Rumor: 2012 MacBook Pro gets SSD disk, bigger battery

Rumor: MacBook Pro gets bigger battery
The SSD boot disk and increased battery size combo could make for a powerful laptop

Months of rumors point to Apple releasing slim MacBook Pros this year, perhaps even aping the look and feel of the company's MacBook Air notebook.

But what if the leading speculation is nothing more than false hope?

At least one recent report cites claims Apple's 2012 MacBook Pro line won't deviate too significantly from previous years - at least where size is concerned.

Regardless, the bulky optical disc drive appears to be history, but there could be a curious change taking up the same space.

Apple may use the space once occupied by its internal SuperDrive to include a solid-state storage drive dedicated to the operating system, with a second traditional hard drive for everything else.

Bigger is better?

So what happens to the space once occupied by the internal hard drive? Apple may include a significantly larger battery in its place - up to 30 percent larger, according to the tips we've been following.

The combination of an SSD boot disk and increased battery size could be a powerful one, bringing the super-fast startup times and longer battery life of the MacBook Air, while retaining the beefier processor and larger screens craved by MacBook Pro users.

New MacBook Pro models are expected to arrive this summer, perhaps on the heels of OS X Mountain Lion, aka Mac OS X 10.8, which Apple promised for "late summer."

Via SlashGear