It's Happened! New Intel Macs!

monkeymax

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Well, the Intel Macs have finally been given names!
The MacBook Pro
The New iMac

They look really good - I've not yet had a chance to read everything in detail, but hey... everyone knew they were coming. It was just a question of when and which one(s)?

I must admit I'm skeptical about the claimed 4x speed increase of the MacBook Pro over the previous Powerbook and the 2x increase of the iMac and can't wait to see this tested by other sources. (And I'm a self-confessed avid Mac fan who's owned and used a Mac almost all my life, and still slogging along on a 7 year old Powerbook that desparately needs replacing)

But still, I'm really happy. It's about time the Powerbooks got that proper speed bump they deserve.

What's more, I was on the verge of buying a 15" PowerBook last week but decided to wait till this weeks MWSF. How pleased I am that I did! Just a shame I can't get the offer anymore that meant I could afford the thing last week... :(

Ironically (and somewhat frustratingly) my old Apple Powerbook crashes when I go to view the details on the new Apples on Apples site... I think it may be trying to say something! ;)


Edit: Now I'm annoyed. I know that here in the UK we pay more for electronics than the 'States, but this is just stupid.
The MacBook costs $1999 (which at today's exchange rate comes out at ?1,132.77) at the online US Apple Store. But the same computer from the UK Apple Store (again online) is ?1429! Where'd the extra 300 pounds come from?! :censored: I've not been this annoyed with Apple for a while. I was going to have to wait till I got back from snowboarding next month as it was, but now it seems I'll likely have to wait till Summer before I can afford one... :(
 
mmm I can't wait until I have money from starting work. My current powerbook is about to leave it's 3 year warranty period, so it's about time for a new laptop, and a MacBook Pro sounds like a good purchase. I might get an iMac though since my old laptop would still work for browsing the internet from the living room.
 
matt_shaw said:
this is bullshit. i want the amd chips in the macs

Yeah, I'd have preferred that too (my PC is AMD powered) but at least they finally now have some chips with some future and speed in them...
 
but still AMD is 92050258084639760x ahead of intel. from what i can gather apple only went with intel because they could produce the chips alot faster
 
matt_shaw said:
but still AMD is 92050258084639760x ahead of intel. from what i can gather apple only went with intel because they could produce the chips alot faster

Its a move into the right direction. It's fairly simple for them to make the jump to AMD chips after they move the software, developers and customers over to an x86 architecture. I think Intel has some promise to provide a decent mobile platform, along with some powerful desktop machines. They aren't going to be gaming machines, but thats not what Apple customers want.
 
Intel is also in a much better position to provide marketing support and to help in the transition of software from PPC-based code to x86-based code.
 
chaos386 said:
Intel is also in a much better position to provide marketing support and to help in the transition of software from PPC-based code to x86-based code.

Are the new iMacs really using Intel processors? I went to their website and they still only showed the G5 models. :unsure:

That's what they said during the keynote today. There are two versions available in the American apple store, intel and G5s.
 
Rrrrr, I just saw them now and tried to edit my post in time. When I checked earlier today I was redirected to the old site or something. :?

EDIT: I have to say, $1,300 does not seem like a bad price for those iMacs. Especially when they come with integrated widescreen displays and DVD burners.
 
hokiethang said:
That's what they said during the keynote today. There are two versions available in the American apple store, intel and G5s.

I just wonder if anyone is actually gonna bother with the G5 version anymore? The Intel version is going to be the same price, isn't it? Okay, it means you have to wait a month but I reckon most people would given the obvious advantages (well, those who know about anything computers)...


Edit: No G5 iMacs available on the UK Online Apple Store... And once again the price is quite inflated compared to the US Store... I wonder if this has always been their practice? (200 pound difference this time on the lower end one)
 
monkeymax said:
hokiethang said:
That's what they said during the keynote today. There are two versions available in the American apple store, intel and G5s.

I just wonder if anyone is actually gonna bother with the G5 version anymore? The Intel version is going to be the same price, isn't it? Okay, it means you have to wait a month but I reckon most people would given the obvious advantages (well, those who know about anything computers)...

well, I'd think Apple will shortly lower the prices on the G5 to clear out their inventory, now that new iMacs are out. I'd buy a G5 if it were cheaper. I have no idea why they haven't dropped the price on the G5, it may just be they don't want to be obvious about it (by selling the rest of them in the "outlet") at a drastic markdown. There are some iMac G5s in the outlet now for $949.

But why any sane person would buy an imac G5 for the same price as an intel imac, I don't know.
 
I love the marketing spin. After years of saying their processors are as good as intels and AMDs only 934213987x slower, mac seems to admit their processors were shite:

You?ve dreamed about it long enough. Now it has a name: MacBook Pro. Powered by a dual-core Intel engine. Up to four times the speed of the PowerBook G4. Eight times the graphics bandwidth.
 
This is probably quite a stupid question... but since its running on intel chips, is it possible to run windows on it now?
 
I love the slogan....

"What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC."
 
hokiethang said:
andyhui01 said:
This is probably quite a stupid question... but since its running on intel chips, is it possible to run windows on it now?

Yes,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10794396/from/RS.3/

but I have no idea why anyone would want to run windows on it, when you get OS X with it.

OSX is such a stupid operating system. It's useless. Sure it looks nice and there's plenty of eye candy, but macs have never been intuitive and never do what u want them to do.

Mac: Crash Different.
 
flyingfridge said:
OSX is such a stupid operating system. It's useless. Sure it looks nice and there's plenty of eye candy, but macs have never been intuitive and never do what u want them to do.

Mac: Crash Different.


I'm sorry, but I'm with Zenkidori on this one. My old Mac is a 266MHz G3 Mac and it loads Outlook, IE, and even Microsoft Word faster than my 2GHz PC can do. I'm not kidding - it seriously is faster. Okay, Word may be a few years older (I'm running 2001 on the Mac and 2003 on the PC) but it's still got all the bells and whistles - in fact Office on the Mac has always been better than the PC version.

What's more, even OS9 that I run on that Mac is more intuitive than WinXP. It's more customizable too, so if I prefer doing something a different way it's so very easy to set it up that way.

OSX seems even better. Sure, I can't claim I have great experience in it as you can only count my usage of it in hours rather than days (though around 10-12 hours) but it seems to work better than OS9. And IMO that's great because that's more intuitive. And it extends beyond the OS and into the applications that Apple produce - and more importantly the applications bundled with it. Applications like iLife, iPhoto and iMovie...

I'm going to bet that you're basing your experience on your School Macs? Years ago when I was at school, none of my computer admins knew how to handle the Macs so they were always left in a bad state by other students. I'd say it's probably the worst place to test run any computer...

But anyway, I really didn't want this to become a Mac bashing thread. Take it elsewhere. I can understand that there are people who don't like OSX (though I don't always understand their reasons) but I don't understand their need to announce it to the world. I used to defend Apple to the hilt with my friends but these days I just can't be bothered. I like Apple, you don't - let's just leave it at that please.

For the record though, my old housemate (last year) had a PC all his life. He thought Apples were stupid and rubbish - the arguments we had were crazy. Then his sister bought one and he got to play with it over a weekend. The next week he'd ordered himself a 17" Powerbook which he now uses more than his PC... now he's the one who says I should buy a new Powerbook... :)
 
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