We’ll admit to not being leading the field of study in Best Buy-ology, but here comes a new quiz for us care of a tipster who sent TUAW a screenshot of the inventory screen (we also received our own copy of the image in full) that shows what looks to be the current MacBook Pro SKU with status: deleted. What that means is no new orders can be made for that unit, at least for that particular store. Sign of impending MBP refresh? Intel certainly had us riled up last month with that Core i5-infused flier , but we won’t get fooled again. Don’t hold your breath for this one, but if more telltale signs start popping up, we’ll be sure let ya know. [Thanks, Jose R] Current MacBook Pro SKU given mark of death in Best Buy database?

For your viewing pleasure, we present the latest Apple rumor doing the rounds this Saturday afternoon — namely, GeekBench results for a “new” Core i7 MacBook Pro. According to the results, what you’re looking at above are the numbers for the MacBook Pro 6,1, sporting a nastified Intel Core i7 (dual core, not quad) 620M ( Arrandale ) percolating along at 2.66GHz. Other curious points here are the 4.8GHz FSB, which sounds a little screwy to us, and a final GeekBench score of 5260, which makes current MBPs clocked at the same speed look like your grandfather with a walker (those ranges hover around 3700-4000 on average). The laptop in question is also allegedly running a fresh version of Snow Leopard (build 10C3067 of 10.6.2), which certainly makes sense if someone is out there benching a new Apple product, though it’s not a number we can verify. Still, if you were using a new Apple product, would you be dumb enough to publicly share this info? Probably not, which of course raises the question that this might just be a hackintosh or some other clever spoof (even if we did see a suggestion of new MBPs on the way recently).

Far be it for us to argue with order of operations, but an apparent Intel Retail Edge Program promotional email has revealed a contest where those who pass this month’s training can win one of two MacBook Pros with Intel Core i5 processors inside. Only catch is, that’s a model that doesn’t yet exist — whoops! Don’t know how long the company expects those winners to wait, but we’ve gone ahead and kept our calendars clear for the end of the month , just in case Apple feels the urge to send out any last-minute press conference invites. MacBook Pro with Intel Core i5 processor revealed via Intel promo flier? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Colorware ’s well known for offering up all sorts of consumer electronics in all sorts of hues, but the outfit has definitely stepped up its game with the Stealth MacBook Pro . This limited edition piece is an all-black 15-inch MacBook Pro with a matte display, 3.06GHz CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 256MB SSD, an 8x SuperDrive, zero gloss finish and a SofTouch coating that’ll make it downright impossible for your fingers to stop stroking it. Reportedly, these will be limited to just ten units, and each one will cost a not-at-all affordable $5,999. See Apple, this is what you get when you voluntarily axe the BlackBook . Opportunity, lost.

We’ve seriously no idea why Apple didn’t just ship all of the June 2009 MacBook Pro units with the SATA 3Gbps specification enabled, but at least it caved to the chorus of complaints and enabled it today via a firmware update. MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7, as it’s called in Software Update, weighs in at just 3.35MB and requires OS X 10.5.7 to be installed. According to Apple, the update “addresses an issue reported by a small number of customers using drives based on the SATA 3Gbps specification with the June 2009 MacBook Pro.” Of course, it goes on to say that it still doesn’t support the use of drives that can take advantage of such speeds, but at least you have the option now of taking matters into your own hands and upgrading to a non-hamstrung SSD should you choose. [Via MacRumors ] Filed under: Laptops MacBook Pro update rights the wrong, enables 3Gbps SATA transfers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

Apple wasn’t totally clear about this earlier, but it turns out all the unibody MacBook models are now MacBook Pros — the only remaining “MacBook” is the white plastic number. That’s definitely a big change from Cupertino’s usual rigidly-maintained product matrix — we’d say that the lower-end Pros with GeForce 9400M integrated graphics definitely blur the line between consumer and professional machines. Still, it’s not hard to tell one from the other on the outside, at least: MacBooks are plastic and MacBook Pros are aluminum. We all straight? Filed under: Laptops White MacBook last MacBook standing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:28:00 EST.

It may cost around half the price of the machine itself, but Apple now offers an official 8GB RAM upgrade, mysteriously only for 2.93GHz and 2.66GHz MacBook Pros. Wait, we thought the max was 4GB? As we confirmed a while back , the new MacBook Pros technically support up to 8GB, but OS X starts to choke on anything above 6GB. This is almost certainly a software issue, as the hardware on the newer MBPs has not, to our knowledge, changed aside from the boosted processors.

Through a cheap set-top box or a simple PC software client, OnLive streaming games can deliver the latest system-melting titles to crappy hardware you already have. The service’s secret? Cloud rendering . In a nutshell: OnLive runs the games on their powerful servers, the output is then rendered as a video stream and then sent to your OnLive set-top box, PC or even netbook, taking expensive, loud, obsolescence-prone gaming PCs out of the picture entirely. 720p HD streams are said to be possible over a 5mbps connection, while SD gaming only calls for a 1.5mbps line.

Telstra loves to brag about being the ” world’s fastest national mobile broadband network .” And they should after a recent 21Mbps (theoretical) upgrade to its Next G network in Australia’s major cities. Of course real-world performance won’t come close to that but the PC-only, Telstra Turbo 21 USB modem likely smokes any over the air setup you’ve been using. ZDNET tested the Turbo 21 in Sydney and found performance landing on “the right side of excellent.” Performance peaked at about 6Mbps but this was variable at best. Still it was the fastest modem that ZDNET’s seen in their testing. Yours, or more likely your company’s, for AU$499 or AU$299 when bundled with a data pack. Read — Turbo 21 press release Read — Turbo 21 review Filed under: Wireless Telstra’s Turbo 21 HSPA modem reviewed: not 21Mbps but still the world’s fastest originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:16:00 EST

What if you could stream games, any game , over a decent broadband connection to your PC or Atom-based netbook at the same quality as the PS3? Would you walk away from your beloved console? That’s the of hope of Palo Alto-based OnLive. But this is much more than empty rhetoric — OnLive’s been dropping jaws of the press who’ve seen it working this week. GameDaily dubbed the play “fantastic” after seeing Crysis streamed “smooth” off a server to a plain ol’ MacBook laptop. See, OnLive claims to have perfected the video compression so that latency (just 1-millisecond) is low enough to support on-line multiplayer setups