I finally am going Intel.
With the 17″ notebook, everything (i.e. what backpacks you purchase) revolves around it. Also since the resolution of the 15″ is the same as my old 17″, I’m switching back to 15″.
The wait
Back in March, I was expecting this release to be in August, and I’m still scratching my head over the delay of the release of this model. What happenned?
One big bummer about that, was that my Aperture eCoupon expired so I wasn’t able to get my $200 discount through their eStore. (Dave tells me a rebate coupon expiration is illegal in California.)
The differences
The obvious difference is the Core 2 Duo chip (and inherent speed bump). This causes heat issues to be a little better which means the Firewire 800 is back in the 15″. The graphics card has more memory.
I’m told that this thing takes a maximum of 3GB. Because 2GB 667Mhz DDR2 DIMMS cost $300, I didn’t upgrade it to 3GB (which costs over $500).
The hard drives are really slow (5400RPM). I think I’ll swap out my replacement 100GB 720RPM hard drive.
I wish there was 802.11n support in it, but I’m told it’s not done yet. 🙁 What will Apple call it? Airport Ludicrous?
Sweet.
Yah, 17″ is just too big. 15″ is such a nice size.
As for ram.
Check out Crucial or Kingston for certified Ram upgrades. Cheaper, and actually better quality than what Apple sells.
Yes, given that the upgrade price through Apple Store is like $550 and a stick price is around $300, I figured I’d use 2GB for a while, and upgrade to 3GB if I need it later.
One disappointing thing is that you can’t upgrade to 4GB.
My computer shipped out yesterday.
Also according to MacRumors, this model has an 802.11 draft n spec card which means that it may support 802.11n via firmware update next year.