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MacBook Pro Wishlist

February 5, 2007

I’ve had my Core Duo MacBook Pro for about a year now, and while it’s still got enough flavor left in it to keep chewing for awhile (hey, I hung on with a G4 PowerBook for a long time, and this is miles better), particularly as more and more apps are out as Universal Binaries, there are certainly some features I’d like to see in the not-too-distant future that would make me upgrade in a hot minute.

In no particular order…

  • Flash Disk - We’re starting to see flash disks in the 64GB - 128GB range be announced, at not terribly unreasonable prices. These are only going to get bigger and cheaper from here out. I’d be thrilled to have a notebook with only a flash disk instead of a hard drive.
  • LED Backlight - This will probably be out in the next generation of Mac notebooks — longer life, lower power, brighter displays
  • Polycarbonate Case - The brushed aluminum is pretty sexy, admittedly, but it scratches and dents too easily, and (worse) it blocks RF signals. I’ve envied the iBook / MacBook folks their tough-to-abuse cases and two-bars-better-wifi-sitting-next-to-me for a long time, but the black MacBooks really tore it; I think a MacBook Pro with a black polycarbonate case (but still all of the “Pro” features) would be killer. Put some brushed aluminum accents on it if you have to, but keep ‘em away from the antenna loops.
  • 802.11n - Yeah, I missed the curve of upgradable notebooks; obviously any new one is going to have this from here out
  • Firewire 800 - Please bring my Firewire 800 back. I miss it.
  • Faster CPU - A “duh” item, to be certain.
  • More RAM - We’re hitting the point where notebooks really need to be able to accept a minimum of 4GB of RAM. More would be better, particularly if we’ve still got to deal with some essential apps that haven’t gotten converted out of Rosetta.
  • Lose the optical drive - Ship the SuperDrive as an external unit (I guess it can’t be optional if it’s the only way to install an OS). Use the regained space for more battery, or give us a smaller lighter unit. As infrequently as I use the thing, taking out of my notebook bag and hooking it up is a small price to pay for not having to lug it around when I don’t need it.

That’s a start to it, anyway. I’m assuming that with LED backlighting and flash disk we’d see a battery life improvement, although faster CPUs and more memory might wash it away. Notebooks always need more battery life; that’s just a gimme.

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Written by User ImageChuck Lawson · Filed Under Tech 
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Comments

2 Responses to “MacBook Pro Wishlist”

  1. no imageJohnny (Check me out!) on February 21st, 2007 1:15 am

    The Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros have FireWire 800 already. I held out for the second generation of MBPs in the hopes that FW800 would return. It was a pleasant surprise when it actually did.

    This is a refreshingly reasonable wishlist otherwise. I agree with all the points except the last one, but even that one isn’t terribly outlandish, especially with the ability to rip DVDs.

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  2. no imageChuck Lawson (Check me out!) on March 1st, 2007 5:17 pm

    Cool! I hadn’t realized that the Core 2 units had put the FireWire 800 back; I just wish there was enough performance difference to be able to justify an upgrade…

    Since I wrote this, the old “Ultraportable Mac” rumor has come around again, and the claim is that it’ll have an external optical drive.

    Unfortunately, even though 90%+ of the time my ‘Book sits on the shelf with an external display, on those rare occasions when I do hit the road with it, I’m not sure I could live with a ultraportable sized display down in the 12″ range…

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