Apple are making some pretty out there claims for this. They claim the new battery can be recharged up to 1000 times, apparently this equals a 5 year life. Well if your someone who uses their laptop everyday, then you’ll recharge one, maybe twice a day. Not that many people actually own hardware for 5 years, but I’d be expecting the life is more realistically 2-3 years.

As for the 8 hours of battery life, well we know manufacturer are notorious for inflating figure on this. Also 8 hours most likely comes with a disclaimer to say you’ll only get that if u basically shut everything off. If your running in full power mode with the discreet graphics, then expect closer to 4 or 5 hours.

Of course we’ll only find out for sure once these land in the hands of consumers.

Overall the new 17” Macbook Pro costs an astonishing A$4,499. But why stop there, why not throw in a few ridiculously priced upgrades..

- Upgrade from 2.66Ghz to 2.93Ghz processor + A$530
- Upgrade from 4GB to 8GB RAM + A$2100
- Upgrade from 320GB HDD to 256GB SSD +A$1,550

So we arrive at A$8,769 for a full tricked out 17” Macbook Pro. That is of course before you add in AppleCare.

More @ Apple

Also up there is Veronica Belmont from Mahalo Daily.

If you want to watch the recorded keynote, you can see it at Apple.com

While other sites (yes even the big ones) are crashing out and dying a horrible death under load, MacRumours seems to have their system polished very nicely.

That’s why I’m giving my best live coverage of Macworld 2008 to them.

With auto-refreshing content (read not full page refreshes) as well as a slick isolated image section, it’s the best I’ve seen yet.

If you know of better coverage, then please leave a comment.

The incredibly hyped Apple conference Macworld begins, tomorrow morning 4am on the east coast of Australia(+10:00).

I’ll be getting and keeping track of all the online coverage. This year Macworld will be covered like never before. With a substantial increase in ‘Live blogging’.

If your keen to get the latest from Steve Jobs, here’s the sites I’ll be watching:

Apple Gazette
Appletell
Arstechnica.com
Daily Tech Talk
Engadget
Gizmodo
MacRumors
MacSpark
PomCast
SteveNote Live
Stuff
Uneasy Silence
World of Apple

I’m really hoping for something completely left field from Apple. If all we get is the speculated thin Macbook and upgraded specs of the rest of their lines (i.e. Apple TV 2), then I like many others will be disappointed.

With that said, it’d be near impossible for Apple to live up to expectations at this point. The simply posting of a banner with ‘There’s something in the Air’ has set almost every tech blog alight!

One thing can be sure, Apple won’t be short for future product ideas with most pointing out what’s wrong with the world and what Sir Steve could do to solve it.

Apple.com now shows the above image, further adding to the speculation about what ‘There’s something in the air.’ actually means. The speculation began when Macworld banners were posted around the venue.

The best guess by most is that it refers to an ultra-slim, very light Macbook. I’m not so sure, if it is, then I’ll be pretty disappointed as that’s something everyone’s expecting.

Apple could take everyone by surprise by announcing a network of open wireless access points, similar to the partnership with Starbucks. So the ‘Something in the air’ could be referring to free wi-fi access for iPhone / iPod Touch owners… here’s hoping.

Digg.com has a countdown timer to the start of Macworld, no doubt a Kevin Rose initiative.

If your looking for all the latest coverage on Macworld then a great place to start will be Engadget’s live blogging from Steve Jobs’ keynote.