[jdrumstik]

what is everyone's expectations for MacBook Pros within the next three years?

True Quad Core (This is up to Intel)
LED screens
Probably a new Mac OS X
Obviously bigger and faster HDDs and Memory

I was just wondering, I'm leaving for a 3rd world country for 2 years so my MBP would just get stolen, so I might as well sell it.

[brokenjago]

Probably a new Mac OS X?

I'd say it's basically guarenteed, looking at how often previous releases have been.

[spice003]

Quad Core laptops will be out this fall. read this

http://forums.macnn.com/69/powerbook...-intel-penryn/

[mduell]

Quads in the late 2007 to mid 2008 timeframe; possibly octos in 2009.

LED backlit screens should be out in late spring.

Flash memory on both the logic board and hard drive.

New ports, like eSATA and DisplayPort in the next year or two.

[imitchellg5]

I doubt quads except for maybe in a 17". It's hard to tell however that far in advanced. A new OS is guaranteed, unless Apple suddenly stops all developement of Leopard right now.

[Ken_F2]

Intel doesn't have any quad-core mobile processors coming this year, but they do have mobile versions of the Core2 Duo on the roadmap @ 2.60GHz (May) and 2.8GHz (October). Starting in May, virtually all new Intel Core2 Duo mobile processors will feature a 800MHz bus.

One of the optional features supported by Intel's new Santa Rosa chipset is integrated flash on the logic board to improve application performance and boot times. Apple may incorporate that.

It doesn't look like there will be a mobile variant of Penryn with quad-core. Intel hasn't said anything about it, and clearly Penryn quad won't work in the same power envelope as the current Core2 Duo lineup. The current "Merom" Core2 Duo has a TDP of 34W for notebooks and that is supposed to drop to to ~28W with Penryn (with faster clock speeds). There's no way they get a Penryn quad running with a 28W TDP.

Realistically, we probably won't see quad-core mobile until the "Nehalem" Core3 Quad lineup in 2H 2008. But we will see Intel scale the updated "Penryn" Core2 Duo mobile chip well beyond 3.0GHz, while also improving battery life over the current Core2 Duo.