Following on the heels of last month’s speed-and-feature-bump of Apple’s MacBook consumer portable line, comes a major upgrade to the MacBook Pro (MBP) portable line. They’re called “Pros” for a reason, as they carry much of the wallop of a desktop in a gorgeous 5.5 or 6.8 pound package.

The outside wrapper of the MBP package, however, hasn’t changed. Same one-inch-thin anodized aluminum case, same array of input/output ports, including blazing FireWire 800 and DVI video. Same built-in iSight camera. Same MagSafe power connector that disconnects safely if someone, say, trips over your power cord. Same multi-touch trackpad that lets you scroll through documents with two fingers. Same lighted keyboard that adjusts to ambient light. Same slot-loading CD/DVD player/burner.

So, what’s new? Faster processors – up to 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 4 MB of L2 cache and an 800 MHz frontside bus. Trust me, all that geek talk translates into “fast”. The new MBP can now handle 4 GB of RAM, perfect for memory-hungry pro applications like Final Cut, Aperture, and Photoshop. Need storage space? The new MBPs can support up to 250 GB Serial ATA hard drives. The MBP line also gets the speedy new 802.11n wireless networking.

Powering the display is the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor with 256MB of dedicated memory. The new MBP 15-inch model gains an energy-efficient and mercury-free LED (Light Emitting Diode) backlit display. While LED technology hasn’t yet made it into the 17-inch MBP (too costly, most likely), the flagship model does get an optional higher-resolution 1920 x 1200 display. In case you didn’t notice, that’s higher definition than an HD TV. In fact, MBPs can be connected to a HD TV via optional cables.

The entry-level 15-inch MBP retails for $1999. Anticipating your next question, I spent several agonizing minutes at Dell’s website building a similarly-configured Dell Precision M65 running Windows Vista. The verdict? I stopped “building” when the Dell total went over $2500, and that was without 802.11n wireless networking and before adding more dollars for anti-malware software and multimedia software that still doesn’t rival Apple’s iLife suite.

The high-end 15-inch MBP retails for $2499. A similarly-configured Dell? Over $2900. The 17-inch MBP retails for $2799. A similarly configured Dell? Over $3300. And what’s worse, all the Dells run Windows. And that’s just too high a price to pay for anyone, really.