Apple MacBook Pro: a first look

Bar none, the best thing about the MacBook Pro is that Apple has shelved IBM's plodding G4 PowerPC processor in favour of Intel's new Core Duo. We're also pleased to see a decent graphics card onboard -- ATI's Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB of memory, along with x16 PCI Express architecture. Design-wise, the MacBook Pro looks a lot like the 15in. PowerBook and, at 2.54kg, it weighs about the same. Still, the MacBook Pro offers a slightly larger screen, a nominally thinner profile and a fetching bundle of specs.

• 1.67GHz or 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo
  
• 667MHz frontside bus and main memory
  
• PCI Express architecture
  
• Up to 120GB Serial ATA hard drive
  
• ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with up to 256MB memory on 16-lane PCI Express
  
• ExpressCard/34 slot
  
• Dual-link DVI, VGA adapter included
  
• One FireWire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports
  
• Optical digital and analogue audio I/O, built-in microphone and stereo speakers
  
• Slot-loading SuperDrive
  
• Illuminated keyboard, scrolling TrackPad
  
• Built-in AirPort Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, and Gigabit Ethernet
  
• Mac OS X Tiger with iLife '06, featuring iWeb
  

The elephant in the room is battery life -- Jobs neglected to mention it in his keynote. Although Intel says its dual-core processors consume less power than the prior generation of single cores, we're curious to see how long the new MacBook Pro will run when it's away from the wall socket -- a display that bright is bound to suck a lot of power. However, Jobs did say that the MacBook Pro delivers roughly four times as much performance per watt as the PowerBook G4s.

The MacBook Pro probably signals the end of the road for the entire PowerBook line, whose G4 processors seem positively ancient as of now. Nevertheless, we're happy to finally see an Apple notebook with power to match its beauty. If you have £1,500 to spend on a notebook, the MacBook Pro gives you fewer and fewer excuses not to go with Apple. If it delivers on Apple's performance promises, the MacBook Pro will give Apple bragging rights to the prettiest and most powerful notebook on the planet. The MacBook Pro ships in February. Check back then for our full review and video.