New Macbooks are already out of date

APPLE RELEASED a new line of Macbook notebooks yesterday, but the hardware is already behind the times.

The chaps from Cappuccino upgraded the entry-level machines to 2GHz and 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, made 1GB of RAM standard and upgraded the hard disks to a maximum 200GB.

But there's no sign of Santa Rosa, strangely enough. You'd think that a new Intel-based laptop announcement coming straight after Intel unveils its next-gen platform would be, you know, next-gen. It seems not. Jobs' mob like to march to their own drum beat, and so it seems that the Apple faithful won't be getting their Santa Rosa fix for a while yet.

In fact, it seems likely that the Macbook Pro will be the first to get the treatment, given that we can now rule out another Macbook refresh for six months or so. Spare a thought for the poor Mac Mini, which is still cronking along on last year's low-end hardware with narry an upgrade in Isight.