If you go to Apple’s website right now, you’re greeted in large letters with “Meet The Next Generation Of Notebooks”. How exciting is that? I have been psyched up for a while knowing that Apple had plans of re-fitting their notebook line and also doing a little price update, which they did both.

They took a chunk of time this morning talking about the base that their laptops are built on. Jonathan Ive went into detail about how they are forging a frame out of a solid piece of aluminum instead of piecing together frame. This is really meant to beef up the machine and make it feel more rigid and robust.

Also updated are the graphics in the new units by switching to an Nvidia solution. Depending on what model Macbook Pro you purchase you will see either the 9400M or the 9600M GT. Both these solutions are a combined GPU and chipset on the same chip, thus saving room.

The trackpad of all things has been changed. This to me is one of those features that needed updating but no one knew we needed the changes they came up with. I rarely hear anyone complain about trackpads unless they don’t like to use them all together, but these guys have made it larger, out of glass and the entire thing is the button. And to top that off, they have made it multi-touch (4 touch).

The pricing (source: www.arstechnica.com) comes in lower as well. More features and a lower tag is good in my books!

• $1999 for 15.4″ LED-backlit display, 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/3MB L2, 2GB 1066MHz DDR3 memory, both NVIDIA chips, 250GB hard drive and a slot-loading superdrive.
• $2499 for the same but upgraded CPU to 2.53GHz, 6MB L2
• both are upgradeable to 2.8Ghz

Steve Jobs saved the Macbook to the last because it seemed like the most exciting. I believe it’s because most people would be in that market if they were looking at a mobile Mac solution. The Macbook as it is now will keep selling but at $100 less, so now $999.

The new Macbook will have some cross over features from the Pro that people have been asking for. The main 4 points are the size and it will be thinner, it will now have the Pro’s metal enclosure, have a glass screen (glossy), the same faster graphics and an LED-blacklit display. They have answered and still kept the price somewhat reasonable at $1299 for the base unit. I still believe that Mac’s pricing needs to come down a little more to compete head on with the HPs and Dells of the world, but that’s another post.

So it’s time to go check out the new line at www.apple.com. I am excited to see them in the stores (apparently we should see them as early as tomorrow) so that I can play with one. I want to see how the trackpad is better and if the display really is better being glossy.