The Rumors are TRUE!!! New MacBook Pros are Arriving on Campus SOON!

Have you heard the rumors about the new MacBook Pro? Well, IM&T is excited to bring you this exclusive update about their availability to purchase RIGHT HERE ON CAMPUS! Yesterday, Apple confirmed the rumors and released its new line of MacBook Pros and they will be available for purchase at BearLogic in the University Center sometime next week. This year marks a significant revamping of MacBook Pro, especially in the 15 and 17 inch computers. The new MacBook Pro boasts its sleek, compact design and usual speeds and feeds along with many new features. The biggest “upgrades” that you will notice are the addition of Intel’s Sandy Bridge processor, Facetime-enabled HD camera, high-speed Thurnderbolt I/O port (reportedly 12 times faster than Firewire) and AMD graphics.


Here’s some in depth information of the fantastic feautures, add-ons and upgrades you will find with the new MacBook Pros.

The Facetime camera was launched by Apple last October, but the latest MacBook Pros are equipped with even better HD cameras for video chat. This camera has, reportedly, three times the resolution of last year’s models. The new MacBook Pros boast better basic specs than their predecessors.

The I/O technology known as Thurderbolt can support transfer speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second and also supports PCI Express, Firewire, USB and gigabit Ethernet using adapters. The jack itself resembles a DisplayPort and can connect to external monitors. Don’t forget that adapters are required for HDMI, DVI and VGA formats. The goal for Apple and Intel is to have other devices implement Thunderbolt to take advantage of those fast speeds

The new MacBook Pro is also including an SDXC memory card slot. Although the cards are extremely expensive, the SDXC slot can support existing SD memory cards as well.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro has exchanged the previous Intel's Core 2 Duo processor in favor of either a 2.3 GHz Core i5 or 2.7 GHz Core i7 on Intel's Sandy Bridge platform. Hard drives start at 320 GB instead of 250 GB. You will still get 4 GB of DDR3 RAM, which is the same as last year’s models, but it's even a little faster at 1333 MHz instead of 1066 MHz.

The basic 15-inch model changed from last year's dual-core Intel Core i5 processor to a quad-core 2.0 GHz Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor. The smallest available hard drive is now 500 GB instead of 320 GB. As with the 13-inch model, the base RAM is only slightly differs.

The 17-inch model also uses a new quad-core with a 2.2 GHz Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor in the standard configuration. Basic storage capacity has increased from 500 GB to 750 GB. The RAM will be the same as the other models that are available.

(See Apple’s website for a full spec comparison.)

Even with all of these awesome add-ons and upgrades, the new MacBook Pros have not gone up in pricing, and remember that you will get a special higher education pricing if you purchase from BearLogic on campus!

For further questions or to “test drive” a new MacBook Pro when they make their debut in the store next week, head over to the University Center and speak with one of their knowledgeable employees.

Technical Support- You Asked, We Listened.

You have asked, and we have listened. The Technical Support Center has expanded its on-campus staffing and hours of operation. When you dial 970-351-HELP (4357) you will speak with an on-campus representative during the following hours:

Monday-Thursday: 7am-10pm

Friday: 7am-5pm

Saturday-Sunday: 10am-7pm

*Holidays and University closures excluded

The updated hours of operation, previously supported in part by an off-campus company, have been identified as critical to the support needs of the campus community. Based on your feedback, we found that the service of the off-campus organization was not meeting your needs. These results indicated that our on-campus student and full-time staff better understand and meet your technical needs and expectations. To ensure we capitalize on this success our on-campus services will be staffed mainly by UNC students. This will allow more UNC students the opportunity to learn important professional skills such as customer service, technical troubleshooting and problem solving skills.

The campus community also identified that it was critical to the academic mission that we maintain the availability of technical support representatives 24/7/365. To achieve this, the remaining hours not staffed by on-campus UNC personnel will be facilitated by an answering service. This group will document your support request and notify on-site staff for troubleshooting and resolution. We have limited the use of this group to hours were less than 3% of our total telephone contact is made. An additional benefit of this updated support model is that we will be able to avoid any increase to our existing cost model.

We want to ensure that our services align with your needs and believe that our updated on-campus model will bring us closer to this goal. By utilizing our students as a primary resource and expanding our on-campus hours we will improve your technical support experience while decreasing the cost of continuous support to the institution.