New MacBooks and Apple Displays Out Today: Rumor Roundup

Later today Apple will launch a revamped line of MacBook laptops at a much-anticipated Steve Jobs special event held at the Apple campus. Pictures (blurry, of course) surfaced on the Web as early as last night that appear to show the new MacBook Pro with an iMac-esque look. In addition to notebooks (predicted to be sub-$1000), a new line of Apple displays is speculated.

Although nothing is official until Jobs says so, the similarities between the latest leaked pictures and the previous enclosure leaks appear to match. The pictured MacBook Pro (MBP) sports a glass-like display cover with a black bezel, similar to the current line of iMacs. Also, the keyboard is black, as it was introduced with the MacBook Air.

Speculated Specs

One of the biggest surprises so far seems to be Apple's rumored replacement of ATI GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) with NVIDIA ones. Actually, the new MacBook Pros are said to have not one, but two NVIDIA GPUs, based on the company's SLI technology (scale graphics performance by combining multiple NVIDIA graphics solutions in a single system with an NVIDIA nForce SLI media and communications processor).

Consequently, with the graphics card changed, the new MacBook Pros are rumored to feature a DisplayPort instead of Mini-DVI one as a graphic output solution. DisplayPort is a license and royalty free digital audio/video port, used primarily between computers and display monitors or a home-theater system.

Other speculated features for the coming MacBook Pros have to do with speeds rumored to be up to 2.8GHz, fast hard drives (7200 RPM), a solid state 128GB hard drive option, hi-def displays (probably the higher resolution display type the 17" MacBook Pro has now, LED backlit) and "improved wireless connectivity."

Longer battery life is expected (touted as "extra long") and an extra point for the DIY fans, besides the usual RAM memory, the hard drive of the coming MacBook Pro is said to be user-serviceable as well.

The new displays said to be launched today will apparently feature a DisplayPort also (quite logical if the new MBPs will have it) and a MagSafe adapter, though it is unclear why Apple would put a magnetic latch power adapter in a display. Nevertheless, the new displays are said to feature the same iMac look, only without the larger part of aluminum at the bottom, but with a "super thin" base stand.

So while everybody is preparing for the new Apple products, we still have to wait a few more hours to see how close to the truth the rumor-o-rama and speculation on the Web is.

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