Straddling the divide between ultraportable and mainstream notebook, Lenovo’s ThinkPad T400s squeezes a business-friendly 14.1-inch LED-backlit display, Intel Core 2 Duo processor and integrated WWAN into a chassis just 0.83-inches thick. SlashGear had the opportunity for a pre-release hands-on; check out our first impressions after the cut, together with some preliminary T400s benchmarks.
MacBook Pro confusion this weekend, as some owners of the new unibody 13- and 15-inch notebooks are reporting that their machines are apparently limited to 1.5Gb/s SATA connections rather than the faster 3.0Gb/s SATA-II. Full details are unclear, but it seems that Apple have either switched to SATA hardware or used firmware for the newest MacBook Pros that limits hard-drive connections to the slower speed.
After Palm’s big moment last weekend, Apple once again seized the headlines with their WWDC 2009 keynote on Monday morning. We showed up to liveblog the whole announcement, expecting a new smartphone, and the company delivered in the shape of the iPhone 3G S – twice the speed, twice the storage, and the same styling as the iPhone 3G – together with a launch date for iPhone OS 3.0. However, Apple weren’t content with just that: they also brought along a new MacBook Pro range complete with integrated batteries; check out our video unboxing and first-impressions.
We’re still getting to grips with what the new Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch offers, but if you’re less interested in benchmarks and more in seeing the notebook’s parts spread across a bench, iFixi have the breakdown for you. They’ve dismantled Apple’s newly-promoted notebook, to highlight any differences between it and the last-gen unibody version.
Apple’s new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks were a surprise for their WWDC 2009 keynote, not least because most people were only expecting the iPhone 3G S. Still, we won’t turn our noses up at new unibody machines with boosted specifications, and so when Apple invited us to check out their new MacBook Pros we gladly accepted. Check out our hands-on first impressions after the cut.
Apple’s WWDC 2009 keynote was certainly packed full of announcements, as you’ll know if you followed along with our liveblog yesterday. As is usually the case, Apple have now made the whole thing available to stream, so if you’re curious about the TomTom iPhone OS 3.0 demo, new MacBook Pro range or want all the details on the iPhone 3G S, head over to watch the full 2hr video.
Apple has updated its MacBook Pro range, announcing a new 15-inch MBP with a built-in battery that is apparently good for up to 7hrs of runtime. It also drops the ExpressCard slot of the previous model and replaces it with a far more user-friendly SD card slot. Meanwhile the 17-inch MacBook Pro gets a price cut to $2,499, while the 13-inch MacBook now graduates to the Pro line with integrated 7hr battery among other things. Full details after the cut, plus a big price-cut for the MacBook Air.
Last year’s NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT substrate problem is still causing headaches for Apple, who have announced they will be extending warranty support for those MacBook Pro owners affected. The issue, in which overheating of the GPU causes display distortion or failure, can only be addressed by replacing the notebook’s logic board.
Warranty details after the cut
Rumors that Apple is planning a new integrated 3G option for its MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptop ranges have once again been ignited, after a job advert for the company sought a communications engineer responsible for wireless testing including 3G WAN. The advert, since taken down from Apple’s own pages but still available here, described an individual who would be responsible for “testing and reporting hardware, software, and device driver bugs for Communications technologies including AirPort (802.11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth v2.0, gigabit Ethernet, and/or 3G Wireless WAN in a detailed, timely manner.”
A prototype 2006 Apple MacBook Pro has shown up on eBay, bearing a beta wireless card and green logic board. The laptop is believed to have been constructed to test out the new wireless card, which is labeled as “M35B Dusty Client DVT Wireless Sample”.
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