Apple's next-gen MacBook Pro family announced in India, prices slashed

Apple has introduced the new MacBook Pro family, featuring some sparkling new tech and significantly different specs from the previous generation, but remain much the same on the outside. There are five models split between the three sizes – two 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros, and one 17-inch MacBook Pro – and all of them will feature Intel’s Sandy Bridge chips, in Core i5 and i7 variants. Find the India pricing, which has dropped in some models, in the table at the bottom of the article.

The MacBook Pro family also introduces Intel’s first iteration of Light Peak technology, the dual-channel I/O ‘Thunderbolt’, which promises up to 10Gbps bi-directional transfer speeds. Read more on Thunderbolt, here. But while MacBook Pro notebooks are available with Thunderbolt right now, devices supporting them will only arrive in the latter part of the year. Many major storage manufacturers however, have vowed support for both Thunderbolt and other future Light Peak technologies.

Intel Thunderbolt port

All the MacBook Pro laptops also ship with a FireWire 800 port on board, while the 17-inch model has an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of a SDXC card slot.

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Apple’s latest generation of MacBook Pro laptops differ from last in two other major aspects – they feature AMD Mobility Radeon graphics (6000M) instead of Nvidia’s offerings, and, have new FaceTime HD cameras for video-chat, which offer 3 times the resolution as their iSight predecessors, promising full HD video conferencing. FaceTime for Mac has also been released, available for 99 cents on the Mac Store. All the laptops feature LED-backlit screens, with a choice of glossy or anti-glare coating (not in 13-inch models). The 15-inch models also come with a choice of 1680x1050 high-resolutions screens, instead of the 1440x900 default.

Importantly, the 13-inch MacBook Pro models do not feature discrete graphics, but apparently, Apple and Intel are confident the Sandy Bridge assisted Intel HD 3000 graphics will be up to the challenge. Check out other important specifications, including India pricing, below:


 

Model	13-inch MacBook Pro		15-inch MacBook Pro		17-inch MacBook Pro
U.S. Price	$1,199	$1,499	$1,799	$2,199	$2,499
India Price	Rs. 69,900 (inclusive of VAT)	Rs. 84,900 (inclusive of VAT)	Rs. 104,900 (inclusive of VAT)	Rs. 124,900 (inclusive of VAT)	Rs. 142,900 (inclusive of VAT)
Display	13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display	13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display	15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy or optional antiglare widescreen display	15.4-inch LED-backlit glossy or optional antiglare widescreen display	17-inch high-resolution LED-backlit glossy or optional antiglare widescreen display
CPU	2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor	2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor	2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor	2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor	2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor
HDD	320GB 5400-rpm hard drive	500GB 5400-rpm hard drive	500GB 5400-rpm hard drive	750GB 5400-rpm hard drive	750GB 5400-rpm hard drive
Integrated Graphics	Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory	Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory	Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory	Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory	Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 384MB DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory
Discrete Graphics			AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256MB GDDR5 memory	AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5 memory	AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5 memory
Memory	4GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM, up to 8GB	4GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM, up to 8GB	4GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM, up to 8GB	4GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM, up to 8GB	4GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM, up to 8GB
Battery Life	Up to 7 hours (wireless web browsing)	Up to 7 hours (wireless web browsing)	Up to 7 hours (wireless web browsing)	Up to 7 hours (wireless web browsing)	Up to 7 hours (wireless web browsing)
Battery Strength	Built-in lithium-polymer 63.5 watt-hour	Built-in lithium-polymer 63.5 watt-hour	Built-in lithium-polymer 77.5 watt-hour	Built-in lithium-polymer 77.5 watt-hour	Built-in lithium-polymer 95 watt-hour