San Francisco (CA) – Apple began its keynote introducing a complete refresh of its notebooks, the Macbook, Macbook Pro and Macbook Air. The big news? There are new 13” and 15” models of the Macbook Pro, processors up to 3.06 GHz and a battery life up to seven hours.
So, the rumored Apple netbook has not made an appearance during the (still ongoing keynote at the time of this writing) after all, but Apple has thoroughly upgraded its existing line of products, increased their performance specifications, some features and prices.
The Macbook Pro was the main focus of Phil Schiller, senior vice president of product marketing at Apple. There are new 15” and 13” models. The 13” version starts at $1199, includes a 2.26 GHz SP9300 Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 GB of memory, Nvidia 9400M graphics, a 160 GB hard drive and an SD card slot. An upgrade to 2.53 GHz, 4GB memory and a 250 GB drive is priced at $300.
The 15” and 17” Macbook Pro versions dropped $300 in price across the board and now start at $1699. The base model has a 2.53 GHz chip, 4 GB memory, a 250 GB hard drive and an SD card slot. The ExpressCard slot, which Apple claims is only used by 1% of Macbook Pro buyers, is reserved for the 17” model, which now comes with a 2.8 GHz chip, 4 GB memory, a 500 GB hard drive and 9400M+9600GT graphics for $2499. All Macbook pros can be purchased with up to 8 GB memory and Intel’s 3.06 GHz T9900 Core 2 Duo CPU. There is also a 256 GB SSD storage option for certain models.
The 15” and 13” Pros as well as the Macbook receive the battery of the 17” Macbook pro, which is good for up to seven hours of battery life. The company says that typical usage will yield about five hours. The Macbook Air got a price cut and now starts at $1499. The SSD model drops to $1799 – which is $700 below yesterday’s price.
Stay tuned for more news from WWDC.
