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MacBook Pro sports Core i7 chip label at Best Buy

MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i7 label: Though likely a mistake, it's probably enough to jump-start the rumor mill.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

Best Buy is showing a MacBook Pro page with an Intel Core i7 chip logo. Is Best Buy trying to tell us something?

Though undoubtedly a mistake, Best Buy may be telegraphing Apple products to come. The Web page is here as of 6:30 p.m. PST on Sunday.

Intel Core i7 label appears on Best Buy page for 15-inch MacBook Pro.
Intel Core i7 label appears on Best Buy page for 15-inch MacBook Pro. Best Buy

Apple aficionados have been waiting patiently for Apple to update its MacBook Pro line with Intel's latest and greatest Core i series of processors, including the mobile Core i5 and i7, which were rolled out at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

The mobile i5 and i7 chips are made on Intel's cutting-edge 32-nanometer manufacturing process and handily outperform the older Core 2 Duo processors--which are still used by Apple in its MacBook and MacBook Pro lineup. (The Best Buy 15.4-inch MacBook Pro mistakenly shown with a Core i7 label is officially specified with a Core 2 Duo processor.)

Rivals such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell are now offering laptops in various product lines with the Core i5 and i7 processors. These Dell Studio laptops, for example, all sport Core i7 processors. Dell Alienware mobile systems come with both 45-nanometer quad-core Core i7 processors and the newest dual-core 32-nanometer i7-620M chip.

[Via 9to5Mac and TUAW.]

Updated on March 8 at 8:45 a.m. PST: As of Monday morning, Best Buy has removed the Core i7 label from its 15.4-inch MacBook Pro page.