MacBook Pro 17" Hi-res

Computerworld reports (with images) that the screen on the new, higher-resolution MacBook Pro much brighter and clearer than its predecessors, representing the best LCD screen that Apple has yet shipped in a portable. The system uses a 1,920-by-1,200-pixel screen and features a 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo with a "Santa Rosa" chip set for better performance and longer battery life (see our initial coverage of the new MacBook Pro models). Author Ken Mingis writes "There's been a lot of chatter in various online forums from would-be buyers about whether the hi-res screen makes text too small to see. The higher the resolution, the more desktop space you have, and the smaller the menus and text get. Indeed, the menus are slightly smaller, and I did bump the default text size in Safari up a couple of points. (I recommend Optima, 16 point, by the way.) But the added pixels also make this the sharpest screen I've used, and that includes the Vaio."

While the 17" model doesn't feature the LED-backlit screen offered by its 15" cousins, that may be an option for future models according to Apple representative Todd Benjamin. The LED screens deliver up to an extra half hour of battery life. However, it appears that the new 17-inch model, with LCD, can actually deliver up to 20 minutes of additional battery life. With regard to speed, Apple claims that Logic Pro 7, Apple's music-creation app, is 55% faster; Final Cut Pro is 52% faster; Photoshop CS3, the universal binary version that runs natively on Intel Macs, is 39% faster; and Aperture is 28% faster on the new Santa Rosa models compared to the first iteration of Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros.

by MacNN Staff