The new 15-inch MacBook Pro offers superb graphics performance for its price level. By utilizing two NVIDIA graphics chips the MacBook Pro is able to use the single GeForce 9400M for routine graphics, such as working with office documents, browsing the Internet, or viewing a few photos. When you need pedal-to-the-metal graphics performance, the MacBook Pro kicks into higher gear by enabling the second graphics processor, the GeForce 9600M GT.
The dual graphics processor approach can conserve power or provide top-notch graphics performance, as needed.
The MacBook Pro is a must-have for graphics professionals.
- NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + GeForce 9600M GT
- Glass multi-touch trackpad
- 15-inch LED backlit widescreen display
- Unibody case
- Mini DisplayPort
- Adapters for Mini DisplayPort sold separately
- Memory expansion limited to 4 GB
- Glossy display only
- Can’t use both NVIDIA chips at the same time
- 15-inch LED backlit display
- Dual graphics processors: NVIDIA 9400M + 9600M GT
- Available with 2.4 GHz, 2.53 GHz, or 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors
- 1066 MHz frontside bus
- 2 GB memory, expandable to 4 GB
- Built-in iSight camera and microphone
- Airport 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Optical digital and analog audio in/out
With the newest revisions to the MacBook Pro, Apple has kicked things up a notch. Using a new manufacturing process, Apple carves the MacBook Pro’s case out of a single brick of aluminum. This unibody construction process produces a truly rigid and strong case that is also lightweight.
The unibody case also provides more available space within the MacBook Pro. Apple used this space to provide direct user access to the internal hard drive, making replacing or upgrading the hard drive a simple process that anyone can handle.
The 15.4-inch glossy display uses LED backlighting to reduce power consumption, an ongoing theme with the MacBook Pro, and to achieve uniform brightness across the display. Because of the LED, the display achieves immediate full brightness levels, allowing you to perform critical graphics work the moment you turn the MacBook Pro on.
To drive the new display, the MacBook Pro uses two graphics processors from NVIDIA. The GeForce 9400M uses 16 parallel graphics cores to produce 54 Gflops of graphics performance; the GeForce 9600M GT provides an additional 32 parallel graphics cores. You can decide which chipset to use depending on the task at hand, and whether top graphics performance or longer battery life is the higher priority.
The MacBook Pro uses a large glass multi-touch trackpad. The trackpad supports multi-button and multi-finger gestures, eliminating the need for mechanical mouse buttons. Instead, you can just tap on the glass trackpad. The trackpad is silky smooth to use and the button tapping is convenient, because you can tap anywhere you like.
Apple replaced the DVI port with a new, smaller Mini DisplayPort that can drive the same monitor sizes as the older port. The only disadvantage of the new connector is that it requires a separate adapter to drive most monitors.
