The New Apple Macbook Pro 15" Laptop

Apple Logo

After a lots of rumors and leaks and anecdotal evidences, Apple has finally announced the launch of their long awaited updates on Macbook Pro series of Notebooks.

Significantly, Macbook pro series are the first products to feature the Intel's  new Thunderbolt Technology (formerly known as Light Peak) The Thunderbolt Technology is envisioned as a successor to USB, FireWire,  Display Port, allowing peripherals to carry data and video at 10 Gbps. The Thunderbolt port on the Macbook pro laptops look identical to the existing display port connections.

Thunderbolt port on Macbook Pro

The third big change is in the laptops internal graphic processor. Instead of the Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics previously found in these systems, the default graphics come from Intel's HD 3000 GPU, which is the improved, integrated graphics that come bundled with the current Sandy Bridge generation of Intel's Core i-series processors. For the larger 15- and 17-inch models that include discrete graphics, the GPUs now come from AMD instead of longtime rival Nvidia.

The new MacBook Pros also get a new higher-resolution FaceTime HD camera. As the name implies, Apple is also bringing the iPhone's FaceTime video-calling software to the Mac.
Like the previous MacBook Pro line, these new models all start with a minimum of 4GB of RAM, and the lowest-end 13-inch MacBook Pro gets a hard-drive bump from 250GB to 320GB.

Macbook Pro 15"

The specifications for the Apple Macbook Pro includes following:

• 2.3Ghz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Sandy Bridge)
• 4GB of 1333Mhz DDR3 SDRAM (faster than the old MacBook Pro)
• 320GB hard drive (no SSD on the base model)
• Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB of shared memory
• 1280×800 resolution (unchanged)
• FaceTime HD camera (iSight has been re-branded completely, it appears)
• 8x SuperDrive (unchanged)
• SDXC slot (the slot now supports the SDXC format)
• FireWire 800 port
• 2 USB 2.0 ports
• Thunderbolt/Mini DisplayPort (this is Light Peak)