Apple's Macbook, Pro, Air Gets Upgraded at WWDC 2009 ~ Tech Guru

Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicked off yesterday and missing from the event, of course, was Steve Jobs. In his place was Phil Schiller to give the keynote filled with some major announcements. While Schiller did a decent job, he is certainly no Steve Jobs.Watching the announcements from Apple at this year’s WWDC was a bit less exciting than we had thought it would be, mostly because we had to sit through 2 hours of iPhone app demos and unimpressive Snow Leopard rhetoric before we got to the iPhone 3GS and Safari 4 announcements. But at the beginning of the event, Apple started out with some interesting new MacBook Pro specs. Check them out below.

The biggest announcements for MacBook fans were about the 15-inch MacBook Pro. It’s getting a new Lithium Polymer battery (still non-replaceable, sorry guys) that will last for 7 hours on a charge and charge at least 100 times.

The screen got an improvement as well, with 60% more color gamut. Possibly the most controversial move for MacBook fans will be the inclusion of an SD card slot instead of an ExpressCard slot. Phil Schiller explained the decision by saying cameras have standardized in SD, and he’s right.

Other than that you get a 3.06 GHz Dual Core processor with 6MB Level 2 cache, up to 8GB of memory and your choice of a 500GB HDD or 256GB SSD. The lowest version (2.53GHz, 4GB memory, 250GB hard drive) will cost $1699, and the high end machine will cost $2299.

A small surprise came when Phil Schiller also announced significant updates to the 13-inch MacBook that earned it the right to be a MacBook Pro. Really. Schiller said the 7 hour battery life, new display, SD card slot, 500GB HDD or 256GB SSD, backlit keyboard, up to 8GB of memory and Firewire port qualified it to fit in the Pro category. We’re inclined to agree with him.

The low-end version will be $1199, and it will run up to $1499. The MacBook Air got a price update too. The Air will now cost between $1499 and $1799, which is significantly cheaper than it was before.

Apple Macbook

The 13-in. white Macbook, which I presumptively said was a “legacy” model, is now the new standard Macbook. That is to say that the aluminum unibody models have gained a “Pro” and left the unadorned Macbook name to their shinier polycarbonate sibling.

So what’s inside? A 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, for one, with 2GB DDR2 memory (can be upgraded to 4GB for an extra $100), a 160GB hard drive (several upgrades to 500GB) and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics. Outside, a standard keyboard and the classic white polycarbonate shell. All this for $999, which is to say that it’s a very affordable Apple laptop.

Apple Macbook Pro

The 13-in. unibody Macbook has graduated to “Pro,” now sporting an SD card slot, a non-replaceable 7-hour battery and much lower prices.

The following two flavors are available:

2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
160GB hard drive (upgradeable to 500GB HDD or 256GB SSD for lower prices than before)
SD card slot
Built-in 7-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
$1,199

and

2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
250GB hard drive (upgradeable to 500GB HDD or 256GB SSD)
SD card slot
Built-in 7-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
$1,499

Meanwhile, the 15-inch Macbook Pros get a refresh, too, with the same SD card slot and 7-hour non-replaceable battery.

Three flavors:

2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
250GB hard drive (upgradeable to 500GB HDD or 256GB SSD)
SD card slot
Built-in 7-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
$1,699

and

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
320GB hard drive (upgradeable to 500GB HDD or 256GB SSD)
SD card slot
Built-in 7-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB
$1,999

and

2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
500GB hard drive (upgradeable to 256GB SSD)
SD card slot
Built-in 7-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB
$2,299

Finally, the 17-inch Macbook Pro now stands alone as the be-all, end-all of Apple portable power. No surprises here — it’s the best of everything Apple’s got:

2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
500GB hard drive (upgradeable to 256GB SSD)
ExpressCard/34 slot
Built-in 8-hour battery
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB
$2,499

Finally, the Macbook Air got a refresh (note the solid-state drive in the second configuration) and a lower price point.

Two flavors:

1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB RAM
120GB SATA hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
$1,499

and

2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
128GB SSD
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
$1,799

Simply, it’s cheaper than ever to buy a Mac. And with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard announced as a $29 upgrade in September, a compelling one, too.