Just before closing out his speech, Jobs kept to tradition and announced that he had “One More Thing…”

He said the 15-inch PowerBook product line would be going away in favor of a new “Mac Book Pro.” The laptop features a 15.4-inch display and is a hair thinner than the 17″ PowerBook. Additionally, it’s about 4-5 times as fast as the previous PowerBooks, Jobs said.

Mac Book Pro includes a built-in iSight, IR sensor, Apple Remote, and new Power Adapter. It weighs 5.6lbs and will ship with Front Row software. A 1.67 Core Duo model will retail for $1999, while a high-end 1.83GHz model will sell for $2499.

Apple will begin taking orders for the Mac Book Pro today for shipments beginning next month.

Apple Rolls out new iMacs, Mac Book Pro, iLive ‘06[AppleInsider]

Ok. So we were expecting this. But “MacBook Pro”??? come on! PowerBook was so much a better name. I am excited about that new power connector though. Really excited. I guess the dual-cores will help performance too– but man, that power connector is going to be awesome when I accidentally pull on the cord and it doesn’t break solder joints on the motherboard.