The new Mac Book pro is now out!!

I'm seriously tweaked at the lack of firewire on the MacBooks. Booo.

Firewire is very common for Audio and Video folks like myself. The lack of firewire on the MacBook means what was once a perfect notebook to do audio work on for many people is now useless as most decent audio interfaces use FW.

I am even pissed about the lack of FW400 on the MBP. It means I can't easily run a FW400 audio interface and a FW800 HD or RAID array, which is a pretty dang standard setup.

Along with all of this though, I also currently use the FW ports to power an external 2.5" drive, and specifically use FW because it is designed to give enough power to do so. The drives that are USB powered are outside of the spec, and depending on the notebook it can be a bad idea to say the least.

So now I would either have to carry around a wall wort to use my external drive, or I can't use it. Which of course means that I can't use my external drive if I am not near a plug, another big thing for me on a portable machine. Since I run Virtual Machines off this drive, and have to use those VMs for programming DSP units for example, this is a big thing for me.

Along those same lines FW is common in the audio world because often power is provided through it. For instance my Apogee Duet is powered from Firewire, and there is no option short of making up a custom cable and power supply, for any other way. Even if I made the custom cable I would need a FW port to plug it into still, as reported above it is very common for audio.

Likewise FW is still one of the most common, if not the most common, way to transfer video off a camera.

Yea I am glad my MBP I bought a year ago. It is MUCH better suited for my purposes, and my next machine I may be leaving apple now as a result of this depending on what is availiable from the few companies that put a powered FW port on their laptops(Samsung or Fujitsu IIRC).

Seablade

Not at all pleased obviously. Also not a big fan of the dumping of DVI for Display Port personally. I like the hybrid SLI setup on the MBP, but that is not worth the sacrifices for it for me.

PS Maybe Maxrule can come in and confirm this or not, but I have also heard FW is becoming more commonplace for professional photographers for tethered shooting as well? I haven't ever done tethered shooting and don't consider myself a pro either, so I can't comment on this.

Seablade

By the way, myself I am often finding 2 USB ports not enough, and am amazed that wasn't addressed either.

Seablade

Firewire = one cable on an external 2.5" drive.

Many 2.5" USB external drives use 2 USB ports to provide enough juice for the drive. Some like WD ship with a single port cable yet they sell a double port Y cable in the event the original doesn't adequately power your drive.

Apple has just completely invalidated iMovie by trashing Firewire. I don't know of any DV cams that transfer through USB.

Blanco, USB will be fine for a DSLR. Also there are wireless mice and USB hubs you can use.

The trackpad is one of the better ones out there typically IME. But yes bluetooth does work fine and is usable for wireless mice and keyboards. Ihave two bluetooth mice on my MBP now in fact, one smaller one in my bag for travel and a primary one for at my desk and working.

There are video cameras that can use USB for transferring video, but I don't know that Mac has ANY support for this, and it only appears on the low end consumer models I believe.

iMovie got murdered earlier though and I still prefer the old version. Of course I work in FCE myself now which kills both of em

Tria- it is worth noting that the 2 USB cable is due to one being out of spec, and on many laptops all the USB ports share the same power supply lines, thus using 2 USB cables is not always a good idea. For instance i know my old powerbook had an internal breaker reset when someone hooked up one of those drives to it, and I have gotten current draw warnings on my MacBook Pro about that as well causing the ports to be shut off till I restarted the computer.

So yes, FW all the way and an external 2.5" is a great combination. To bad Apple has axed any chance of using it on one of their laptops, and done something incredibly limiting on their 'Pro' model.

Seablade

At least on the pro you can use an 800>400 cable. I'm also a bit skeptical of the glass screens. I know they're going for an environmentally friendly product but I'm guessing there will be more than a few cracked screens from torque or impacts on the chassis that would otherwise be problem free with a plastic face.

Um, and let's all hope nVidia has worked out the bugs in their manufacturing process.

Yes but when you attach 800 and 400 devices on the same bus it lowers the bus to the speed of the 400.

It also a bit more annoying due to the fact that 800 Cables are a bit more rare(try getting one from your local computer store for instance, now if you can try to find it for even close to a decent price). This means if I need to replace a cable on the road it is next to impossible and I have to ship it in, generally this might require overnight shipping so the cables themselves are going to be significantly more expensive period.

Heck last time I checked even the apple stores didn't carry the FW800 cables, much less the adaptors to go to FW400.

Seablade

Well, I'm glad I have waited and not purchased it when I was planning to do so a few months back!!! I'm definately getting me one..

but....why no Blue Ray drive or HD Sceen?????!!!!

According to the Steve, blue-ray is a headache and they didn't want to saddle consumers with the licensing costs etc.

Take it with a grain of salt of course.

Seablade

oh....ok so that's why

If memory serves me correctly, wasn't there a missing port on the 15" MBPs when the intel switch was made? Then they added it back in later?