifications remain the same. Another $300 will get you
a 17” 1680x1050 display (sans LED backlighting). An option to boost screen
resolution to 1900x1200 is also available.