Updated Mac laptops unveiled at WWDC 2009

For those of you avoiding the whole WWDC live-blogging sensation that's going on throughout the web, here's a little tidbit of information you may not yet know. Apple announced the immediate availability of a largely-refreshed MacBook line. New models include a refreshed 15" MacBook Pro, a new (actually refreshed) 13" MacBook Pro, and an updated MacBook Air.

If you'll recall the 17" MacBook Pro has a fairly handsome battery that is built-in, recharges 1,000 times and lasts for 7 hours. That same battery can now be found in the 15" MacBook Pro and the 13" MacBook Pro. Apparently Apple really has a beef against user-replaceable batteries. But if they don't require recharging every 3 1/2 hours or die completely in 2 years, this may not be a bad thing.

The 15" and 13" MacBook Pros now feature an SD card slot to be replacing the ExpressCard slot of yore. Personally, I have never found a use for the ExpressCard slot but I imagine those with mobile data packages will be less than stunned. For the Firewire crowd there's some good news, the 13" MacBook Pro now has FireWire (again) so we can all put our pitchforks down.

The 15" MacBook Pro now starts at $1,699US featuring the 2.53GHZ Core 2 Duo and GeForce 9400 graphics only. Step-up models priced at $1,999 and $2,299 feature the 9400M and 9600M GT combo.

• $1,699US: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD
  
• $1,999US: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB
  
• $2,299US: 2.80GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD

The 13" MacBook Pro is essentially a re-badged unibody MacBook but now featuring an SD card slot, Firewire, and the 7-hour battery hotness The new 13" MBP can be had with hard drives up to 500GB in capacity and RAM sizes up to 8GB. It didn't take long for the aluminum 13-incher to best its white sibling.

• $1,199US: 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 160GB HDD
• $1,499US: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD

The MacBook Air has also received a little love in terms of specs increase and price decrease:

• $1,499US: 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 120GB HDD
• $1,799US: 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 128GB SSD

Share