Macworld: New Hardware – MacBook Pro & iMac

Note: Apple has put together a page covering the new Intel CPUs.

Today the first of new machines from the Intel/Apple partnership were announced to the world. The 15-inch MacBook Pro laptop and the 17-inch and 20-inch iMac. The MacBook Pro is powered by an Intel Duo Core 1.67GHz or 1.83GHz CPU, while the iMac has either a 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz CPU – the Duo Core is basically like having two CPUs.

The speed on both of these machines should be fast enough, that even running non-Universal Binary, such as a genealogy application that hasn’t been compiled for the platform switch, should be okay. They are also both fast enough that one should be able to get many years of use out of them.

Both come with iLife ’06, an Apple Remote, and Front Row (MacBook Pro’s demo of Front Row can be found here): MacBook Pro is the first Mac notebook to include Front Row and the Apple Remote. So, from anywhere in the room, you can present your ideas with 21st century panache. Show off dailies. Play the latest mix. Click through your portfolio. Then head back to your hotel room to watch….. a movie of the family vacation.

The Front Row/Apple Remote feature alone is pretty snazzy with the MacBook Pro – next time you are at a family reunion, you can bring it out and load up Front Row and do a nice family history presentation (even better – running the output into a large TV, but still being able to use the Apple Remote).