New MacBook Pros coming this Tuesday - sources confirm (UPDATEx3)

Sources that can be trusted confirmed to MacScoop recent reports claiming the new MacBook Pros are heading for this Tuesday, or about a week before the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off.

Without giving details on the new features and improvements the updated MacBook Pros will offer, sources informed MacScoop that at least the 15 inch models of the line-up would be updated.

Last Friday, a similar report was published by ThinkSecret, the report added that pricing would remain the same. Other reports, corroborated by MacRumors also mentioned a Tuesday release.

The current MacBook Pro line-up is priced $1,999, $2,499 and $2,799, respectively for two 15 inch and one 17 inch model. All of them are using Intel's Core 2 Duo processors ranging from 2.16 to 2.33Ghz.

A logical move would be the upgrade of the MacBook Pro line-up to Intel's new Santa Rosa architecture, which offers several performance improvements and recent technologies such as Robson, which consists of using Flash memory so as to cache and accelerate system boot and application launches while improving battery life.

However, though other PC-makers have already adopted Santa Rosa's features on their notebook line-ups, MacScoop as well as other Mac-centric sites have yet to obtain trustworthy reports or clear evidence that Apple will make use of the features Santa Rosa brings or that the company will indeed make the jump to this architecture anytime soon.

So for the moment, if you prefer being surpised rather than disappointed, expect a simple speed and specs update.

UPDATE: MacRumors confirms the rumors and speculates on possible specs (2.2Ghz and 2.4Ghz chips, 4MB L2 cache, 120/160GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, GeForce 8600M 128/256MB).

UPDATEx2: online stores closed, follow-up on this posting.

UPDATEx3: Apple introduces new MacBook Pros with LED-backlit displays for the 15 inch models and speed, storage, ram, bump.