When I had my chance to look at Apple's new line of notebooks, I had a couple of questions in mind. Sure, I knew they had new graphics cards, bigger hard drives and a new screen. I also knew about the solid piece of aluminum the enclosure is milled from. But is there enough of a difference between these new notebooks and the old ones to make it worth telling people they should upgrade?

Yes -- in spades.

The new unibody enclosure is a wonder. I could see and, more importantly for me, feel how light and incredibly strong the frame is. I had to apply a considerable amount of pressure to get any kind of flex at all.

The new backlit display makes a 15-inch notebook screen look a lot like a 17-inch screen because of the lack of a metallic bezel surrounding it... and is the best screen yet on a Mac notebook.

The new NVDA GeForce video card renders intense graphics with absolutely no lag, so the MacBook Pro I have for a review is able to play games unlike any Mac notebook I've ever seen....

And the speakers on the MacBook Pro have been ramped up in a major way....

Intel is planning to launch three 65W low-power desktop CPUs targeting small form factor (SFF) PCs and all-in-one PCs in the middle of January next year, according to sources at PC vendors.

Intel will launch the Core 2 Quad Q8200s (2.33GHz/4MB L2), Core 2 Quad Q9400s (2.66GHz/6MB L2) and Core 2 Quad Q9550s (2.83GHz/12MB L2) with prices at US$245, US$320 and US$369, respectively in thousand-unit tray quantities. These CPUs will have the same specifications as standard CPUs with the same model number, but will see their TDP drop from 95W to 65W.

Apple is among a handful of PC manufacturers who're waiting on a new family of quad-core chips from Intel that are designed for small form-factor PCs like the Mac mini and all-in-one systems like the iMac.

Taiwanese rumors mill DigiTimes is citing sources who say the chip maker plans to launch the 65W low-power chips in the middle of January and that "Apple, Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Dell have already decided to launch products based on these CPUs."...

Apple reportedly is readying the January launch of new quad-core iMacs powered by upcoming Intel chips, reports said Wednesday. The upgrade would allow Apple to offer lower-cost iMacs while increasing the performance of current dual-core processors supplied by the California chip giant.

Yesterday, Apple released a firmware update for the glass trackpads on the new MacBook and MacBook Pro computers to "address an issue where trackpad clicks may not be recognized." For most users this update has been a welcome solution the ongoing problem of glass trackpads periodically losing functionality, but some users are having trouble with the update.

Some users are experiencing installation failures, accompanied by the error message 'The Firmware update did not complete. Communication with the device failed."

From the first time Steve Jobs demonstrated "the pinch" - the two-finger gesture used to zoom in and out of photos and Web pages on the iPhone - some Apple observers assumed it was just a matter of time before a multitouch-enabled screen showed up on the Mac.

That hasn't happened yet. But as of Nov. 19, Hewlett-Packard has beaten Apple to the punch, announcing the first multitouch-enabled notebook PC, the tx2. I can't help but wonder whether Apple just lost an important race.

Hewlett-Packard's tx2 is a convertible notebook, meaning its screen can pivot 180 degrees to show someone else what's on it or lie flat and act like a tablet PC. It's the first convertible notebook aimed directly at consumers.....

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