[turbulentfurball]

17-inch widescreen display 1680 x 1050 resolution 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo(1) 1GB (single SODIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM 120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive 8x double-layer SuperDrive ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory One FireWire 400, one FireWire 800, and three USB 2.0 ports

Firewire 800 is back, which should please many, as should the SuperDrive. Way way way more expensive than I could ever afford, but it looks sweet nonetheless.

Shipping in 7 to 10 Days allegedly. We'll see!

[Brave Ulysses]

Thought we could possibly see an internal HD RAID

And then I woke up. With it being so much wider I always desire either better battery capacity or a 2nd hard drive....or something

[Brave Ulysses]

Oh yea,

It's pretty expensive and I expected them to offer the faster core duo.

Oh well. First rev.

[MCQ]

Press release for anyone interested:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060424/sfm116.html?.v=34

[macleod]

Wow. That was unexpected. A pleasant surprise to me for a boring monday morning! I would never get one because I want something smaller not bigger, but it is nice to see that the move to intel is continuing and they are somewhat going back to the full line they used to offer in the powerbook.
Anybody know or think they know if FW800 will be put on the intel iMacs in the next update? Does this bode well for it?

[zippy]

The standard 120 GB 5400 RPM hard drive can be changed to a 100 GB 7200 RPM drive for no change in cost. I would have thought they would just do the 7200 RPM standard.

Also note that the 17" Powerbook has been pulled from the store - as they did with the 15" when it was released.

[ironlung]

Thats interesting.. they discontinued the powerbook 17 from the apple store already. Still shows the powerbook 12.

[macleod]

I hope that means they are going to complete the line and discontinue the 12 inch PB with a 13 inch widescreen MBP.

[turbulentfurball]

I just had a look at the pricing and didn't see much of a difference between the 15.4" and the 17". If you equip the 15.4" to similar specs as the 17" it actually costs more than the 17". (In the UK store at least.)

A 15.4" with 2.16GHz CPU and 120GiB HD costs £2059 versus £1999 for the 17".

[macleod]

15.4" fully maxed out is $2929 and the fully maxed out 17" is $2869 in the US store.
100GB 7200 rpm and 2gb of ram and 2.126 GHz processor.

[Brave Ulysses]

Originally Posted by turbulentfurball I just had a look at the pricing and didn't see much of a difference between the 15.4" and the 17". If you equip the 15.4" to similar specs as the 17" it actually costs more than the 17". (In the UK store at least.) A 15.4" with 2.16GHz CPU and 120GiB HD costs £2059 versus £1999 for the 17".

This is true. But the sticker price is just so high compared to the market. Makes me realize even more how overpriced the 15 inch model is

[zippy]

Really? When I max out a 17" with 2GB Ram, I get $3099... and $3199 for the 15" maxed out (with no firewire 800)??

[chucker]

Originally Posted by MACleod Anybody know or think they know if FW800 will be put on the intel iMacs in the next update? Does this bode well for it?

No, I don't think so. FW800 is too much of a pro / high-end / small-market-segment feature. It'll be in the Mac Pro, I suppose. As for the 15-inch one not having it: again, a matter of space. You can also tell by the fact that the 17-inch has one additional USB port.

[macleod]

Education discount for being in college, sorry forgot to go to the regular apple store.

[pscates2.0]

Pretty reasonable, and about what I was expecting (yes, including the iSight...face it, Apple is going to stick that anywhere they can, corporate/defense security concerns or not).

It's the same thickness (1") as the 15" model, yet this one manages to pack the 8x Dual Layer SuperDrive. What gives? An artificial (rather than technical) delineator put into place by Apple, to make the 17" look better? Or will the 15" get it on its Rev. B?

My only gripe/WTH comment: why release some huge, expensive thing when everyone in the world is really waiting for the long overdue iBook replacement (and why not release this back in January at MWSF since there isn't much different here, other than the size). This 17" model could've been flying off the shelves the past three or so months too, not just the 15". I don't see anything about it that required a four-month separation. Announce them in tandem, a complete pro notebook line.



Odd.

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by MACleod I hope that means they are going to complete the line and discontinue the 12 inch PB with a 13 inch widescreen MBP.

I don't think we can jump to that conclusion yet. It's also possible that when they debut the MacBook non-Pro they'll discontinue the iBooks and the 12" PB at the same time.

[MCQ]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 My only gripe/WTH comment: why release some huge, expensive thing when everyone in the world is really waiting for the long overdue iBook replacement (and why not release this back in January at MWSF since there isn't much different here, other than the size). Odd.

Don't know why it wasn't done in Jan, but this week is NAB convention - thus the release.

Another reason could be that they didn't want to take on additional orders that they'd have to backfill while waiting for Core Duo availability to pick up over last quarter.

[macleod]

Any one ordered one yet?

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by MACleod Any one ordered one yet?

Oh my God... you just made me realize that this will mean the resurrection of the ship date thread. I wish that thread would die.

[macleod]

HAHA. It does nothing but make me jealous (even though I am waiting for merom processor updates (hopefully))!

[turbulentfurball]

Originally Posted by chucker As for the 15-inch one not having it: again, a matter of space. You can also tell by the fact that the 17-inch has one additional USB port.

The 15" Powerbook had a FW 800 port did it not? Perhaps the Intel chip-set requires more room on the motherboard than the G4, so there was no room for a FW 800 port. Complete guess on my part.

Originally Posted by fcgriz Oh my God... you just made me realize that this will mean the resurrection of the ship date thread. I wish that thread would die.

qft!

[Wyatt]

Originally Posted by turbulentfurball The 15" Powerbook had a FW 800 port did it not? Perhaps the Intel chip-set requires more room on the motherboard than the G4, so there was no room for a FW 800 port. Complete guess on my part. qft!

Yes, the 15" PB had FW800 and a dual-layer superdrive, neither of which the 15" MBP has, and both of which the 17" MBP does have.

[ghoti]

It's pretty cool that they are shipping the 17" and also the faster 15" with 1GB of RAM now. The price is rather steep, and the 17" is simply too big for me. But it's great that they made that step. And on a Monday, it's even more surprising.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by turbulentfurball The 15" Powerbook had a FW 800 port did it not? Perhaps the Intel chip-set requires more room on the motherboard than the G4, so there was no room for a FW 800 port. Complete guess on my part.

The 15-inch PowerBook was thicker and thus had more space. It also used a completely different horizontal component layout.

Making the MBP thinner was an idealistic decision; re-layouting components was probably one for heat dissipation improvements.

It can only be guessed whether Apple removed FW800 out of space issues, or because they wanted people to wait for the 17-inch model and pay a higher price, but I still firmly believe the former.

Originally Posted by fcgriz Oh my God... you just made me realize that this will mean the resurrection of the ship date thread. I wish that thread would die.

So true. One of the worst threads ever.

[scratt]

Sweet! My new machine is ready. Thanks Apple!

Only need to get a little 12" job for travelling now and I'll be set for a few years again..

[Dr_LHA]

So, chucker, are you going to eat crow for taking the piss out of me when I said that Apple would be stupid not to include FW800? I believe you compared it to including a floppy disk drive?

[ironlung]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 My only gripe/WTH comment: why release some huge, expensive thing when everyone in the world is really waiting for the long overdue iBook replacement (and why not release this back in January at MWSF since there isn't much different here, other than the size). This 17" model could've been flying off the shelves the past three or so months too, not just the 15". I don't see anything about it that required a four-month separation. Announce them in tandem, a complete pro notebook line. Odd.

I think the ibook/macbooks havent been released yet maybe because they have a surplus of ibook g4s they want to get rid off. And perhaps thats what they wanted to do with the powerbook 17.. so that pro users out of fear of not having universal adobe software would be tempted to buy the 17? I dont know. I think im talking out of my ass. Its early.

[alcimedes]

I wonder if the 17", delayed 4 months would count as a Rev. A product then or a Rev. B built off the 15". Choices choices.

I hate Rev. A's from apple, but really want a 17".......

[hotch]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 My only gripe/WTH comment: why release some huge, expensive thing when everyone in the world is really waiting for the long overdue iBook replacement (and why not release this back in January at MWSF since there isn't much different here, other than the size). This 17" model could've been flying off the shelves the past three or so months too, not just the 15". I don't see anything about it that required a four-month separation. Announce them in tandem, a complete pro notebook line.

This transition is being dictated by stock levels... they need to run out of ibooks before they release macbooks, they needed to run out of 17" PBs before releasing this one

[macleod]

Originally Posted by alcimedes I wonder if the 17", delayed 4 months would count as a Rev. A product then or a Rev. B built off the 15". Choices choices. I hate Rev. A's from apple, but really want a 17".......

Just bite the bullet and order it. I think they have the main bugs worked out and it can be cosidered a Rev. B because it is basically just a bigger 15.4" MBP with cool "pro" features!