Apple has introduced a new range of MacBook Pro laptops, with Intel processors, AMD Radeon graphics processors, Thunderbolt connectivity and Facetime HD.
The new MacBook Pro laptops looks similar to what came before, with an aluminium unibody, glass multitouch trackpad, an LED backlit wide-screen display and illuminated full size keyboard.
The new range comes in 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch models. The 13-inch model can either have a dual core 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 processor or a dual core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor with Intel HD Graphics 3000.
The 15 and 17-inch processors will have up to 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with an AMD Radeon HD graphics processor with up to 1GB of video memory.
Previous MacBook Pro laptops have Nvidia graphics processors and Apple claimed the latest range of laptops are twice as fast as the ones that came before.
The new range also offers Thunderbolt I/O technology. It was developed by Intel with Apple. The two bi-directional channels feature transfer speeds of up to 10GB per second each.
Thunderbolt delivers PCI Express to peripherals such as RAID arrays and can support FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet networks through adaptors and USB devices.
It also supports DisplayPort for high-resolution displays and works with existing MacBook adaptors for HDMI, DVI and VGA display.
The MacBook Pro range now has built-in FaceTime HD camera, with Apple saying it has triple the resolution of the previous generation.
Users can make FaceTime calls between MacBook Pro laptops and with its FaceTime software, available on the Mac App Store, allows for standard resolution calls to other Intel-based Macs, iPhone 4 smartphones and the latest iPod touch devices.
The laptops have a seven-hour battery life and come with Mac OSX Snow Leopard with iLife 11.
The prices for the new MacBook Pro laptops start from €1,199 and go up to €2,499 for the top of the range model. The online store is down at the time of writing, as it’s probably integrating the new range into its product offerings to be made available today.
There were rumours last week that the range has already been shipped into stores, to be made available once the models were revealed.
