One of the most reviewed, attended and followed speaking engagements each year is Apples Macworld Keynote event. This year the 17" macbook was due for a refresh and one of the new selling points Apple is moving towards is making environmentally friendly machines.
What separates this update from the previous hardware refreshes is how much attention apple actually paid to what I'm sure will be a new trend of designs coming out this year.
Focusing not only on faster performance the new Macbook will feature and upgraded 2.66 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo chip with an even better option of Intels 2.93ghz processor both featuring onboard L2 cache. Moving into the arena of graphics and viewing Apple will be using an LED backlit screen which not only produces much more vivid images it drastically cuts down on power utilized while on battery. An upgrade video card that everyone is looking forward to will be the standard equipped Nvidia integrated 9400M but a very nice upgrade option will be provided to users who want to go up to the 9600M GT video card .
Now where the environmentally friendly option come into the picture and why it is so important to us, even those who are not go-green crazy, is with apples new extended life battery. Not only will this battery be utilizing new and bigger lithium poly cells Apple is claiming a single charge use of up to 8 hours. This combined with all the additional new features should cut down on replacement batteries and failed power supplies due to its 1,000 lifecycle charge.
Unfortunatly for most of us Apple fans this model battery will be fixed and not removable as in previous models. Now for some of us that is not really a big deal for others who like to keep a spare battery with them at all times like myself that might pose a problem in the future.
Lastly for those asking what about memory, and hard drive space the new Macbook Pro will allow up to 8gb of memory to be installed and a 320gb hard drive that hopefully should fit the bill for even power users.
Dimensions on the new Macbook should come in at just under an inch thick and weight in at 6.6 lbs which is fairly light and thin compared to some of the leading 17" notebooks on the market today.
