New 17" MacBooks

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New 17" MacBooks

Apple looks to be shipping the new 17" ProBooks in a week or so.

dan k

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Promise

The 17" model certainly looks promising. Considering that it has less of the limitations that it's 15" brother has, I think I've found a realistic replacement for my 1.5 ghz PowerBook G4 15". Let's see, firewire 400, 800 (not on the 15"), 3 usb 2.0 slots (of which only one appears to be on the logic board - better than the 15" aibooks where none of the usb ports are directly on the logic board - power issues), as well as the no brainers like gigabit enet, mag-safe, and the express/34 (still a little uncertain on this one). As much as I like it, I can't justify dropping the $2800 on it when my 15" still has a fair amount of life left in it. I think I'll wait till the 2.3 or 2.5 ghz revisions ship. As it is, the lady of the house is due for an upgrade before I am - so she'll be getting next week's small macbook.

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Re: Promise

so she'll be getting next week's small macbook.

so, wait, the 12" macbook is coming next week? I knew they were dropping the ball on the 17" this week, but that is pretty quick for them to revise the entire powerbook line.

farewell powerbook. you sould be proud - you lasted 16 years. old enough to drive Smile

-digital Wink

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I'm still not sure about the

I'm still not sure about the Express/34 slot either. They made a bunch of excuses for not putting it in the 15", and now they ship the 17" with it. So, is this bowing to the pressures of the market, or taking advantage of "desirable" features to sell the more expensive version?

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The 15" MacBook Pro has Expre

The 15" MacBook Pro has Express/34. I don't know if you mean the PowerBook or what.

Jon
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I mean Apple had all sorts of

I mean Apple had all sorts of reasons for not putting FW 800 on the 15". Now it is on the 17". One of the major "reasons" for skipping it on the 15" was the "upcoming" 3rd party FW 800 cards for Express/34. Where are they, and why does the 17" get FW 800 if they coulda used the same logic for excluding it?

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I don't remember Apple ever r

I don't remember Apple ever releasing apologetic explainations about the 15" Macbook Pro's lack of Firewire 800. So, why did they put Firewire 800 on the 17"? Because professional video editors apparently buy more of them than the 15" 'books, I'm guessing.

What is a just the tiniest bit strange to me is that Apple didn't put an Expresscard/54 slot in. They must have had the space... oh well. I wonder how the battery life is.

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If you get the MacBreak video

If you get the MacBreak videocast, they did a MacWorld segment. Leo talked to an Apple rep about the new MacBook and the rep gave his spiel about 3rd parties filling in the gap of FW800 with an Express/34 card. ISTR seeing it mentioned elsewhere.

I now realize that my first post about this seems like I mean that Apple skipped the E/34 slot on the 15". What I mean was that Apple skipped the FW800 port on the 15" and gave excuses when people asked about it.

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macbook

I'm predicting that the 12" PowerBook G4 and 12"/14" iBook G4 will be merged into one machine - a 13" macbook. Considering the lack of real differentiation between those two units and the price differential, it's a no brainer. Streamline the product line. Considering that Apple is switching to the new serial number format in the next two weeks, it's as good a time as any to changeover the portable lineup, as well as get the iBook replacement ready for the school district buyers (though it's a safe bet that the iBook G4 may hang around for a little longer for this very reason). Give them options, and they will buy!

Considering the small format of express 34, the deletion of a dial up modem, and such, I wouldn't be surprised to see the macbooks (not pro) ship with express 34 as well, overcoming the biggest downfall of the iBooks and 12" PowerBook G4. We'll see.

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Another prediction

Expect to find 12" PowerBook G4's at your local Costco this summer with 3 years of Applecare at a discount ala iMac G5 20" and mac mini 1.5 ghz.

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