Apple refreshes MacBooks with new chassis, glass trackpads

In the end, Apple's big notebook event Tuesday went down pretty much as expected, complete with new MacBooks and MacBook Pros boasting tougher, "unibody" chassis and glass multi-touch trackpads. Sorry, though—no tablet Macs, or new $1,000 MacBooks.

The highlight of the event: The gorgeous new 15.4-inch LED display MacBook Pro, which comes with a new, black keyboard, a glass-coated display surrounded by a glossy black frame, and the new, larger glass trackpad—all packed into a slimmer, 0.95-inch casing, thanks to Apple's intriguing notebook manufacturing process.

Indeed, Jobs & co. spent quite a bit of time detailing the new process—first used for the MacBook Air and the subject of endless speculation on the Web (all under the mysterious code-name, "Brick").

Apple design guru and SVP Jony Ive took to the stage and described the procedure, which involves taking a 2.5-pound slab of "high-grade" aluminum and paring it down to just half a pound (in the case of the MacBook Air)—all in an effort to build a stronger, more durable chassis. Samples of the new, "unibody" shell were passed around to reporters in the hall; the bloggers at Gizmodo said that they "tried fairly hard to bend it … it was definitely rigid and didn’t bend at all, at least on the places we pushed at."

Also new (and previously predicted): The new, larger glass trackpad (39 percent larger than the current MacBook Pro trackpads) that's actually a big, single button. The glass allows for "silky-smooth travel," according to Jobs, as well as four-finger multi-touch gestures (good for opening up Expose, among other things). I can't wait to try some four-finger trackpad gestures in person.

Another highlight was graphics—specifically, Nvidia's new 9400M integrated graphics chip, a GPU-plus-chipset which Jobs promises will deliver five times the performance of the integrated Intel graphics on previous MacBooks. Even better, the MacBook Pros will ship with both the 9400M and Nvidia's 9600M GT dedicated graphics chip, for a "turbo" (if more battery-hungry) graphics mode.

The new MacBook Pro should be in stores Wednesday, and comes in a couple of base configurations:

$1,999
2.4Ghz Intel Core Duo 2, with 3MB L2 cache
2GB 1066MHz DDR3 memory
Nvidia GeForce 9400M
Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT with 256MB dedicated memory
250GB hard drive
SuperDrive

$2,499
2.53Ghz Intel Core Duo 2, with 6MB L2 cache
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 memory
Nvidia GeForce 9400M
Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT with 512MB dedicated memory
320GB hard drive
SuperDrive

Apple execs also said that the 17-inch MacBook Pro would also get "refreshed," but details are still a bit sketchy—stay tuned on that one.

Next, we have the updated 13.3-inch LED display MacBook line, which shares the same look—as well as the glass trackpads—as the MacBook Pros, although without the "turbo" graphics of the Nvidia 9600M chip. The configurations are:

$1,299
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 3MB L3 cache
2GB 1066MHz DDR3 memory
Nvidia GeForce 9400M
160GB hard drive
Non-backlit keyboard
SuperDrive

$1,599
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 3MB L3 cache
2GB 1066MHz DDR3 memory
Nvidia GeForce 9400M
250GB hard drive
Backlit keyboard
SuperDrive

Finally, the MacBook Air also got a refresh, although its basic design remains the same: Expect the new Nvidia 9400M graphics chipset, a 120GB hard drive (or a 128GB solid-state drive), and a Mini Display port ($1,799 for the 210GB hard drive version, $2,499 for the 128GB SDD Air).

So, what happened to a new, sub-$1,000 MacBook? Well, there isn't one, although Jobs did announce that the current $1,099 MacBook (with the old plastic case and specifications) will, as expected, get a $100 price drop to $999.

A few other notes from the event:

Steve Jobs' health
Bloggers said Jobs looked pretty much the same as he has at previous events—which is to say, still thin. Jobs himself had a little fun with all the speculation on his gaunt appearance: A slide near the end of the event that read "110 / 70"—Jobs' blood pressure.

No more matted MacBook displays
All the new MacBooks and MacBooks Pros will come with glossy screens—and that means more glare, folks.

Whither Blu-ray?
Many had speculated that the new MacBook Pros might come with Blu-ray drives, but no dice. Jobs' explanation (according to Gizmodo): "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace." Gotcha.

New 24-inch Cinema Display
It's the first Cinema Display from Apple with LED backlighting—shipping in November, for $899.

What about a Mac tablet?
The lack of a tablet-size Mac wasn't a huge surprise, frankly—those rumors pretty much died down once everyone figured out that "Brick" was a new manufacturing process, not an exciting new Mac product.