Mac Book Pro - First Generation

First Generation

The original 15-inch MacBook Pro was announced on January 10, 2006, by Steve Jobs at the Macworld Conference & Expo. The 17-inch model was unveiled on April 24, 2006. The first design was largely a carryover from the PowerBook G4, but used Intel Core CPUs instead of PowerPC G4 chips. The 15-inch Macbook Pro weighed the same as the 15-inch aluminum PowerBook G4, but was 0.1 inches (0.25 cm) deeper, 0.4 inches (1.0 cm) wider, and 0.1 inches (0.25 cm) thinner. Other changes from the PowerBook include a built-in iSight webcam and the inclusion of MagSafe, a magnetic power connector designed to detach easily when pulled to prevent the entire laptop from being pulled off a surface. Both features were later brought over to the MacBook. In order to fit into the slimmer MacBook Pro, the optical drive was half the speed of the one in the PowerBook G4 and could not write to dual layer DVDs.

Both the original 15- and 17-inch model MacBook Pros come with ExpressCard/34 slots, which replace the PC Card slots found in the PowerBook G4. All pre-unibody 15-inch models have two USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire 400 port, while the 17-inch models have three USB 2.0 ports as well as one FireWire 400 port. When first introduced, the MacBook Pro did not come with FireWire 800 or S-Video ports, although FireWire 800 was added in the next 15-inch model revision and was present in every version of the 17-inch design. S-Video capability can be attained through the use of a DVI to S-Video adapter. External displays with up to a 2,560 × 1,600 pixel resolution are supported through a dual-link DVI port. All models include a built-in Gigabit Ethernet port, Bluetooth 2.0, and 802.11a/b/g. Later models include support for the draft 2.0 specification of 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1.