Apple today introduced an update to the 13-inch, aluminum unibody Macbook that was significant enough to warrant a name change. In fact, of all the impressive hardware updates we saw at WWDC, the Macbook Pro 13-inch might have stolen the show. Like the larger Macbook Pro 15-inch introduced today, the Macbook Pro 13-inch will also get the longer-life, built-in battery. Apple claims this improved battery will offer normal use times of 7 hours. The company also says this built-in battery will need to be replaced less, and will last up to 5 years, compared to 2 years for a normal battery.
Beyond the new battery technology, the most exciting new features for the Macbook Pro 13-inch also bring it closer in line with its professional siblings. The new Macbook Pro 13-inch will get hard drive options up to 500GB capacity, and memory options up to a whopping 8GB of DDR3 RAM. Both of these are impressive options in such a small machine. Like the new Macbook Pro 15-inch, the Macbook Pro 13-inch will also use an SD card reader. For high-speed data purists, the Macbook Pro 13-inch will see the return of FireWire, and will get its own FireWire 800 port. Finally, just like the big boys, the Macbook Pro 13-inch finally gets the light-up LED keyboard gimmick.
Processor speeds and graphics remain somewhat stagnant on the new machines. Apple offers the lowest-end Macbook Pro 13-inch model at a paltry $1200, but at this price you only get 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard disk drive and a 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo processor. At the high end, you can bump the processor to 2.53 GHz, but all variations of the machine are stuck with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics. This is a respectable chipset, better than an integrated Intel graphics processor, but still no match for the discrete graphics cards on the higher end Macbook Pro machines.
In fact, as much as we like piling all of these advanced features into Apple's smallest unibody Macbook model, we can't help think of what's missing, and what could be cut. Apple has yet to introduce a laptop with onboard 3G wireless networking, and this smaller Macbook Pro seems a likely candidate. Also, Apple has opted out of the netbook wars. Certainly, a true netbook would cost less than half of the price of this new Macbook Pro 13-inch model, and this takes some of the wind out of Apple's sails in bragging about the price. For this professional-strength machine, the $1200 starting price is okay, but compared to a $200 HP Mini 1151NR on subsidy with Verizon Wireless, and the added value becomes less clear. We're not sure we'd wish for a cheap, low cost machine from Apple. But we'd definitely wish for a 3G-enabled, portable laptop, brought down to a good price thanks to carrier subsidies.
The new Apple Macbook Pro 13-inch model is available immediately from Apple. The base model starts at $1200, but you can completely destroy your budget with this machine by adding 4GB of RAM for $1000, or a 256GB SSD for an extra $800.
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