Apple updates MacBook Pro lineup

By Rick Marshall October 24, 2011

Apple appears to have given its lineup of MacBook Pro laptops a bit of an upgrade, and done so without the usual fanfare that surrounds any tweaks to the popular model.

Among the changes to the ultra-light laptop line are the addition of faster processors and more powerful graphics chips. Both changes were made without any adjustment to the models’ listed prices.

Specifically, the 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with either a 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor or a 2.8 GHZ dual-core Intel Core i7, a step up from the prior CPU offerings for the model. The models also got an upgrade to their hard drives, with 500GB and 750GB hard drives as the stock option on each model, respectively.

Similarly, the 15-inch MacBook Pro has upgraded its basic model’s processor to a quad-core 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, with the option of upgrading to a 2.4 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7. The basic model of the 17-inch MacBook Pro comes with the 2.4 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 as its default processor.

In the graphics department, the basic 15-inch MacBook Pro now comes with a more powerful AMD Radeon HD 6750M discrete graphics card with 512MB of GDDR5, and the speedier 15-inch model comes with an AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 1GB of GDDR5 — the same graphics chip that now comes stock with the 17-inch model.

The price of the new MacBook Pro models range from $1,199 for the basic 13-inch model to $2,499 for the 17-inch model.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…

Computing

How to select multiple files on a Mac

An open MacBook Pro on a table.

macOS is an intuitive and innovative operating system. Over the years, Apple has revamped and evolved its tried and true platform numerous times, but there are a number of core features that have been around since the beginning. One of these is the ability to select multiple files at once.

Computing

How to take a screenshot on a Mac

The keyboard and trackpad of the MacBook Pro 14-inch.

For most new Mac users -- especially if they're coming from Windows -- one of the first questions they need to ask is how to take a screenshot on a Mac? There's no dedicated Print Screen key like there is on Windows, but there is keyboard shortcut, and if you want something more akin to Microsoft's Windows Snipping tool, there are some great screenshot apps you can use, too.

Here's how to take a screenshot on a Mac in a few different ways.
How to take a screenshot using keyboard shortcuts
MacOS keyboard shortcuts are the quickest ways to take screenshots, whether you're capturing the entire screen or just a portion. By default, Apple's methods save your screenshot to the desktop, but if you want to copy the screenshot to the clipboard, there's a keyboard shortcut you can use instead.
How to capture a selected area

Computing

A new wave of powerful laptops rises to challenge the MacBook Pro

Apple MacBook Pro 16 downward view showing keyboard and speaker.

The MacBook Pro got really powerful in its most recent update. The 16-inch M3 Max configuration bumps the graphics performance significantly, making it unlike anything you can buy for professional content creators.

But Windows laptops are responding. There's a new wave of non-gaming laptops that are integrating GPUs up to an RTX 4070 and challenging the performance of the MacBook Pro -- often at a much lower price.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra