Leaked image suggests Apple could release upgraded MacBook Pro

By Konrad Krawczyk July 28, 2014

MacBook Pro 13 2013 front full

A photo that was posted on Feng, a Chinese tech forum, suggests that Apple could be refreshing its MacBook Pro laptops as soon as tomorrow. The image was allegedly verified by MacG, a French site that appears to specialize in tech news and rumors specific to Apple.

Assuming that the upgrade rumor is legitimate, Apple will be beefing up two main areas of its MacBook Pro: the CPU and the memory count. The three units seen in the leaked image will have Intel Core i7 CPUs clocked at 2.2GHz, 2.5GHz, and 2.8GHz, along with 16GB of RAM.

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The 2.2GHz version will sport a 256GB PCI-Express SSD, along with Intel Iris Pro Graphics. The 2.5GHz unit will see its storage doubled with a 512GB PCI-E SSD, and have GeForce GT 750M graphics supplemented with 2GB of RAM. Finally, there’s the 2.8GHz model, which will have a 1TB PCI-Express SSD along with the same Nvidia graphics card that the 2.5GHz flavor has.

It’s unclear to us why, if these specs are accurate, Apple refuses to upgrade to Nvidia’s 800M line of graphics card, which have been available for months now. Also, the RAM upgrade doesn’t mean much, since 8GB is more than enough for most people these days. Of the MacBook Pro with Retina laptops that Apple is selling as of this writing, only one comes with less than 8GB of RAM; the $1,299 base model.

Intel is slated to release 5th-generation Broadwell CPUs later this year. We expect a much larger Mac and MacBook refresh around that timeframe, along with a possible release of a 12-inch MacBook Air with Retina as well, which has been rumored for months.

If the information contained in the leaked photo turns out to be true, this would be the second MacBook refresh this year. Apple released updated models of its MacBook Air back in late April.

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Konrad Krawczyk

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…

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