14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is reportedly on track to launch refreshed MacBook Pro computers sometime in the near future, stock availability listings at major U.S. retailers would indicate.
Reports citing an initial piece by MacRumors agree that Apple is most likely eyeing Intel’s Sandy Bridge microarchitecture for a hardware upgrade of its MacBook Pro line.
This should occur sometime soon, going by the company’s historical product refresh cycles, Softpedia agrees.
Intel’s new CPU, if indeed present in Apple’s upcoming range of Pro laptop computers, will deliver a significant amount of performance improvements, including a major boost on the graphics front, thanks to a built-in GPU that will help high-rate video processing.
The CPU will work alongside the laptop’s own dedicated graphics solution, which will be less strained thanks to Intel’s chip.
This will most likely result in improved battery life as well.
It is now believed that several retailers’ listings for their MacBook Pro stocks are indicative of a hardware refresh, with Amazon in particular signaling “a shipment window of 1-2 months for the base Core i5 model and several popular resellers connected through Amazon's systems also showing low stocks of the 17" models,” according to the aforementioned rumor-centric source.
Apple, however, continues to show 24-hour shipping for all MacBook Pro models in its international online stores.
This doesn’t necessarily indicate that Cupertino is making a priority out of serving its customers directly, as suggested by MacRumors, but it’s not out of the question either.
Finally, it is also believed that the company’s latest developments on the notebook front - i.e. the two new MacBook Air configurations - will most likely rub off on the upcoming MacBook Pros as well.
Particularly, speculators claim that Apple should be eager to implement some of the new design characteristics in the refreshed MBP line.