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Is anyone else scratching their heads a little bit with this? It seems a little out of Apple's character to release a whole new product (ok, well, for the most part new) and then say, oh yeah btw here you go, have a laptop too.

If they're going to focus on textbooks it would make sense to launch the smaller iPad (mini, nano, little guy whatever) with some announcements from Pearson, MGH, etc and leave it at that.

But hey, I guess if they toss in a laptop that's cool too.
Actually it could be an event to focus on education rather than just textbooks. As you might know the 13inch MBP is quite popular among the university students as its small and easy to carry so iPad Mini+iBooks+rMBP 13 perfectly aligns well with the education theme.
 
I dont understand why ipad got retina and is still the same price? So why isnt the entire macbook pro line retina now at the same price?
 
$1500+ for a 13" underpowered laptop with a nice screen...no thanks.

I'll keep my 13" Air

For me $1500 for a 13" Retina would be a much better deal than about $2000 for a 15" Retina. If the 13" is cheaper than the 15", it'll be more of a deal breaker for me to get it. I hope the 13" is cheaper so that way I can upgrade from my 13" 2010 macbook pro. It still works great for the most part, but I've been having to take it to the shop every once in a while to get something fixed. Plus, the Retina is much better quality, and faster
 
My guess would be a starting price of $1799 or $1899.

We're likely to see a $1499 entry model with some very basic specs. My best guess:

13" Retina display (2560x1600)
2.5 Ghz Intel Core i5 CPU
4GB DDR3L RAM
128GB SSD
2 USB 3.0 ports
1 Thunderbolt port
SDXC slot
1 3.5" mm headphone/mic jack

And then maybe an $1799 model like this:

13" Retina display (2560x1600)
2.9 Ghz Intel Core i7 CPU
8GB DDR3L RAM
256GB SSD
2 USB 3.0 ports
1 Thunderbolt port
SDXC slot
1 3.5" mm headphone/mic jack

3.6lbs, rated 7 hr battery life. Unsure if Apple will stick HDMI in the 13" like they did the 15" (but it would be much appreciated).

Price premium of the Retina Display is about $200. And do remember that there is a lot of fudging because when you configure a 15" Classic MBP with the same hardware specs as the 15" Retina MBP, it costs just the same even without the additional cost of the better display.

Again, these are just guesses, but they're educated guesses.
 
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If they don't bring back the 17" MBP by next summer, I'm jumping back to Windows. That's about as long as I can keep using my June 2009 MBP17. I like Apple, but the main basis of my brand loyalty was FCP. Now that I've switched to Adobe CS6, I'll buy from whichever manufacturer can give me the most powerful 17" laptop, preferably with a retina screen.
 
A surprising amount of MacRumors on this site today, weird!

But this is awesome news! I will likely sell my MBA and purchase one of these if it is priced reasonably. I don't know if I would pay $1899 though, that seems like quite a lot for a 13 inch laptop.
 
If they don't bring back the 17" MBP by next summer, I'm jumping back to Windows. That's about as long as I can keep using my June 2009 MBP17. I like Apple, but the main basis of my brand loyalty was FCP. Now that I've switched to Adobe CS6, I'll buy from whichever manufacturer can give me the most powerful 17" laptop, preferably with a retina screen.

The mind boggling number of pixel that would come with a 17" Retina display is so high, no manufacturer is ever going to bother because of the GPU needed to run such a display smoothly. Also, it should be pretty clear that the 17" is dead to Apple and their way forward with those who want more screen space is to get a Thunderbolt display. Estimates are that in Q1 2012, they sold only 50,000 of them, so I don't see Apple wanting to bring it back.
 
$1500+ for a 13" underpowered laptop with a nice screen...no thanks.

I'll keep my 13" Air

Apple told you about the specs?? or you are just guessing??
As far as i know rumors sites claimed that i will have a core i7 processor (2.93 Ghz) and 8 Gb memory. Is that underpowered for your tastes??
 
Hopefully it's not too expensive. If it is, I'll just keep my current Mbp and sit a little farther away. :p
 
Personally I am just waiting for the day the Air receives a 1080p screen and a quad core non x86 cpu.
 
Sony proved quad is possible, but I don't think dedicated gpu would be without either sacrificing battery life, or thinness.

It's easier for Apple to just wait for Intel to make a beefier integrated GPU, which we should see in 2013, and a much better version in 2014. The reasons against a dedicated GPU are pretty obvious: takes up space inside the computer reducing the size of the battery and battery life, also uses more power again reducing battery life, requires a more powerful cooling solution, plus it costs more.
 
It's easier for Apple to just wait for Intel to make a beefier integrated GPU, which we should see in 2013, and a much better version in 2014. The reasons against a dedicated GPU are pretty obvious: takes up space inside the computer reducing the size of the battery and battery life, also uses more power again reducing battery life, requires a more powerful cooling solution, plus it costs more.
Exactly.
 
After using the integrated GPU on rMBP and finding out how choppy and under performing it is, I think it would be a good idea to pass this IVY bridge and wait for Haswell. The GPU will be twice as fast which is badly needed for retina display. ;)

I don't think it's a GPU problem considering a MacBook Air can easily run 2 daisy chained Thunderbolt Displays as well as an its internal display, which is 2x the number of pixels as on a 15" rMBP The bottleneck is somewhere else...
 
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