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Apple Updates Retina MacBook Pro with New Processors, Drops Pricing on 13-Inch Models and High-End MacBook Air

KnightWRX said:
Finally, the 13" price's is inline with the pricing on the 15" model. Finally it makes sense. Thank you Apple for seeing the light! (although a bit late for my wallet, I don't regret my 15" purchase).

Will KPOM now finally admit he was wrong all this time ? Even Apple has bandonned you in this argument man. It's over, it's all admitted. 1499$ was always the correct price.

I'm fully waiting for the spin on this one.
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Refurbished/discount prices always feel truer to what they should have been to begin with. Now if you did not have to wait months to see said lower prices.
 
mcmaloney said:
I imagine Apple will honor its typical 2 week return policy in order to qualify for these new discounts.
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I received mine on the 25th and I just called and they are sending me a return kit, now I am just wondering if its worth it. If there were other "production issues" resolved then yes...
 
ajkst1 said:
Price drop could also signal that they've cut the cost of making them? I know it goes against the reasoning that lower costs equals a higher margin, but maybe Apple is setting up for a Retina only MBP lineup? While Retina Airs sound amazing, I still think they require a bit more oomph then they have.

Also, take a look at the pricing scheme of the current lineup without the 13" Non-retina MBP:

Macbook Air: 11" $999/$1099
Macbook Air: 13" $1199/$1399
Macbook Pro: R13" $1499/$1699
Macbook Pro: 15" $1799
Macbook Pro: R15 $2199/$2799

I see the 13" Non-Retina Macbook Pro going away soon. It doesn't "fit". If they can bring the pricing on the 15" RMBP to $1999/$2499 (a similar drop to what the 13" RMBP saw), Then maybe you could make the argument that the 15" MBP could go away as well. Retina displays on the MBP, regular displays (and longer battery life) on the MBA.

Just a thought.
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If I were to guess, that's precisely what I think it's going to happen in the next refresh. It makes perfect sense for Apple to get rid of the non-retina models, so the line of laptops would look like as follows:

11-inch MacBook Air: US$ 999/US$ 1,099
13-inch MacBook Air: US$ 1,199/US$ 1,399
13-inch MacBook Pro (retina): US$ 1,499/US$ 1,699
15-inch MacBook Pro (retina): US$ 1,999/US$ 2,499

With a price premium of US$ 500 over the higher-end 13-inch MacBook Pro with a retina display, it is the 15-inch model that seems a little bit overpriced now...

Apple might even re-introduce the 17-inch MacBook Pro, for some US$ 2,799, now with a retina display, as future video cards will allow for a resolution even higher than 2880x1800.
 
KPOM said:
I'm guessing the 15" cMBP is gone, and the 13" cMBP is relegated to a special, non-updated education model in July (like they did with the white MacBook in 2011).
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That is sad. I love the rMBP's, but I don't hear great reports about how hard the comp has to work just to keep the UI running. We use our computers pretty hard where I work for rendering and video presentations, I don't want everything working hard to just to run the OS and pixel dense screen. Love the thinness, love the flash, don't love the price or specs.
 
So yes you can special order the new 2.8Ghz processor as an option.

The 2.7 and 2.8 both have the 8MB cache, the 2.4 has 6MB.

I got a 2.7/16GB/768SSD in December.
These updates don't make me regret it.

However if you are getting one of these new machines and you want the 2.7GHz as stock machine without waiting (unless you want 768SSD) and for a marginally better price then you're in luck.

Personally the extra 2MB cache was important to me for the apps I use but if you don't use Final Cut, audio apps etc then the 2.4 I'm sure is fine.

Either way, rMBP is an awesome machine, desktop/latop whatever - it kicks ass.
The only thing I don't like is only two USB3 ports but it is a portable unit so... Getting by with a USB3 hub which is reasonably reliable.
 
gnasher729 said:
I once looked at buying a cheap used Mac Mini on eBay. Prices were absolutely ridiculous. I mean if an old model sells for more than a refurbished new model with full warranty at the Apple Store, that's ridiculous. But that's what happens.
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There's a difference between listed prices and what people actually pay. And his question was about buying at the new price now and selling it 4-9+ months from now (whenever Haswell shows up in a buyable MB) at less than a $200 discount off the new price (which would likely make his price higher than the refurb store price for the same, with the latter coming with a full "new" warranty).
 
jonnysods said:
That is sad. I love the rMBP's, but I don't hear great reports about how hard the comp has to work just to keep the UI running. We use our computers pretty hard where I work for rendering and video presentations, I don't want everything working hard to just to run the OS and pixel dense screen. Love the thinness, love the flash, don't love the price or specs.
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I think those reports are a bit overblown. I haven't noticed an issue at all though to be fair I dont do serious video editing. Also, the Haswell processors will significantly increase the GPU performance.
 
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jonnysods said:
That is sad. I love the rMBP's, but I don't hear great reports about how hard the comp has to work just to keep the UI running. We use our computers pretty hard where I work for rendering and video presentations, I don't want everything working hard to just to run the OS and pixel dense screen. Love the thinness, love the flash, don't love the price or specs.
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this is another example of uninformed rumourism - I haven't had any issues - I can be running Final Cut X, Compressor, Logic Audio, Photoshop, Illustrator, Mail, Safari,Pages, Acrobat Reader and Distiller, QuarkXpress, iTunes and a number of other apps all at once with no problems - maybe a little bit of fan cranking and and bit more heat but nowhere near as hot as my old MBP.

The UI is completely fine under this load and I'm running 1900 x 1200 under QuickRes.

Too much 'so and so says rMBP display is a memory hog yadda yadda' - it's a pile of ************* in the real world!
 
Ryth said:
Agreed.

But I think that the reason the 13" isn't selling as well is that most people who are buying a 13" laptop aren't 'pro' users and are picking up the MBAir instead.
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Yup, the 13" rMBP is a bit of a conundrum. It doesn't have a real video card that pros need and isn't feather light like the MBA which is what consumers want. Pro end up with the 15" rMBP and consumers with the 13" MBA.
 
For me it's now become a battle between the 13" 256GB Air or the 13" rMBP with 128GB.

I'd be able to manage with 128GB if I put my music collection on an SDXC card or a USB 3 stick.

Performance wise I'd be losing 4GB Ram, 0.7Ghz and TurboBoost - that may affect rendering - what sort of rendering will I get out of an Intel 4000?
 
KPOM said:
I think those reports are a bit overblown. I haven't noticed an issue at all. Also, the Haswell processors will significantly increase the GPU performance.
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The Intel GPU performance. If one uses the discrete (not Intel) GPU much of the time, what's really in Haswell for them? Slightly faster (but noticeably faster in anything other than spec tests?). Slightly better power conservation (but is 7 hours on one charge not plenty). Thunderbolt built into the chip (which seems more about driving wider adoption as we probably won't see a price savings for consumers). What else does Haswell bring that might be noticeable & meaningful to 'real world' use? From my look at it, it seems like the biggest lift in Haswell is better Intel graphics performance (but that doesn't do much for the discrete graphics side).
 
Aluminum213 said:
They dropped in price because they probably sold badly, Wish they dropped the 15" retinas but they seem to be doing well in sales so that won't be happening
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They dropped the price of flash storage across the board, including the cMBP and MacBook Air lines. I agree that sales of the 13" rMBP probably didn't meet expectations (hence the price drop after just 4 months), but I'm not surprised that they did a mid-cycle refresh and price drop altogether. NAND has gotten cheap and there was no way Apple was going to be able to maintain its $2/GB pricing for much longer. Plus, I'm guessing that Samsung, LG, Sharp, and AU Optronics have improved yields are able to keep up with production needs now for the Retina Displays.
 
AndyDiamond said:
So yes you can special order the new 2.8Ghz processor as an option.

The 2.7 and 2.8 both have the 8MB cache, the 2.4 has 6MB.

I got a 2.7/16GB/768SSD in December.
These updates don't make me regret it.

However if you are getting one of these new machines and you want the 2.7GHz as stock machine without waiting (unless you want 768SSD) and for a marginally better price then you're in luck.

Personally the extra 2MB cache was important to me for the apps I use but if you don't use Final Cut, audio apps etc then the 2.4 I'm sure is fine.

Either way, rMBP is an awesome machine, desktop/latop whatever - it kicks ass.
The only thing I don't like is only two USB3 ports but it is a portable unit so... Getting by with a USB3 hub which is reasonably reliable.
Click to expand...

I've been led to believe that the new 2.7GHZ is the i7-3740QM (taking the place of the 2.6GHz i7-3720) and that it still has a 6MB L3. Am I misinformed?
 
So I decided just to order another refurbished one and send this one back, since the price went down by $260 + Tax for the computer i bought Jan 25th.

Thanks MacRumors for saving me $300 🙂
 
Eidorian said:
Refurbished/discount prices always feel truer to what they should have been to begin with. Now if you did not have to wait months to see said lower prices.
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KnightWRX is one of those people who's always right, especially when he's wrong. 🙄

Anyway, I do like Apple's new pricing model with the 13" rMBP, and appreciate that they are dropping the price of NAND upgrades across the board (on MBA and cMBP as well as rMBP models). Hopefully more people will get the higher capacity models now and we'll see sales tick up.
 
Wow, great new prices! Much cheaper SSD-bto too! My future mba 11" just got approx. 635 $ cheaper! (in sweden, that is)

Now, wasn't I supposed to pay off all my student debt this year instead...? 🙂
 
KPOM said:
KnightWRX is one of those people who's always right, especially when he's wrong. 🙄

Anyway, I do like Apple's new pricing model with the 13" rMBP, and appreciate that they are dropping the price of NAND upgrades across the board (on MBA and cMBP as well as rMBP models). Hopefully more people will get the higher capacity models now and we'll see sales tick up.
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I do not see a reason for Apple to "test the waters" when it comes to prices. This happened when the MacBook Air first launched and are we seeing a redux with the Retina hardware? SSD/NAND prices have also tanked hard in the past 6 months.

Other vendors tend to adjust prices much more quickly and ship newer hardware out the door closer to its initial release. All of this component information is easily available elsewhere but Apple still plays the game as if they have control of the mystery box.
 
They updated the info on the Australian apple store. The only change as far as I could see was a $150 drop in the base rMPA. This makes the decision between the MBA and rMBP a bit easier I think; the latter. Which is the way they would want you to go.
 
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