Amazon.com Product Description
Combining advanced NVIDIA integrated graphics technology along with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro is faster than ever and will keep you working longer away from power cords with an enhanced battery life of up to 10 hours of battery life. As with previous models, the new MacBook Pro features a precision unibody enclosure crafted from a single block of aluminum, creating a thin and light mobile computing workhorse (less than 1 inch thin and just 4.5 pounds) that's also highly durable. And it includes a 13.3-inch, LED-backlit glass display (instead of an LCD panel) as well as a glass trackpad that doesn't include a button (for larger tracking area) that features Apple's Multi-Touch technology.
The 13-inch unibody MacBook Pro (see larger image). | 
The new energy-efficient architecture in the 13-inch MacBook Pro gives you up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge (see larger image). |
With 4 GB of memory and a 320 GB hard drive now standard, this is the most powerful 13-inch MacBook Pro yet. It also comes pre-loaded with Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system--an operating system custom-designed for the advanced technology inside--and it also comes with the iLife '09 suite of applications, including iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, and iTunes.Specification Highlights |
- 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen displaywith edge-to-edge, uninterrupted glass (1280 x 800-pixel resolution).
- 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo dual-core processorwith 3 MB shared L2 cache for excellent multitasking
- NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256 MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory.
- 320 GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 RPM)
- 4 GB installed RAM (1066 MHz DDR3; supports up to 8 GB)
- 8x slot-loading SuperDrive with double-layer DVD support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
- Built-in iSight camera for video chatting
- Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on 802.11n specification; 802.11a/b/g compatible)
- Gigabit Ethernet wired networking (10/100/1000)
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) for connecting with peripherals such as keyboards, mice and cell phones
- Two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port
- SD card slot
- Mini DisplayPort video output with optional adapters for DVI, VGA, dual-link DVI, and HDMI output
- Multi-Touch trackpad for precise cursor control with support for inertial scrolling, pinch, rotate, swipe, three-finger swipe, four-finger swipe, tap, double-tap, and drag capabilities
- Full-size backlit keyboard
- Stereo speakers with subwoofers
- Dimensions: 12.78 x 8.94 x 0.95 inches (WxDxH)
- Weight: 4.5 pounds
- Up to 10 hours of battery life
- Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard
- Meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements
What's in the Box
MacBook Pro, display cleaning cloth, 85W MagSafe Power Adapter, AC wall plug, power cord, software DVDs, printed and electronic documentation |
The ports on the left side of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. |
Key Features
The Intel Core 2 Duo processor and NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics are a great match for Apple's iMovie. |
A New Standard for Performance and Portability
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro features advanced NVIDIA integrated graphics technology along with a faster Intel Core 2 Duo processor. That makes for the ultimate combination of performance, portability, and battery life--up to 10 hours--without adding an ounce to the slimmest, lightest MacBook Pro.
With the 1066 MHz frontside bus and 3 MB of shared L2 cache of the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, all your applications will run faster and more efficiently than you thought possible. The 13-inch MacBook Pro also features the new NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics processor with 48 processing cores--three times as many as before. This results in a huge difference when using 3D games and graphics-intensive applications. And when you're not, you'll benefit from a new energy-efficient architecture that uses up to 40 percent less power for everyday tasks like writing email and surfing the web.
The beginning of every MacBook Pro--a precisely machined, single block of aluminum. |
Unibody Design
Traditionally, notebooks are made from multiple parts. With the MacBook Pro all of those parts with just one part--the breakthrough unibody enclosure. Every MacBook Pro starts its life as a single block of aluminum, which is precisely machined into the basic unibody design. Another pass and the unibody takes shape. Another, and the integrated keyboard emerges. When you pick up a new MacBook Pro, you immediately notice the entire enclosure is thinner and lighter. And it feels strong and durable--perfect for life inside (and outside) your briefcase or backpack.
LED-Backlit Display
LCD displays typically use cold cathode fluorescent lamps, or CCFLs, to create light and project a picture onto a screen, and this creates two problems--the lamps require more space and they take more time to warm up to full brightness. The MacBook Pro uses LED backlight technology to create the same amount of brightness in less space. And unlike fluorescent lamps, an LED backlight reaches maximum brightness instantly. Finally, a new, smaller iSight camera is concealed behind the display for quick access to video chats and snapping pics for uploading to social networks.
The entire trackpad is the button, so you can click anywhere. |
Additionally, conventional CCFL displays use mercury to create a backlight and arsenic to prevent irregularities in the glass. The LED-backlit display on the MacBook Pro, on the other hand, is both mercury- and arsenic-free. LED backlight technology also conserves energy: This display requires up to 30 percent less power than a CCFL display.
Buttonless Multi-Touch Trackpad
With no button on the durable glass trackpad, there's more room to track and click--left, right, center, and everywhere in between. Without a separate button, the spacious trackpad gives your hands plenty of room to move on the large, silky glass surface. It also incorporates Multi-Touch gestures--including swipe, pinch, rotate, and four-finger swipe--and even more natural inertial scrolling--an intuitive way to scroll through large photo libraries, lengthy documents and long web sites. If you're coming from a right-click world, you can right-click with two fingers or configure a right-click area on the trackpad.
Long-Lasting Battery
The new energy-efficient architecture in every MacBook Pro, along with automatic graphics switching, gives you dramatically longer battery life. On a single charge, the battery in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro lasts up to 10 hours. And you'll get up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles--that's nearly three times the lifespan of typical notebook batteries. Advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging allow the battery to maintain charging capabilities longer and determine the optimal way to charge the battery's cells. Because the battery lasts up to five years, MacBook Pro uses just one battery in the same time a typical notebook uses three. That makes for less waste. And that, in turn, makes for one environmentally friendly battery.
Environmental Considerations
Apple has worked hard to eliminate many of the toxins that are a common part of computer manufacturing. Apple engineers removed the majority of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from circuit boards, internal cables, connectors, insulators, adhesives, and more in the MacBook Pro.
Because Apple makes both the hardware and the software for the MacBook, they're designed to work together to produce a smarter product that uses less electricity. For instance, to reduce energy consumption, the hard drive spins down automatically when inactive. MacBook Air also decides which processor--CPU or GPU--is best suited to efficiently perform a task. The LED-backlit display in the MacBook Pro is another feature that plays an important part in conserving energy, consuming 30 percent less power than conventional LCD displays. And the display is designed to dim when you enter a darkened room.
The MacBook Pro meets the stringent low power requirements set by the EPA, giving it ENERGY STAR qualification. ENERGY STAR 5.0 sets significantly higher efficiency limits for power supplies and aggressive limits for the computer's typical annual power consumption.
Also, every MacBook Pro model has earned the highest rating of EPEAT Gold. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT, evaluates the environmental impact of a product based on how recyclable it is, how much energy it uses, and how it's designed and manufactured.
Pre-Loaded with Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iLife '09
 | Every Mac comes with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the world's most advanced operating system, and iLife, Apple's innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto, to easily organize and manage photos; iMovie with powerful easy-to-use new features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand which introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar. Installed software
- Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard (includes Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools)
- iLife '09 (includes iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, iDVD)
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Customer Reviews
Amazing Laptop
This is my first Mac ever, and I absolutely love it. The only downside is the high price, but this laptop is certainly worth the price you pay. The trackpad is amazing, and the aluminum unibody is so nice. The keyboard feels so good to type on, and the backlit keys look awesome. I won't get into the software too much, but Mac OSX is so user-friendly and the programs that come on it are fantastic.
Just Awesome! I'm loving this machine
I just got my new Macbook Pro MC375LL and I'm loving it, though if you're a Mac user you definitely have better review than mine as I just switched to Mac from Windows, now I really wonder why have I been using Windows all these years, for more than twenty years I've been switching laptops and desktop computers every 3-6 months, not because I like doing that (it sure hurt my pocket) but I really can't stand a slow machine and every single laptop (from HP, Toshiba, Dell, Sony and the last one I was using before switching to this one was IBM Thinkpad T61 with powerful CPU (or that's what I thought until it started crawling everytime I ask to run an App.) have to wait for 15 min to have full start up with few items in startup line, here, I only touch the power button and wait for 30 Sec!
anyway, as I said, I can't give a great technical and detailed review since I'm new to this machine but my advice to Windows users! switch to Mac today and don't waste your time and money upgrading your Windows laptop,
if you buy this laptop you better get the Case Shell just to keep it Scratch and Dent free!
Like many things California, simply awesome
I am an experienced computer user that has been using PCs since grad school in the mid 1980s. I remember passing on buying one of the early Macintoshes via the student discount and using an IBM AT or Korean Leading Edge PC to write many of my papers in one of my universities' "computer clusters".
I've had good PCs at work, but again, the hair on the dog gets pretty long when the upgrade cycle for your machine is 24-36 months, by the time you get past the 18 month mark, your machine starts slowing down from IT patches and software upgrades...
As far as my personal life goes, I've always lived on the trailing edge of technology as far as computers go, and stuck with PCs even though I experimented with OSes - I've tried Linux, and I stuck with OS/2 until IBM gave up on it when it released the Warp version.
My first personal PC was a PS/1, and then I had a clone box that I swapped out the MOB 1x... when that died, I got a cheap Compaq/HP laptop that started blank/blue-screening < 1 year (I only paid $400 for it). I replaced that with a Toshiba Satellite Vista laptop, again around the same price, and less than 6 months or so similar issues - sticking keys, having to constantly download OS and software patches, mysterious system lockups that required hard reboots, USB devices disappearing and not being recognized for no good reason...
I've also spent 1000s on software and hardware upgrades during all of the years I've owned PCs.
Anyway, as an avid music listener/musician, I've had an iPod since 2007, and absolutely love it, and when the Toshiba started electronically farting with stuck keys, I thought "Why not Apple?" Yes, its more expensive, but you get what you pay for, and I've been very pleased with this machine. Quality just permeats the product. It boots and shuts down much faster than a PC, and seems fairly crash proof. There are differences in the way you do stuff in Windows vs. MacOS, and those take a little getting used to. I definitely think the MacOS handles music (I also bought the machine for Garage Band and I use a third party software called Band in a Box) and media much much better than Windows does.
We'll see about reliability issues, but so many of the Mac users I talked to noted they'd had their machines for years and they were still going strong, and Macs actually still fetch decent used prices on eBay, that says a lot right there, whereas you can't give a used laptop or PC away. I figured why not drop $1500, because if the machine lasts more than 3 years, that's about what I'd be spending on a new laptop on a year basis ($500+$500+$500) with all of the aggravations of moving files, software, etc. built in.
If you are coming over from Windows, you are going to love not having to screw with USB drivers anymore to have your devices recognized...
