Apple Refreshes MacBook Pro Line-Up With Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs, AMD GPUs, and Thunderbolt -- OS X Lion Dev Preview Now Available

As expected, Apple has refreshed a bunch of their products today and it's right on Steve Jobs' birthday! The refresh includes the whole MacBook Pro Series. The base model is the 13-inch model and it's just like the leak said. It's sporting a 13.3-inch LED display with a 1,280 x 800 resolution, a dual-core Intel Core i5 2.3GHz CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 320GB HDD, Intel HD 3000 graphics, an HD webcam, WiFi 802.11n / Bluetooth 2.1 support, a backlit keyboard, an SDXC card slot, FireWire 800, two USB 2.0 ports, and Light Peak aka Thunderbolt. The Thunderbolt tech inside of these new notebooks will offer your 10Gbps trasfer rates which is awesome but we'll see if it wins the battle versus USB 3.0 which is slowly rolling out. Sadly, the smallest model which is this 13-inch model only has options for integrated graphics so it's actually a bit of a downgrade. By the way, the battery life for these MacBook Pro has dropped to 7 hours which is likely real-time usage.

This model will be starting at $1,199, the 15-inch model will start at $1,799, and the 17-inch model actually starts at $2,499 and that's because you'll get a quad-core 2.2GHz CPU and a 750GB HDD as a standard. Only the larger two models (the 15 and 17-inch notebooks) come with AMD discrete graphics and, yes, Apple has ditched Nvidia for AMD. Of course, all models come with new Intel Core 2011 CPU options so they're pretty darn fast. Check it out on Apple.

Update: Engadget has mentioned that the Mac OS X Lion developer preview is now up on the Mac App Store.

[Crunch Gear]

Full 13-Inch MacBook Pro Spec Sheet Leaks, Sporting Core i5 and Thunderbolt aka Light Peak

fscklog and Mac4Ever (along with MacGeneration) are big on the leaks today. The first is coming from the picture above which actually leaks, pretty much, the full spec sheet of the upcoming 13-inch MacBook Pro. It says that the notebook with a dual-core Intel Core i5 2.3GHz CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 320GB HDD, a 13.3-inch LED display with a 1,280 x 800 resolution, Intel HD 3000 graphics, a SuperDrive, an HD camera for FaceTime, WiFi 802.11n / Bluetooth 2.1 support, a backlit keyboard, an SDXC card slot, FireWire 800, and two USB 2.0 ports.

The leak above and Mac Generation are saying that the Light Peak implementation may actually be called Thunderbolt. Interesting. The photo below coming from Mac4Ever shows up a picture of the supposed 13-inch MacBook Pro that should launch tomorrow and, yes, it comes with a larger trackpad.

[Mac Rumors, Slash Gear]

Intel Holding Light Peak Event On Thursday Signalling Apple Refresh; White MacBook To Die

Intel has announced something that could be pretty great and it's a sign of the future - and also a sign that new Apple MacBooks and MacBook Pros could be refreshed with something big soon. Intel has announced that they're going to be holding an event for their Light Peak technology on Thursday of this week. This is also the same day where Apple is expected to refresh pretty much their whole notebook line-up. Everything will finally be cleared up on Thursday - which is actually tomorrow.

Update: According to Electronista, the white MacBooks may actually be dead after Thursday. The MacBook Air will satisfy the low-end consumer while the MacBook Pro will come in the standard 13, 15, and 17-inch models. Specs can't be confirmed right now but the 17-inch model may actually get a new Intel Core i7 CPU as a standard. Prices for these notebooks may actually be the same as they currently are but they'll be faster this time around. It seems like a pretty good move.

[Electronista]

Apple's MacBook Pros To Ship This Week With Larger Trackpad, Lighter Body, and OS On an SSD

Apple should be announcing their new MacBook Pros in just a few days and BGR has mentioned that they have the exclusive scoop on some information regarding said notebooks. These notebooks should be available within the next few days and will actually have the OS installed on an 8 to 16GB SSD which will make for some speedy boot times. The main models will have a separate HDD to store stuff on but you'll be granted with the option to get a larger SSD if you want that - that'll cost you quite a bit though. Furthermore, these notebooks should be around 0.5 pounds lighter so they'll be even easier to carry around with you and glass trackpad should be a bit larger as well. Interesting stuff, especially if the price tags are the same.

[BGR]

Apple's MacBook Pro Refresh May Hit Shelves By March 11th, Says Best Buy Leak

Thanks to a Best Buy inventory screenshot, we could be seeing the new Apple MacBook Pro's starting on March 11th, which is a Friday. Obviously, this can't be confirmed right now but hopefully Apple will unveil these "Sandy Bridge" notebooks soon. These should also be sporting touchscreen displays because the next version of their OS supports some iOS features. If you take a look at the screenshot below you'll see that there'll be a model for $1,199 and you can expect that to be the cheapest model which signals that there might not be any price changes.

[9 to 5 Mac]

Apple Set To Refresh the MacBook Pro and iMac Line In H1 2011

Here's an interesting one coming from DigiTimes. They have just mentioned that Apple plans to upgrade the MacBook Pro and the iMac line-up sometime in the first half of 2011. Apparently, there'll be four different sizes for the MacBook Pro. Currently, there's 13, 15, and 17-inch models so what will the new one be? It's unknown right now but I'm thinking an 11 or even a 14-inch model could get squeezed in there, but those are just my guesses (of course, a 12-inch model is also possible). The website also mentions that there'll be a new size for the iMac. That size is also unknown so we'll have to wait for that; Crunch Gear is guessing that it'll be a 24-incher.

All of these models are going to have a touchscreen display because they'll all come pre-installed with the new Mac OS X Lion which is the start to bring together the desktop Mac OS X with iOS so it'll have some touch capabilities if that's your thing.

[Crunch Gear]

2011 MacBook Pro Refresh Could Feature SSD, No Optical Drive, and Light Peak

Coming from Three Guys and a Podcast is word on the next-generation MacBook Pro and that it will likely be launched in April 2011. Apparently, Apple will be opting to go with SSD storage options that will go up to 512GB, which sounds great if they can keep the prices down to what they are right now. Other changes are said to be no optical (CD/DVD) drive), Intel's upcoming Sandy Bridge CPUs, and the introduction of Light Peak. We don't know if FireWire will still be on-board but USB 3.0 should be. This is all sounding like great news right now but everything's unconfirmed for the moment.

Other improvements could include a touchscreen display since you may be able to upgrade this to "Lion" when it ships in the Summer.

[TUAW]