The updated Macbook range

[Bounty]

Say someone wants to buy himself a Macbook, say sometime around now, would it be better to wait until the supposed new model comes out in October (is that confirmed, by the way?) and buy that one, wait and buy the old model discounted (does Apple do that?), or just get the old model now (is there even much of a difference?)?

ETA: updated thread title

[General Zod]

It hasn't been confirmed, but given Apple's recent release of new iPods and price drops, I wouldn't be surprised if it were accurate. If you don't need it "right now" holding off til October might be prudent.

[Bounty]

Do Apple generally launch worldwide simultaneously? And what sort of discount do they give on the older models - enough to ignore the new one altogether?

[DaveJB]

Apple themselves simply don't do discounts on their older products, but retailers are often more eager to shift old stock, and you can get some decent discounts from there.

Having said that, if (big IF) the rumour mill is true, the new MacBooks will have vastly superior graphics chips to the current models, so they might actually be worth the money. Of course, if graphics aren't seriously important to you, then picking up a discounted older MacBook might be a good bet.

[Praxis]

Wait about a week for Apple's upcoming event.
Can you get education discount? Apple's having the back to school deal with free iPods.

[Bounty]

Wait about a week for Apple's upcoming event.
Can you get education discount? Apple's having the back to school deal with free iPods.

Nice. I'll wait another week to see if the new Macbook's worth the upgrade.

[Phantasee]

For what it's worth, when I went to buy my iPod, I had the brilliant plan to wait until they released the 6G Classic. I figured, I'd pick up the 80GB 5G Video, and it'd be cheaper, right? It was running for about $380 here. When they released the 6G, of course, the 5G was discounted, like I expected. To $300.

I waited two weeks and picked up a 6G for $280 instead (plus it was slimmer!)

[Praxis]

Wait about a week for Apple's upcoming event.
Can you get education discount? Apple's having the back to school deal with free iPods.

Nice. I'll wait another week to see if the new Macbook's worth the upgrade.

IF there's a new Macbook. Rumors suggest so, but they're rumors. All we know officially is that there is an Apple event.

[General Zod]

Wait about a week for Apple's upcoming event.
Can you get education discount? Apple's having the back to school deal with free iPods.

Nice. I'll wait another week to see if the new Macbook's worth the upgrade.

IF there's a new Macbook. Rumors suggest so, but they're rumors. All we know officially is that there is an Apple event.

What else could they possibly be unveiling? They unveiled the Macbook Airs around this time of year, so an updated Macbook is the thing that makes the most sense.

[Crown]

Apple themselves simply don't do discounts on their older products, but retailers are often more eager to shift old stock, and you can get some decent discounts from there.

Having said that, if (big IF) the rumour mill is true, the new MacBooks will have vastly superior graphics chips to the current models, so they might actually be worth the money. Of course, if graphics aren't seriously important to you, then picking up a discounted older MacBook might be a good bet.

Oooh, very interested in this. Currently running WoW at a whopping 19fps average, would love to know if the new MacBooks will improve that, might go in for a trade in on this one (which is only 1 year old and I love, but if I can get rid of the 11fps lag in Shattrath - soon to be Dalaaran - it will be worth it).

[phongn]

Apple has an even on 14 October which will almost certainly be about the new laptops.

[General Zod]

Apple has an even on 14 October which will almost certainly be about the new laptops.

It's officially about new laptops.

Some of the bigger rumors include more pricing points (a new line?) and $800 macbooks.

[DaveJB]

Well, the specifications have been announced: the New MacBook has a GeForce 9400M. Not exactly a speed demon but far, far better than anything offered by Intel.

Perhaps more oddly noteworthy is that FireWire has been completely dropped from the new MacBooks.

[General Zod]

Perhaps more oddly noteworthy is that FireWire has been completely dropped from the new MacBooks.

Not terribly surprising. Other than backwards compatibility is there any kind of reason at all to use Firewire over USB 2.0?

[phongn]

Perhaps more oddly noteworthy is that FireWire has been completely dropped from the new MacBooks.

Not terribly surprising. Other than backwards compatibility is there any kind of reason at all to use Firewire over USB 2.0?

You can use it to make a Mac act like a HD (in case you need to pull data off a machine that isn't fully booting) and FW is much better for A/V use. It also requires much less CPU time.

[Durandal]

Perhaps more oddly noteworthy is that FireWire has been completely dropped from the new MacBooks.

Not terribly surprising. Other than backwards compatibility is there any kind of reason at all to use Firewire over USB 2.0?

From a purely technical standpoint, FireWire is a far better-designed bus. The idea of a hub is implicit in the design, and there are nifty features like resumable transactions. So if you start a file copy from a FireWire drive, unplug the drive, you can plug it in within a few seconds and pick up the copy as though nothing happened. Power over the bus is also far better defined. USB 2.0 doesn't specify a very high amperage to go across, which usually results in too little power going across to power an external hard drive. This means you need an external power supply, which means another cable. With FireWire, it's far more likely that the bus will be able to power your drive.

That said, USB is certainly the more popular standard, and FireWire 800 having a different connector than FireWire 400 didn't help any. USB started small, which gave it a huge advantage. USB was plug-and-play and provided more than enough bandwidth for simple peripherals like mice, keyboards and printers. This gave it a huge installed base at the offset, while relegating FireWire to niche markets like high-end digital video cameras. So when USB's data rates became competitive with FireWire, it just wasn't much of a competition.

Really a shame, but pretty much a replay of the VHS/BetaMax wars.

[Bounty]

Looks like I won't be getting a Macbook after all, but Apple's got at least one sale from one of my friends.

(By the way, Mac fans can be scary. We followed the presentation on Gizmodo and she threw a fit when she saw the audience was mostly using XP. How dare they.)

Question, is the bottom-end Macbook white the same model as the "real" Macbooks but with the old graphics chipset, or is it just a repackaged last-gen Macbook?

[DaveJB]

It still uses the white plastic case, so it looks like it's just a previous-gen MacBook with a slightly faster processor and larger hard drive as standard.

EDIT: There's a review of the desktop version of the GeForce 9400 here. The performance gains are extreme to say the least, apart from one or two cases with obvious driver problems. Compared with the GMA X3100 in current MacBooks, the performance advantage is:

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars = 7x faster
Company of Heroes = 2.9x faster
Race Driver GRID = 4.6x faster (could turn out even better; there seems to be some problems with nVidia's graphics driver here)
Age of Conan = 3.6x faster
Crysis = 3.8x faster

[rhoenix]

(This is a slight thread hijack, as the new models have since come out)

Ok. So now, the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros have come out. Will any of them be capable of a high-resolution screen, or will that be limited to only the huge-ass 17" model, which hasn't been updated yet?

[Bounty]

Hijack away, I got all the info I came for.

[DaveJB]

(This is a slight thread hijack, as the new models have since come out)

Ok. So now, the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros have come out. Will any of them be capable of a high-resolution screen, or will that be limited to only the huge-ass 17" model, which hasn't been updated yet?

All of the updated ones have the same screen resolution as they did before (i.e. 1280x800 for the MacBook and MacBook Air, and 1440x900 for the MacBook Pro). No clues as to when the ETA on an updated 17" model might be.

[General Zod]

(This is a slight thread hijack, as the new models have since come out)

Ok. So now, the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros have come out. Will any of them be capable of a high-resolution screen, or will that be limited to only the huge-ass 17" model, which hasn't been updated yet?

13" Macbook:

Supported resolutions: 1280 by 800 (native), 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio

15" Macbook Pro:

Supported resolutions: 1440 by 900 (native), 1280 by 800, 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio stretched; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio stretched

17" Macbook Pro:

Supported resolutions: 1920 by 1200 (native), 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640, and 800 by 500 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio; 1280 by 1024 pixels at 5:4 aspect ratio; 1280 by 1024 pixels at 5:4 aspect ratio stretched; 1600 by 1200, 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio; 1600 by 1200, 1024 by 768, 800 by 600, and 640 by 480 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio stretched; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio; 720 by 480 pixels at 3:2 aspect ratio stretched

[rhoenix]

Alright, so what I read was indeed correct, and Apple's not offering a high-resolution option for their new Macbook Pro's yet. Damn.

Well, thank you both.

[Stark]

Is there a role for high-res 13" screens? My 22 wide only does 16x10, and my old 19 only did 12x9, and they were fine for general use and gaming. Is this a video editing thing?

[rhoenix]

Is there a role for high-res 13" screens? My 22 wide only does 16x10, and my old 19 only did 12x9, and they were fine for general use and gaming. Is this a video editing thing?

Nothing so grandiose, I'm afraid. This is merely about having more on-screen real estate, so more windows can be open at once.