The Black Friday Guide to MacBook Pros

[tongodeon]

ikkyu2 asked me to weigh in on his purchase of a fancy new MacBook Pro and I figured now's a good time to talk about where the hardware is right now. Short summary: not a lot has changed, you can still get the same stuff as cheap last-gen refurbs, there's an imminent hardware update, and when the update comes it'll be relatively significant

Comments

[talldean]

It's interesting to hear that Apple's missing Dell's price point on the high end, because on the low end, the Mac Mini remains completely uncompetitive as an entry-level machine...

[cactusthesaint]

I wonder if Apple was worried about destroying the market for Mac Pros with the Macbook Pros, just as the iMacs have now done.

I anticipate Mac Pro and Macbook Pro refreshes early next year.

[tongodeon]

The latest Mac Pro runs the current generation Nehalem Xeon E5520 processor, with an optional X5550 or X5570. That's pretty close to state-of-the-art right now. The MacBook Pro's T9900 processor was announced almost a year ago, and the Clarksfield (mobile processors) were announced at the September IDF, so I think the MacBook Pro is lagging a lot further behind than the rest of the product line.

Update: They just updated it.

Suggestion

[sambushell]

Consider using the name reported by "sysctl -a hw.model" to refer to mac models. I find those n,m numbers much easier to remember and compare.