MacNewsBlog

Hopping around the net, I've been reading about how a few MacBook Pro owners are upset that Apple's new MacBook is so close in spec to their MacBook Pro. Angry owners proclaim theres no difference between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro aside from the graphics card and price. Many feel ripped off and claim they paid too much for something they could have gotten cheaper with the same performance. Still there are other MacBook Pro owners that are scheming to return their 2.0 GHz version in attempts to get the newer one with 2.16 GHz.

Well to be honest I don't feel ripped off in the slightest. I knew what I was getting into when I bought the MacBook Pro as I've been buying Apple products for years. I absolutely knew they would come out with the MacBook eventually to replace the iBooks and that they would fall relatively close in performance to the MacBook Pro. Steve Jobs even stated that this year would see the entire Mac line move to Intel. It was probably the biggest story of 2005 so I'm not sure how anyone could have missed that.

The MacBook Pro has the Pro moniker for a reason. It was designed with the working pro in mind. Graphics professionals will lean towards the MacBook Pro rather than the MacBook simply because the Pro version has a separate graphics card, as well as Express Card slot and a larger screen. The seperate graphics RAM is important simply because it leaves more actual RAM for other things. The MacBook has integrated video that will tap into the systems main RAM and hence leave less for everything else. Will it affect performance remains to be seen. The screen real estate alone is worth the extra price when you're doing graphics layout or video editing on the road and 23" monitor is no where to be found.

As for the other issue of people griping because Apple quietly upped the specs of the MacBook Pro, well that happens all the time too. Expect Apple to do this. OFTEN. They even did this when the MacBook Pro first came out! In my opinion the extra .16 GHz is negligible and I have my doubts whether or not it would make any significant difference. Perhaps just bragging rights that I have the fastest, latest greatest CoreDuo MacBook Pro out but nothing more... and that will change in a few months anyway.

Those of you griping about it... don't feel too bad. You could have bought an iBook G4 2 weeks ago only to see the MacBook come out. Get used to it. This is Apple. This is the tech industry and things constantly change.