Apple Rumour Mill And Ultrabooks

Atm i'm running a HP G70 laptop that I've had for three and half years and was a display model, so it's likely four years old from build date. It's in good shape for the most part as i'm never rough with my tech and it's still my first and only laptop to date, but out of shear wear and tear the aluminium hinge on the left side of the screen, has broken right through exposing the cables the screen and snapping some of the plastic around it. This means i have to avoid closing the lid risking the right side snapping or the cables being worn down and cut by the metal and broken plastic surrounding it. Also like most notebooks it runs hot, but when playing Minecraft for example, it runs hot enough to burn your finger if you hold it down above where the hard drive is or on the one and only air vent. So i want a replacement, what i use a laptop for has changed since i bought the G70 now becoming interested in rendering and editing videos which is pretty bad on this laptop especially with the software i'm using (btw i'm on Vista ¬_¬) and so I've become drawn to Apple. I have a 3GS which is pretty darn awesome and my friend Luke is a Apple whore owning at least four Apple products going into debt at one point so he could buy a iMac because 'he had to have it' lol so i'm quite familiar with their products so won't find it hard to adjust to Lion from Windows etc

But the Apple rumour mill and the new Ultrabook's has stopped me making a move just yet, Ultrabook's from what i've seen are very appealing to me however they lack the power i want and i won't go below a 15inch screen. But how long until 15inch Ultrabook's with extra power hit the market? It's no good me making a move now and then a couple months later new Ultrabook's are out with the right spec for me but i'm stuck with it's chunkier cousin :p The second thing holding me back being the rumours that Apple have been in the final testing stages over the summer of a new Macbook Air/Pro hybrid set to be released before Christmas. This has been described as a move to keep the new competition from Ultrabook's at bay with a thin, super-drive-less, light laptop with the power and performance of the Macbook Pro's. Also they will have the most up to date processors with that bit extra over the current Intel Sandy bridge processors, this is to fill in the gap before next years Ivy bridge processors. This would be exactly what i want, a fast & powerful laptop that's also light and slim which is why i won't buy a new laptop until i get a clearer picture on this especially if it is indeed out by Christmas. So, i need advice, what's the prognosis on the Apple rumour? And will any good manufacturer have a 15inch Ultrabook out soon with more power than the 13inch models now out?

Long question lol cheers for the help :)

asked Oct 07 '11 at 23:10

mutley2209
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edited Oct 08 '11 at 05:45

4 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

If you're not rough on the laptop, you can re-sell a MacBook Pro a year down the road for a hundred dollars less than you paid. Their resale value is extraordinary. I can almost certainly say there will not be a 15" MacBook Pro/Air before Christmas. With the refresh of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air having just passed, Apple will wait at least nine months to a year to allow the current line to profit.

I was in your predicament a few months ago. The new line of Pros had just been introduced (mouth was watering) but the rumor mill was spilling over with reports about all manor of new Apple laptop designs. I really wanted a better made MacBook Air, like the current flavor, but my 2009 MacBook Pro had a full hard drive and videos were taking hours to render. I took a friends advice and bought the new 15" MacBook Pro with upgraded specs (2.2GHz, Hi-def screen, 750GB HDD) a mere month before the release of the new MacBook Airs, safe in the knowledge that if some great new product came out, I could get back almost every dollar I'd spent.

If I'd waited I would likely have gotten a maxed out MBA and had half the power and storage I have now. You're always hearing about how heavy MBPs are, well my Dell Inspiron weighed two pounds more. It's almost six pounds. Only a sissy would call that heavy.

I think the MacBook Airs are amazing but I also think they fill a special niche. It will be another generation or two before they are desktop replacements, and it sounds like that's what you're looking for. For now, they're the perfect travel/entertainment laptop. You can edit video on them, but they're not lightening fast for it. The MacBook Pro will not disappoint you. I got mine for $2500 after taxes. I dropped another $500 in getting a 120GB solid state drive(for the OS and APPS, because that was half the appeal of the MacBook Air for me) and a harness to go in the optical drive's place, plus an 8GB set of RAM. I now have a seriously fast machine that is a complete desktop replacement with all internal components. You can get an awesome 15" machine for $1800 after taxes. It's what I recommend you do. If you need it, don't wait, the hundred dollars you might lose is well worth not suffering anymore. I'm soooooooooo happy with my decision.

answered Oct 08 '11 at 00:20

MacManDerek
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edited Oct 08 '11 at 02:20

You make some good points, it's easy to fall into the trap of looking forward to much in the tech world rather than at the present. Whenever a brand new device or model comes out i kinda make it a rule of thumb to wait for the upgraded version which usually works out any kinks the original had but at some point you do have to buy or you'll be waiting around for ever :p But do you think Apple will at the very least make the new Sandy Bridge processors available as an upgrade on their present Macbook's before Christmas? It stand's to reason that they would because the Ivy Bridge's will be out in April but not on mass until June so adding them as an upgrade now would give people an incentive to buy now rather than wait for the Ivy Bridge. If i new that were the case i'd wait for the upgraded core's to be added in what i'd hope was only a month or so away. Being able to get a darn fast processor on a laptop i want to keep until the next gen of Ivy Bridge's are out in 2013 is something i can't overlook without more advice.

Any idea on a 15inch Ultrabook at all? Perhaps running a i7 Quad core and 4GB+ memory or am i putting to much faith in it right now and that'll come further down the line?

BTW i know SDD's are fast and i'd probably go down the same route as you, but isn't 120GB rather small? Do SDD compress data or something so for example a 120GB SDD it's equivalent to 240GB or something? Because again 120GB is rather small storage, i'm getting by with 150GB on my present machine but always have to delete something to keep it running as smooth as possible :p Can you get one SDD for the OS etc and one Hard Drive in a Macbook Pro? If so that would be great but how much extra power would it consume and would i see it running hotter than usual, any experience with that? Probably sounded like a complete noob with these question's lol but I'd want to go SDD as well but haven't used one before but know it's expensive too get one especially with decent storage, watched Chris's comparison video between them and Hard Drives :)

(Oct 08 '11 at 01:03) mutley2209

I really don't see the 15"Apple Ultrabook happening in 2011. It'll probably be mid 2012. Right now the MacBooks are running on the latest Sandybridge architecture. Ivy bridge will be fantastic, but that's probably more than a year away.

If you can stand to go in a direction other than Mac, check out the Dell ultrabook, it's got all your listed specs but with a 14" screen.

The reason I got a 120 GB SSD is for the OS and apps. I store all my files and everything except games on the hard disk drive. No, ssd don't compress differently, 120GB is 120GB. Really, unless you want to spend $500 or more, the 120- 160GB is the way to go. My system is blazing fast, because 95% of everything I do is related to the OS, an app, or a game and all of those things are on the solid state drive so they're super-fast. If I want to listen to a song, watch a video or look at a picture, it's on my HDD (750GB for a total of 870GB) so it takes a little longer to pull up, but I can't justify paying $600-$1300 to make a picture load a few tenths of a second faster. And to be clear, I have the factory HDD still in the computer and I got a harness to put a SSD into the optical drive's place, I have an external optical drive, but I never need it anyways.

I got to use a computer with an SSD about a year ago and I was impressed, I wanted , like you, to get a huge SSD to put all my stuff on, everything. Then I started looking at the prices and the reasons for having it. They're outrageously priced, and will be for several years to come. If you get a drive big enough for the things you use most often and leave them alone (don't move things around on the drive or constantly replace downloads with new downloads) it's perfect. My dad put a 40GB SSD in his computer for the os and apps and he has room to spare, he doesn't play games though.

(Oct 08 '11 at 01:55) MacManDerek

sounds like i'll be going for a similar set up to you, a SDD and Hard Drive in place of the optical drive and using an external. To be honest i'd prefer that set up because there's very good third party software that lets you play blu rays on a mac using one. Part of the reason why Ultrabook's and the Air's are appealing to me because i'm not fussed about an internal drive, i'd rather have that space utilized better as Apple has done with the air but i guess here it would be utilized with a second hard drive. I can see what you mean about SDD prices, near a thousand pounds for a 512GB!!

How would i go about doing it? Could i ask Apple to do it for me? Does that affect the power management and heat generated in any way? I recently got a new proof of age card that gives me 17% discount from the Apple online store or over the phone so i'm keen to do everything one of these ways.

(Oct 08 '11 at 02:35) mutley2209

Watch this video, it's where I got the idea and I followed this guy straight in his tracks. Same SSD, same harness. {http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv91m2z6DPY}

I'd also like to remind you, tech is a funny thing, we hear stuff like sandybridge and ivybridge and see geekbench scores and put a lot of stock into them without really knowing what they mean, except that this number is higher than that number. You have a four year old computer, if you got a two year old computer with a core2duo you'd be blown away with how much better the user experience is. Don't let hype decide your purchase for you. Get what you need, aim for the best user experience, weigh your needs with the hardware you're looking at. You can edit video at a decent rate with the core2 processors, and if that's the most processor intensive thing you do, then you're just trying to buy the biggest and the best. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not necessary. The tech world is more in the lime light than it's ever been and there are a lot of people making the biggest and best seem imperative, it's not, get what you need. I game and edit video, plus I use my laptop for work, so I got the specks I wanted to make things convenient for myself. I think that's what you should aim for too. And friendly advice, just forget about the ivybridge and the 15" Apple ultrabook it's a long way off for you to be using a broken laptop to wait for it. Plus there's no guarantee that Apple will put out a 15" ultrabook in the next five years, it's ALL speculation.

answered Oct 08 '11 at 02:16

MacManDerek
801●16●20●27

Also, if you get the chance, go to the nearest Apple store and look at the 13" MacBook Air. You can get that with the i7, hyper-threaded, and 256GB SSD. They're really great laptops, Matt's Macintosh on YouTube did some video rendering/editing tests, and they're faster by far than the MacBook Pro from the year before. The 13" screen sounds small, but it's really ok. I had the 2009 13" and I loved it. I upgraded to the 15" because of the processor (for video editing). Also, the resolution on the 13" MBA is great, it's like using a larger screen. You really have to get your hands on one to see how it feels, it can't be described in words or pictures.

(Oct 08 '11 at 02:34) MacManDerek

No, Apple won't put the drive in the optical bay for you, but OCZ has some good prices and if you watch that video link I showed you, the guy is very informative. I just did exactly what he did and had 0 problems. You can keep your old laptop as your external optical drive until you get your blu-ray player. It doesn't affect the power management in any noticeable way. I didn't lose any battery life at all. The SSDs are very low power consumers.

answered Oct 08 '11 at 02:45

MacManDerek
801●16●20●27

Oh, the video link is broken. Search YouTube for MacBook Pro SSD Upgrade by unboxtherapy.

(Oct 08 '11 at 02:46) MacManDerek

excellent :) answered everything i needed to know and while i'm watching Wales beat Ireland for the world cup semi-final place! lol tidy :D

(Oct 08 '11 at 02:52) mutley2209

GO WALES! And Good Luck!

(Oct 08 '11 at 02:55) MacManDerek

the rumour mill has had me again! keep getting reply's off youtube that there will be an update within the net 6-8 weeks! i'm getting a headache lol i'm gunna wait until Christmas, if there's no update then i can buy myself a Macbook pro as a Christmas present :)

answered Oct 12 '11 at 02:47

mutley2209
761●112●126●134

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