Not even a week after the 23” Cinema Displays made their way out of the store, the 24” LED display has taken over. The sexy display, which for the first time includes a built-in iSight, a glossy display, a new DisplayPort connector, as well as a Mag Safe connector to power your MacBook. Or to put things into perspective, your new MacBook. 

We all saw this coming (except maybe for Apple), that the new LED displays will only connect to a computer with a DisplayPort connector. And since besides the new MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, there are no other devices in the market sporting the DisplayPort standard, the new display will only be usable with these three. They haven’t even made any converters to connect this to anything other than DisplayPort. Thankfully, the reverse of this is true, which is that you can connect any monitor (using converters) to a new MacBook or MacBook Pro. 

Apple seems to have made a mess with their display lineup. Not only is this a glossy (and therefore unprofessional) display, it also cannot connect to Apple’s own professional machine, the Mac Pro. Having being left to choose between just a 20” display and a 30” display, I’m sure Dell is going to sell quite a few of those new 23” pro monitors. Come Macworld 09, Apple is definitely going to convert its entire lineup to feature DisplayPort connectors and glossy displays.

The new LED Display sells for a rather high steep price of $900, and is shipping today from the Apple online store (US). A few of the Apple retail stores have also got models for display and retail. The rest of the world awaits.

This past week, we received the new MacBook Pro at our test labs (Thanks, Aditya). Yes, we’re aware how early we got our hands on it, but that’s how things work here in India. In fact, Apple’s new releases have been reaching the shores far more early compared to the previous years. I’ve had the pleasure of using the unit to my heart’s content and besides a few cons, the new design is one of the best things Apple has produced in its entire history. 

Since it has been quite a while now that the new products have been available for sale in the international markets, a wide array of blogs have already written in-depth reviews of the MacBook Pro. Our unboxing and product pictures are available in the gallery here. We urge you to take a look at the gallery, as we have some really awesome shots waiting for you. Continue Reading »

As awesome as the buttonless glass Multi-touch trackpads on the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros may be, they’re plagued by a serious drawback—they randomly ignore left clicks whenever it strikes their fancy. Apparently, it’s quite a widespread issue and a significant number of users have been complaining about it on Apple centric discussion forums everywhere.

One of the affected users, however, decided to go one step further and send an email directly to the captain of the ship, Steve Jobs, at his publicly known email address. As he details on his blog, he later got a call from an Apple representative who assured him that it was a known issue and that they were looking into it, although he couldn’t offer any temporary fix in the meanwhile.

The person in question (I really wish he’d taken the time to at least identify himself on his blog) then enquired about the looseness of the hinge on the new MacBook Pro, which causes the lid to fall shut when the notebook is raised from the rear end, and the Apple guy told him that this was how the hinge was designed this time round and that it wasn’t a flaw.

Moral of the story: If you’re having clicking issues with the trackpad on your new unibody MacBook or MacBook Pro, be patient because there might be a fix on the horizon. If, however, you just can’t get that darned lid to stay upright, a little scotch tape and a couple of small sticks just might get the job done.

[Via AppleInsider]

With the release of the new MacBooks, Apple has done away with the matte screens on its 15-inch MacBook Pros and is only offering the glossy option. Currently, the only matte displays in Apple’s entire lineup are the old Cinema Displays and the one on the 17-inch MacBook Pro, both of which may soon be upgraded to glossy as well. 

This has obviously triggered a lot of whining in the very vocal Apple community. By the looks of it, everyone seems to want matte. So I decided to do a survey, asking only those who have actually purchased either of the new notebooks which display they preferred. I posed the question to our Twitter followers, scoured the Internet forums, and personally confirmed each of the statements. 

Surprisingly, most of the users I spoke to are not worried about the glossy screens. [Update: Look at the comments! People hate them!] Aside from comments on popular blogs (which I can’t confirm), I couldn’t find any MacBook user who was not satisfied with the display. Here are just some of the replies I got for the new glossy displays.

“I was worried about glossy screen due to the whining, but I dont have any problems except for few more fingerprints and some glare,” says one of the replies on Twitter.

“If you ‘look’ at the glare, then you can see it. But if you can get that out of your head, the glare is almost non visible. And if the reflection is too much, just tilting the screen a bit makes it go away. I was very disappointed at first when they said glossy only, but the display is so bright and vivid that I just can’t think of going back to a matte display,” answers another new MacBook owner. 

“It’s *beautiful* but the glass gets dirty easily and definitely has glare problems,” says another reply on Twitter. Fingerprints are a major complaint when it comes to the glass displays. However, note that cleaning the glass screen of the new MacBook is much easier since the glass extends right to the edges. 

“I’ve used the MacBook Pro in bright sunlight, and it still is awesome. They are all just whining.”

“It took me about 2 days to get used to the glass. Now when I go back to my old powerbook all the colors are dull. It’s an odd feeling.”

“It’s awful. Makes me giddy looking at two different things at the same time. I’m giving this back and getting a cheap MacBook Pro from Amazon.” Yeah, just about the only negative comment I could get (coupled with the one above). 

For those looking to cut the glare, a lot of people have suggested Photodon’s Anti-glare films for the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. [Ed note: For what it’s worth, no matter what anyone may say, I will never be in favour of a glossy display. I’ve kept my 17-inch MacBook Pro next to several MacBooks with glossy displays and I just cannot imagine myself having to use the latter for any length of time.]

What’s your ‘GlossBook’ story? Have you held off from buying the new notebooks because of the glossy displays or are you looking forward to the sharper, more vivid display?

With all three MacBook lines—MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air—now sporting enclosures machined out of a single block of aluminium and black, backlit keyboards with chicklet style keys, it’s more difficult than ever to zero in on which particular model and configuration to go for. Further complicating matters are the new prices for all these notebooks which, to say the least, are freakin’ exhorbitant!

Worry not though, dear readers, because where there is a problem, there exists a solution, specially if it’s Smoking Apples we’re talking about. In this article, I’ve tried to highlight the key differences between the various configurations that these notebooks are available in (eight in total) and point out the positives and negatives of each one. At the end, I’ll leave you with two recommendations, one for the budget conscious buyer and another for those of you who want to go all out and have the cash to do so. Continue Reading »

Did you know that the brand new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics chip seen in the new MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and upgraded MacBook Airs, and yet to be seen in notebooks from other companies, has been designed in India?

NVIDIA has a Research and Development centre at Bangalore and it recruits students from top Indian engineering institutes, including the IITs and the NITs. According to Sridhar Manthani, Senior Director, the complete architecture of the chip, from designing it to translating it into a silicon foundry to fabrication, i.e. all the hardware work, was done by the Indian team.

The Hindu reports:

Apple is the first to harness the chip set for its new range of MacBooks

Even as the 70-strong group of engineers here worked for over 18 months to deliver the product, potential customers – PC makers – were trying out early samples. And first off the block, with a family of notebook computers fuelled by the 9400M, is Apple which has used it to fuel the new MacBook family, due to be launched in India next week.

It’s the most powerful integrated graphics processor in the market today, according to NVIDIA. The GeForce 9400M has the chipset and GPU on one die (at least two chips used to be required until now), out of of which 70% is the GPU, which makes for some ming-boggling numbers. For that extra graphics kick, it has 16 parallel graphic cores (and your latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor has has only two cores, unless you own a Mac Pro) and is capable of 54 gigaflops of operations. The thumbnail sized chip is half the size of the Intel integrated graphics chip, delivers up to 5x faster graphics, and up to 6x better performance than the graphic chips used till date. It makes you wonder whether you really will use 54 billion operations per second!

Another important characteristic of this GPU is that it’s energy efficient. According to Apple, a full battery charge will last for five hours, which means that you can watch Transformers in spectacular high definition without having to plug your notebook into a power outlet. Flight delays should now be fun with your MacBook around.

Steve Jobs said, “9400M’s a stunner” and I couldn’t agree more. That said, it’s nice to ogle at and gives you a great feeling of pride but is a little too costly for many in India. The MacBooks cost a fortune (MBs start from Rs. 57,000 and the MBPs from Rs. 1,10,000). So the graphics chip has been designed in India. Great! But has the finished notebook been imported from the Moon?!

Among the many new features of the new notebooks, the new design of the MacBooks seem to have solved the heat issues. I’m sorry to report that you can no longer fry an egg on the underside of your MacBook or MacBook Pro. The elimination of heat issues consequently make the fans kick in rather late, thereby making the notebooks apt for the phrase, ‘cool n quiet’.

(The image above is a fake)

“I can actually use the new MacBook on my lap without burning my thigh!” says one of the new MacBook users. “The fans are dead silent at 1500rpm, and the temperature hovers between 50-60˚C for the CPU.”

A quick twitter poll also revealed that others also notice similar thermal characteristics. “Whisper quiet. I can only hear it by holding it to my ear.” says one of the replies. “My MacBooks been on for about 3 hours playing video and music. Still feels slightly warm to the touch, but it’s silent.” The temperatures are reported cooler for the MacBook Pro as well, but it might still get hot under stressful conditions.

So far people the reviews for the new notebooks are extremely positive. Have you been one of the lucky ones to get a new MacBook? What’s your experience of the new unibody-aluminium enclosure notebooks?

In the recently concluded notebook event, Apple announced the new and revamped line of MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Steve Jobs mentioned about the new manufacturing process, twin GPUs, the all new Multi-Touch trackpad, etc., but there was a whole bunch of things that were updated in this generation of MacBook/Pro. Here’s a comprehensive list of changes in the new notebooks.

1. Unibody Enclosures

The MacBooks/Pros are now manufactured with a single slab of aluminum. This move will help Apple in reducing the number of parts & weight, stronger chassis and less prone to manufacturing flaws. The initial reviews report that heat is dissipated through the back grills and the MacBook is relatively cooler near the trackpad.

2. Twin GPUs

The new MacBook Pro will smoke with GeForce 9400M and a GeForce 9600M GT. The catch is you can’t use them simultaneously. You either save power by using the 9400M, or get extra performance using the 9600M GT. However, you cannot switch between them like you switch TV channels (you’ll have to re-login every time you switch).

The system chipset has also changed. MacBooks use Nvidia MCP79 controllers and not Intel controller chipset thereby facilitating the dual GPU magic. You can play graphic intensive games and in addition, the upcoming Snow Leopard use GPU to offload work plus Adobe CS4 apps will also use GPU for certain tasks. Check this nice article for more on this.
Continue Reading »

When Apple announced that the new MacBook will not have firewire, the entire mac community was enraged! How is it possible that Apple is ditching the better, faster and more powerful technology over something as windowsy as USB2.0? We macboys have always talked highly of firewire and its benefits, and to find Apple has suddenly gone pro-USB has left a lot of us confused. 

Now, if we look back on the series of events, it is obvious that Firewire was on its way out, at least on a consumer product. The iPods ditched Firewire way back in 2003 and have since been USB-only. The MacBook Air was the first Mac out of Apple since FireWire was introduced, to be USB only. The MacBook was definitely next in line for going USB-only. It is only possible that the Mac Mini will follow suit (if it ever is upgraded).
Continue Reading »

The rising dollar and falling economy, has resulted in the prices of the new MacBooks shooting up. Macs are expensive in India, again.

Here are the maximum retail prices of the new notebooks. Note that these are at MRP, and you can usually get a better deal at your Apple retailer.

MacBook Alu 2.0 Ghz. - 79,700
MacBook Alu 2.4Ghz - 96,500

MacBook Air 1.6Ghz - 1,07,000
MacBook Air 1.86Ghz - 1,49,000

MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz - 1,19,000
MacBook Pro 2.53Ghz - 1,49,000

MacBook Pro 17” - 1,62,600

*All prices in Indian Rupees. 1 USD = Rs. 48. 

The prices are from Keystone.in, an official Apple Authorised Centre in Goa. The store confirmed that these are official prices. The pricing for the white MacBook is still confusing, as they still have the three models in stock. 

Only time will tell whether these insane prices are guesswork by an Apple PR, or whether they actually plan to sell any at this rate. What’s your take on the prices? Dreams shattered again?