For $94 difference, I’d pick the new models without hesitation – you get a slightly faster CPU, one-third faster video (estimated), USB 3, and a free upgrade to Mountain Lion when it releases in July. MacMall is selling brand new 2011 13-inchers at a discount: $1,100 for the 2.4 GHz i5 model and $1,350 for the 2.8 GHz i7. And the refurbished 2.8 GHz i7 model saves you $350! USB 3 would be nice, but with that price difference…. You save $270 at the entry level, but if you don’t need the better graphics or slightly faster CPU of the 2012 model, the 2.4 GHz model offers a lot for the price.
Close-outsĪpple is blowing out refurbished 13″ MacBook Pros at $929 for the 2.4 GHz i5 model and $1,149 for the 2.8 GHz i7 machine. You get to choose between 5400 rpm hard drives and fast (but expensive) 128, 256, or 512 GB SSDs at $200, $500, and $1,000 respectively. 4 GB of memory is going to be fine with OS X 10.7 Lion most of the time, although OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will undoubtedly be a bit more demanding of hardware – and when OS X 10.9 ships (probably next year), it will probably be more demanding yet.įortunately, it’s easy to upgrade memory in MacBook Pro models, so if you find 4 GB just isn’t enough, you can upgrade later.Īpple doesn’t offer any high speed hard drives for the 13″ MBP. Most users are going to find 500 GB of storage more than enough, and I suspect the dual-core 2.5 GHz i5 processor is going to also be plenty of power for the vast majority of users. It’s disappointing that Apple doesn’t even offer that as an extra cost build-to-order option. Probably the biggest drawback of the 13″ MacBook Pro is its 1280 x 800 pixel 13.3″ display – exactly the same resolution as the first MacBook offered in 2006 and less than the 1440 x 900 included with the 13.3″ MacBook Air. Compare this with the Late 2011 13-incher, which has a 2.4 GHz dual-core i5, 4 GB of RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive at the same retail price and its faster 2.8 GHz twin, with the same 4 GB of memory and a 750 GB hard drive.įactor in USB 3 on the 2012 machines, and you’ve got a much faster data bus for backing up or booting from an external drive. The step-up model gives you a 2.9 GHz dual-core i7, 8 GB of memory (Apple’s stated maximum, although OWC can sell you 16 GB), and a 750 GB hard drive.
The new entry-level 13″ MacBook Pro has a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 CPU, 4 GB of system memory, and a 500 GB hard drive in its base $1,199 configuration. On the down side, the new SSDs use a different connector than earlier ones, so no third-party alternatives will be available for a while.Īs the new models are so new, we haven’t seen any benchmarks yet, so we’ll have to make some educated guesses along the way. On the SSD front, it looks like Apple has adopted SandForce-based SSDs* with 6 Gb/s SATA Revision 3, so you’ll see the maximum possible SSD performance. 10x is simply the maximum improvement you’ll see. Bear in mind that just because USB 3 has 10x the bandwidth of USB 2.0 doesn’t mean the drives themselves will have 10x higher throughput. USB 3 has 10x the bandwidth of USB 2.0 and half that of Thunderbolt, which should be perfect for most users. USB 3 is a biggie, as USB 3 drives have been available for quite a while and are far less costly than Thunderbolt drives. 12), and Apple is claiming up to 60% improvement there. HD 4000 graphics has one-third more cores than 3000 (16 vs. Ivy Bridge means a bit more processing power and improved energy consumption. Yesterday Apple overhauled its entire notebook line, moving everything to Ivy Bridge CPUs with Intel HD Graphics 4000 and USB 3.