Apple's MacBook Pro Update: What's New

From PC World: Apple refreshed its MacBook Pro laptop line Thursday, and it's not just about speeds and feeds this time. With the addition of Intel's Sandy Bridge processor, AMD graphics, Facetime-enabled HD camera and a new high-speed Thunderbolt I/O port (reportedly 12 times faster than Firewire), this year's MacBook Pro update is a significant revamp. Let's take a closer look at what's new in the 2011 MacBook Pro:

As you might expect, the new MacBook Pros have better basic specs than their predecessors. Get ready for some number soup:

The 13-inch MacBook Pro ditches Intel's Core 2 Duo processor in favor of either a 2.3 GHz Core i5 or 2.7 GHz Core i7 on Intel's Sandy Bridge platform. Hard drives start at 320 GB instead of 250 GB. You still get 4 GB of DDR3 RAM, as with last year's models, but it's a little faster at 1333 MHz instead of 1066 MHz.

The basic 15-inch model jumps from last year's dual-core Intel Core i5 processor to a quad-core 2.0 GHz Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor. The smallest available hard drive is now 500 GB instead of 320 GB. As with the 13-inch model, the base RAM is only slightly different.

The 17-inch model also goes quad-core with a 2.2 GHz Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor in the standard configuration. Basic storage capacity jumps from 500 GB to 750 GB. Same story on RAM as the other MacBook models.

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