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Today Apple has announced new laptops and a new display. This time I'm mostly pleased with what they have to offer.
One point of contention with the regular Macbooks and Macbook Air was they where using pitiful intel integrated graphics. Well, the new Macbooks are all now running on nvidia. All the Macbooks, regular and air include the nvidia GeForce 9400M. However, this is an integrated part and it shares system RAM. So that may mean less performance that it otherwise would get although it's still a hell of a lot better than any intel graphics chip. On the Macbook Pro it is included as a low power option.
The Macbook Pro has two graphics chips on board. The first one is the aforementioned GeForce 9400M. The second chip is a GeForce 9600M GT. They claim it's the state of the art in laptop graphics. Anyway, when you are running on the battery you have the choice of either running with the 9600 for more performance or running on the 9400 for more battery life. If you are a demanding graphics user you still will be wanting to get the Pro and run it with the 9600 as much as you can. But it's still very good that Apple is moving away from what I consider bottom of the barrel intel graphics. The new "low end" chip is supposed to be 4x-6x faster than the previous macbook graphics chip. On the Pro it's possible that Apple may write Snow Leopard so that when you are using the 9600 it can use the 9400 exclusively for CPGPU stuff. That means you can use it to accelerate non graphics operations like ripping and encoding a DVD or accelerating physics in games.
One thing that has surprised me is that in addition to the Macbook and the Macbook Pro they have also chosen to put it into the Macbook Air. I can't help but wonder if they are going to do similar updates to the desktop computers. The Mac Mini should get the 9400 and the iMac should get a similar setup to the Macbook Pro except perhaps put in two 9600's in SLI since battery life isn't a consideration.
Aesthetically the new Macbooks look pretty good to me. If you've been reading this for a while you may remember that I was at first underwhelmed with the looks of the iPhone and of the new iMacs. It's not so this time because I knew a little more what to expect. The new cases look like a combination of the old Macbook Pro with the keyboards from the old Macbooks\Air and the displays look like the new iMacs. The more expensive Macbook even has a backlit keyboard like the Pro and Air have. That was a surprise to me.
The new multi-touch glass trackpads are interesting especially with how they've gotten rid of the button and made the entire trackpad into a button. I have to try it out in person before I make a final judgement on how well they work. I suspect that I would probably mostly use it for the multitouch gestures and use a wireless mouse for everything else.
The new Apple Cinema Display with LED backlighting is similarly designed and it finally has a built in iSight camera and mic. This is what I've been saying they should do for a while now. Although what they came out with today is a bit too tailored for the notebooks in my opinion. It has a magsafe connector to charge up a laptop which would be of no use if you are going to use it with a desktop Mac so it'd be a cord that is dangling unplugged. Maybe someone should come out with an iPod dock that can use that connector. So people who don't have laptops that use that monitor wont have that cord go to waste. Desktop users would also have to get an adaptor because the new display uses Apple's new mini-displayport connector which is what the new Macbooks use. So for example I would have to buy a mini-displayport to DVI adaptor.
I was kind of hoping that the bundle of cords they show there where ALL the cords and that it'd be drawing power over one of the powered ports on the computer simplifying things. But I guess it's alright that it still has a separate A/C cord.... and since it has a magsafe cord intended to charge a laptop it HAS to be that way.
They also only have a 24 inch one so far and they need to come out with updated 20 inch and 30 inch displays using similar technology and designs.
In conclusion this was a mostly good update especially for what it may mean to the entire Mac line. To be honest I'm not really interested in getting a laptop especially since I mostly use computers at home and I'd have a laptop docked 99%-100% of the time. But I still enjoy seeing them updated and I've been liking Apple's designs with aluminum a lot especially as they are getting thinner and thinner. I love my Apple Aluminum keyboard for example and I even got a mousepad that goes well with it.
Since I want more out of my graphics and it'd probably cost just as much to get a possible new upcoming Mac Mini and an Apple Cinema Display I think I'd like to go for a possible updated 24 inch iMac. Although the nice thing about going the former route is I'd be easily able to replace the Mini with a future Mac Pro and still use the same monitor, keyboard, etc. when I can afford it. But I can't afford either at this point so it's kind of moot for a while. But one can dream, eh?
One point of contention with the regular Macbooks and Macbook Air was they where using pitiful intel integrated graphics. Well, the new Macbooks are all now running on nvidia. All the Macbooks, regular and air include the nvidia GeForce 9400M. However, this is an integrated part and it shares system RAM. So that may mean less performance that it otherwise would get although it's still a hell of a lot better than any intel graphics chip. On the Macbook Pro it is included as a low power option.
The Macbook Pro has two graphics chips on board. The first one is the aforementioned GeForce 9400M. The second chip is a GeForce 9600M GT. They claim it's the state of the art in laptop graphics. Anyway, when you are running on the battery you have the choice of either running with the 9600 for more performance or running on the 9400 for more battery life. If you are a demanding graphics user you still will be wanting to get the Pro and run it with the 9600 as much as you can. But it's still very good that Apple is moving away from what I consider bottom of the barrel intel graphics. The new "low end" chip is supposed to be 4x-6x faster than the previous macbook graphics chip. On the Pro it's possible that Apple may write Snow Leopard so that when you are using the 9600 it can use the 9400 exclusively for CPGPU stuff. That means you can use it to accelerate non graphics operations like ripping and encoding a DVD or accelerating physics in games.
One thing that has surprised me is that in addition to the Macbook and the Macbook Pro they have also chosen to put it into the Macbook Air. I can't help but wonder if they are going to do similar updates to the desktop computers. The Mac Mini should get the 9400 and the iMac should get a similar setup to the Macbook Pro except perhaps put in two 9600's in SLI since battery life isn't a consideration.
Aesthetically the new Macbooks look pretty good to me. If you've been reading this for a while you may remember that I was at first underwhelmed with the looks of the iPhone and of the new iMacs. It's not so this time because I knew a little more what to expect. The new cases look like a combination of the old Macbook Pro with the keyboards from the old Macbooks\Air and the displays look like the new iMacs. The more expensive Macbook even has a backlit keyboard like the Pro and Air have. That was a surprise to me.
The new multi-touch glass trackpads are interesting especially with how they've gotten rid of the button and made the entire trackpad into a button. I have to try it out in person before I make a final judgement on how well they work. I suspect that I would probably mostly use it for the multitouch gestures and use a wireless mouse for everything else.
The new Apple Cinema Display with LED backlighting is similarly designed and it finally has a built in iSight camera and mic. This is what I've been saying they should do for a while now. Although what they came out with today is a bit too tailored for the notebooks in my opinion. It has a magsafe connector to charge up a laptop which would be of no use if you are going to use it with a desktop Mac so it'd be a cord that is dangling unplugged. Maybe someone should come out with an iPod dock that can use that connector. So people who don't have laptops that use that monitor wont have that cord go to waste. Desktop users would also have to get an adaptor because the new display uses Apple's new mini-displayport connector which is what the new Macbooks use. So for example I would have to buy a mini-displayport to DVI adaptor.
I was kind of hoping that the bundle of cords they show there where ALL the cords and that it'd be drawing power over one of the powered ports on the computer simplifying things. But I guess it's alright that it still has a separate A/C cord.... and since it has a magsafe cord intended to charge a laptop it HAS to be that way.
They also only have a 24 inch one so far and they need to come out with updated 20 inch and 30 inch displays using similar technology and designs.
In conclusion this was a mostly good update especially for what it may mean to the entire Mac line. To be honest I'm not really interested in getting a laptop especially since I mostly use computers at home and I'd have a laptop docked 99%-100% of the time. But I still enjoy seeing them updated and I've been liking Apple's designs with aluminum a lot especially as they are getting thinner and thinner. I love my Apple Aluminum keyboard for example and I even got a mousepad that goes well with it.
Since I want more out of my graphics and it'd probably cost just as much to get a possible new upcoming Mac Mini and an Apple Cinema Display I think I'd like to go for a possible updated 24 inch iMac. Although the nice thing about going the former route is I'd be easily able to replace the Mini with a future Mac Pro and still use the same monitor, keyboard, etc. when I can afford it. But I can't afford either at this point so it's kind of moot for a while. But one can dream, eh?
