Welcome back! It is nice to see you back again.

Formerly called the MacBook, Apple’s basic 13-inch aluminum unibody laptop has been promoted to the “Pro” series, all while adding features and cutting the base price. To finish the alteration, the 13-inch Pro regains its missing FireWire port, making it even more helpful for creative professionals busy.

New to the Pro line is a thing we never thought we would see on a MacBook : an SD card slot. Standard on the 13- and 15-inch Pro laptops, this corrects one of our main MacBook annoyances.

The new battery in the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros is nonremovable, but Apple claims the system can last as long as seven hours while browsing the web, and about half that for DVD playback. We managed to run the system for five hours and 42 mins on our video playback battery drain test, which is about forty mins longer than this 15-inch MacBook and more than an hour longer than the basic white MacBook–the only model Apple still offers with the older removable battery.

Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any changes to the fundamentals of Apple’s guaranty and support plans. New MacBook Pro still include a standard one year, parts-and-labor guaranty, but only ninety days of toll-free phone support. This, together with the proprietary nature of Apple’s products, makes buying an extended Apple Care warranty just about a necessity, but a requirement that may cost $249 for 3 total years of coverage for 13-inch systems and $349 for 15- and 17-inch models.