Macbook Pro - SlashGear

‘macbook pro’ Stories

Reviews

MacBook Pro 15-inch Review (early 2011)

Vincent Nguyen, Mar 1st 2011 Discuss [17]

Apple’s MacBook Pro refresh last week didn’t get a press event with huge fanfare, but it’s arguably the most important update to the notebook range in some time. Bringing in Intel’s 2011 Core processor range across the board, and spicing up the larger models with AMD discrete graphics, the new versions may look the same but they promise a huge leap in performance. The high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro arrived on the SlashGear test bench last Thursday and we’ve been putting it through its paces ever since. Could this really be the best notebook around? Check out the full review after the cut.

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MacBook Pro early 2011 benchmarks confirm huge performance leap

Chris Davies, Feb 25th 2011 Discuss [13]

We've already been impressed by the quad-core speed boost shown by our early 2011 MacBook Pro review unit, but it seems the performance jolt is across the board with Apple's refreshed machines. Primate Labs - responsible for the Geekbench tool SlashGear uses to profile notebooks - has pulled together benchmarking results for the new range, and the improvement is dramatic. Read The Full Story

Mac OS X Lion HiDPI support bringing Retina Display to the desktop?

Chris Davies, Feb 25th 2011 Discuss [0]

From everything Apple told us about the developer release of Mac OS X Lion yesterday, we were already excited. The AirDrop instant sharing tool promises the sort of straightforward simplicity we've grown to expect from the company, and the various usability tweaks carried over from iOS should see the platform become an interesting hybrid of sorts. Still, there's more to be revealed under the hood; MacRumors has learnt that the long-anticipated "Resolution Independence" has made it into OS X Lion, paving the way for ultra-high-resolution Retina Display style screens on MacBook Pro and Cinema Displays. Read The Full Story

MacBook Pro early 2011 gets teardown: New RAM inside

Chris Davies, Feb 25th 2011 Discuss [10]

We've already shown you the outside of the new early-2011 MacBook Pro 15, and given you a preview of what its quad-core guts are capable of, but iFixit seldom stop when screws get in the way. The teardown-team acquired a 15-inch MBP and set to work stripping its delicious unibody chassis apart, not happy until the bare Core i7 processor was visible. Read The Full Story

Featured

MacBook Pro 15-inch with ThunderBolt hands-on (early 2011)

Vincent Nguyen, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [1]

Make no mistake; the new MacBook Pro notebooks are impressive beasts. Outwardly all but identical to the previous range, which means plenty of milled aluminum, a backlit chiclet keyboard and broad multitouch trackpad, on the inside there’s a fresh injection of Sandy Bridge and potent AMD processors to match. We met with Apple this morning to find out what’s special, and came away with a maxed-out 2.2GHz Core i7 15-inch model, retailing for $2,199. Check out our first impressions and more after the cut.

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Columns

New MacBook Pro: Dumped NVIDIA is the Biggest News

Vincent Nguyen, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [6]

The new MacBook Pro range certainly doesn’t hold back when it comes to specifications, but in some respects it’s what’s missing from the updated notebooks that’s more interesting than what made the cut. I met with Apple this morning for a hands-on briefing with the new MacBook Pro line-up – stand by for some first impressions of the maxed-out 15-inch model – and one of the most conspicuous changes is the shift to AMD Radeon HD graphics on the 15- and 17-inchers.

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iPad 2 Thunderbolt rumors reignite: More than just raw throughput

Chris Davies, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [6]

Apple's confirmation of Thunderbolt on the newly refreshed MacBook Pro range this morning could lend weight to speculation earlier that the new iPad 2 will have a Light Peak connection of its own. Examination of the various batches of leaked iPad 2 cases had led to suggestions that the mysterious opening on the top edge could be for a smaller-than-USB connector; that would certainly fit in with the Mini DisplayPort connection Thunderbolt has been confirmed to use. Read The Full Story

Apple Store open: Get your new MacBook Pro!

Chris Davies, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [2]

It's been down for a few hours now, and the contents of the updated shelves are now known to us, but the Apple Store has finally come back online. That means all of the new MacBook Pro models are available to buy, with the standard configurations shipping out within 1-2 business days. Pricing kicks off at $1,199 for the updated 13-inch model. Read The Full Story

Intel Thunderbolt partners detailed: LaCie, Promise, Western Digital, more

Chris Davies, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [7]

While Apple may be the first to debut Thunderbolt, the technology is all Intel's, and the company is not being quiet about which partners have jumped on board with the 10Gbps connection. Aja, Apogee, Avid, Blackmagic, LaCie, Promise and Western Digital are all among the roster of firms committed to pushing out Thunderbolt-equipped devices, which will include displays, storage devices, audio/video devices, cameras, docking stations and more. Read The Full Story

Featured

Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview Released

Chris Davies, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [2]

While the new MacBook Pro line-up delivers the Sandy bridge update consumers have been clamoring for, Apple has something for developers too. The new developer preview of Mac OS X Lion has been released, adding full-screen app support, pinch and double-tap zoom in Safari – some of the multitouch gestures borrowed from OS X – a document saving system called Versions (which automatically saves successive versions of documents as you work on them) and AirDrop, a wireless file transfer system for drag & drop moving of documents between Macs.

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Featured

Apple Thunderbolt official

Chris Davies, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [7]

It’s not just the new MacBook Pro range that is fresh and official this morning; Apple has also officially unveiled Thunderbolt, billed as “the fastest, most versatile I/O ever in a notebook.” The commercial name for Intel’s Light Peak technology, Thunderbolt promises to be as much as twice the speed of USB 3.0 and up to 20x faster than USB 2.0.

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Featured

Apple MacBook Pro 2011 official

Chris Davies, Feb 24th 2011 Discuss [5]

The new Apple MacBook Pro range is official, and it’s quite the star line-up. The entire 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch spread has been updated, with Intel’s Sandy Bridge 2011 Core processors across the board. Apple has also cast out NVIDIA, replacing GeForce GPUs with AMD’s Radeon graphics on the 15- and 17-inch machines. The 13-inch, meanwhile, makes do with Intel’s integrated graphics alone. Perhaps most interesting is the addition of Apple’s new Thunderbolt connector, based on Intel’s Light Peak technology and promising up to 10Gbps data transfer speeds. Full details after the cut.