2012 Macbook Pro Redesign

[Cookiemonster]

How refreshing. My 2007 macbook pro started acting up this weekend, I wonder what to get next. Almost anything is an upgrade since this is a bit old, but love this notebook !

So many options, what are most of you getting and why?

 

[jcpb]

the reason i was wondering about the ram is because when you go to configure your new retina display macbook, the memory icon still looks like a regular memory module, vs. a soldered type. if you notice, the flash storage icon did change from the ssd icon. so it makes it seem as though it could be. also the fact that its an option to change the configuration, also makes it seem as if it is upgradable. so did you base your answers on known facts? or just a guess?

If you look at the gallery images of other tech sites i.e. AnandTech and compare those to the existing 2011 Macbook Air's, you'll see.

RAM on the Retina MBP is soldered onto the logic board - 2 rows of 8 RAM chip modules smack dab in the middle of the logic board, just below the CPU/GPU/chipset - but the SSD is separate. NAND modules are physically larger than RAM modules.

 

[iRyu]

the ssd in new mbp is sata3 right?

 

[jcpb]

 

[hleewell]

children, The reason I say it won't last long is because it doesn't have enough storage. If you want to pay tons of $$$ for the 500 GB SSD, you might be OK. For me, even 500 GB isn't enough to last 4+ years and it may be non-upgradable. I'm going to wait for the next spec bump, once SSD prices drop


jcp, You can't replace the SSD by yourself. that's why you need to buy it from Apple.

OWC should have a removable SSD Blade type for the new RMBP soon. That's what they say about MBA "non-removeable" SSD. As it turns out OWC sells their own SSD blade that can be inserted easily into the MBAs. Check this out : OWC SSD for MacBook Air

 

[mscice]

I'm so jealous of the 2012 macbook update
I got a high-end 2011 macbook pro in January, and really think I should have waited for this.
I love the thinner design, but overall, do you think the cpu/gpu/retina display upgrades are that drastic of a change to warrant a purchase?
Or should I just chill and wait a couple years...

Be happy you can upgrade your ram and ssd drive... and that you have two jacks.and.not one.

Some of us buy mbp for a long time like myself, knowing i cant upgrade anything later.. sux also the fact that this version retina does not have wifi ac standard is a no for me and ill wait. I have a belkin AC wifi router and would love to push video 1gbps via wifi....

I think august is when ill upgrade.

 

[Martialis]

Be happy you can upgrade your ram and ssd drive... and that you have two jacks.and.not one.

Some of us buy mbp for a long time like myself, knowing i cant upgrade anything later.. sux also the fact that this version retina does not have wifi ac standard is a no for me and ill wait. I have a belkin AC wifi router and would love to push video 1gbps via wifi....

I think august is when ill upgrade.

Do you think there will be an upgrade to the AC standard in the MBPs then? That would definitely be worth waiting for.

 

[Haarith :)]

Be happy you can upgrade your ram and ssd drive... and that you have two jacks.and.not one.

Some of us buy mbp for a long time like myself, knowing i cant upgrade anything later.. sux also the fact that this version retina does not have wifi ac standard is a no for me and ill wait. I have a belkin AC wifi router and would love to push video 1gbps via wifi....

I think august is when ill upgrade.

WTF?? Are you saying that the new retina MBP HAS NO WIFI? DID I JUST WASTE 2000 POUNDS ON A LAPTOP THAT HAS NO WIFI?? WHAT THE ****

 

[MadTester]

QUESTION: Does purchasing ANY of the new MacBook Pro's mean a FREE download of Mountain Lion this summer?

(I have bought a base model 13 inch MBP.)

Hmmm.... I would have thought not, BUT sometimes it's hard to tell with apple these days......

 

[Rizzm]

WTF?? Are you saying that the new retina MBP HAS NO WIFI? DID I JUST WASTE 2000 POUNDS ON A LAPTOP THAT HAS NO WIFI?? WHAT THE ****

It has wifi. No worries.

 

[beowulf70]

WTF?? Are you saying that the new retina MBP HAS NO WIFI? DID I JUST WASTE 2000 POUNDS ON A LAPTOP THAT HAS NO WIFI?? WHAT THE ****

"...chill Winston..."

http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook-pro/specs/

Of course it has WiFi

 

[mscice]

Do you think there will be an upgrade to the AC standard in the MBPs then? That would definitely be worth waiting for.

I think next upgrade they will include the wifi AC standard ... many routers are out with AC

More info on wifi ac http://www.5gwifi.org/

There are twice as many spatial streams available in 802.11ac as there are in 802.11n. With eight spatial streams—each capable of a theoretical 433Mbps—802.11ac devices that use eight antennas can reach speeds up to nearly 7Gbps.

So really no point in buying something that does not have wifi AC

----------

It has wifi. No worries.

Yeah it has wifi but old standard...

 

[Martialis]

I think next upgrade they will include the wifi AC standard ... many routers are out with AC

More info on wifi ac http://www.5gwifi.org/

There are twice as many spatial streams available in 802.11ac as there are in 802.11n. With eight spatial streams—each capable of a theoretical 433Mbps—802.11ac devices that use eight antennas can reach speeds up to nearly 7Gbps.

So really no point in buying something that does not have wifi AC

----------



Yeah it has wifi but old standard...

Yeah, I was surprised too. I at least expected ac wifi to be a BTO option.

 

[Jack25]

Any idea when the first reviews will come in for the new models?

 

[Burrel]

Pretty gutted myself seeing as there's no 13" which I can confidently say I want and would be happy with. I just can't see it being true about a retina 13" being released in August either.
So at the moment it's either looking like the base model MBP, the 256 Air or something else.

----------

I've been following this thread for a long time and both seem to be rumored at the same time here. Some people said it IS SSD, some people say no. Some people say it IS soldered on, some people say no. I keep getting myself all worried, but really I guess we won't know for sure until they ship or show up in stores (?)

No offense to anyone, because clearly I don't know either!

Surely any confusion can be cleared up by either asking someone in one of the Apple stores or calling their customer advice line?

 

[Mr.MBP]

Pretty gutted myself seeing as there's no 13" which I can confidently say I want and would be happy with. I just can't see it being true about a retina 13" being released in August either.
So at the moment it's either looking like the base model MBP, the 256 Air or something else.

----------



Surely any confusion can be cleared up by either asking someone in one of the Apple stores or calling their customer advice line?

I am in the same boat. Though I opted for the 13" MBA base model, I might switch to the 13" MBP so I can upgrade for the future. However, I don't feel I'm getting my money's worth with the MB "pros".

 

[TheRdungeon]

Rev 2 will be the one to get as usual with apple products

 

[mscice]

Maybe apple wants to see how well the 15" retina will sale and feedback before moving everything else without CDrom, less ports and soldered ram etc

who knows.. kinda sad they did not do much of upgrades to the 13" model... I think 13" models are high selling point.

 

[Liquinn]

All this discussion to what was just a modest bump to the unibody CD drive 13" and 15" and a 'retina 15' Ahh well.

 

[Burrel]

destaccado, you don't understand the point of a retina display. It's not about native resolution.

I don't either, fully. I know when it was announced for the iPhone they stated everything you see is stunning, and I'm guessing that would be the case for the new RMBP? So is it equally as good for watching films on as it is for doing photo editing and manipulation?

Thank you.

----------

Using the freshly redesigned 2010 MBA versus the 2011 MBA as an example, we see that Apples tradition of making the first major revamp the one to avoid may repeat itself once again.

I'm thinking the 2013 MBP will be the one to have. I'll let the early adopters and uninitiated buy into this one, live with the bugs, and assist Apple in identifying how it works in the real world.

There's only so much that shows up before it's in the hands of the public. In addition they may end up making some rather substantial changes to the "built in display panel".

I have some concern over something as radical as this change, largely due to necessity to meet Apples obsessive focus on making it thin. Ad to that a new thermal management system, and those two potential problem areas encourage me to wait till next year.

Can't believe I've already heard about 4 people talking about waiting until the next refresh!

----------

So really no point in buying something that does not have wifi AC

What's the benefit of Wifi AC, please? I did Google it but was a little confused with all the jargon on Wikipedia.

 

[mscice]

I don't either, fully. I know when it was announced for the iPhone they stated everything you see is stunning, and I'm guessing that would be the case for the new RMBP? So is it equally as good for watching films on as it is for doing photo editing and manipulation?

Thank you.

----------



Can't believe I've already heard about 4 people talking about waiting until the next refresh!

----------



What's the benefit of Wifi AC, please? I did Google it but was a little confused with all the jargon on Wikipedia.

here you go.. http://www.5gwifi.org/advantages-of-80211ac.php

 

[Liquinn]

So we should see the 2013 Macbook Pro being released next March/April to conclude with Haswell?

 

[mscice]

So we should see the 2013 Macbook Pro being released next March/April to conclude with Haswell?

who knows

 

[destaccado]

I don't either, fully. I know when it was announced for the iPhone they stated everything you see is stunning, and I'm guessing that would be the case for the new RMBP? So is it equally as good for watching films on as it is for doing photo editing and manipulation?

Thank you.

When Apple upgraded the iPhone to "retina" - they did so on a closed development platform where all applications were designed specifically to run on that product. On top of that - even though screen resolution drastically increased, so did the computing and graphical power of the phone so it was able to keep up.

Programs written for Macbook Pro's include everything under the sun to include programs for Windows if you choose to run bootcamp. By making the resolution so high - they've limited the ability to run demanding graphical applications at the native resolution of the screen (the full resolution of the screen with no pixel interpolation that everything always looks best at). 2880x1800 is much too high of a resolution for the nVidia 650m in this machine to keep up with in anything but the most basic graphical applications -- furthermore, on a 15" screen, a resolution this high is hardly needed. 1920x1200 is already an extremely high resolution when viewing a 15" LCD but only has about 45% of the number of pixels of a 2880x1800 LCD. This means that to do the same thing -- the graphics card is working about 45% as much.

As an example - let's say you were to play Diablo 3 on this 2880x1800 screen. Most likely - you couldn't get it to run past anything but low settings on that resolution so in your wisdom you switch it down to 1680x1050 (the resolution of the 2011 MBP). Unfortunately, now you're playing on a non-native resolution and the game looks substantially worse than what it would have on the 2011 MBP's 1680x1050 native screen. To compensate - you adjust the resolution to 1440x900 which is divisible by whole numbers from the native resolution (whole number resolution scaling has less of a negative effect on the picture). Now the game looks pretty good except that you're playing it at a lower resolution than 2011's model and all that extra money you spent on the screen was wasted. What's my point? Resolution increases should scale with graphics power and in this case they definitely have not. The proper resolution for a 2012 15" notebook with this type of graphics power is 1920x1200 - tops.


Furthermore, soldered in RAM!? I thought that died with Compaq.

From my perspective -- this is an extremely disappointing upgrade to the Macbook Pro lineup. I have a hard time believing that people's main complaints about the 15" MBP was that the screen resolution wasn't high enough. If there were those complaints - I'm guessing 99% of them would have been solved by an upgrade to 1920x1200 IPS LCDs. On the bright side - at least I won't have to spend any money to replace my mid-2010 model.

 

[Burrel]

I thought I read somewhere that students get around 15% off hardware, but out of curiosity (as I know someone about to start Uni) I looked at the prices on the Apple store for students/teachers and the prices are the same as offered by my company.

13" Base model MBP - £939.60, instead of £999.
13" Air with 256 SSD - £1,173.60, instead of £1,249.
RMBP - £1,654.80, instead of £1,799.

Not that I could ever afford even the reduced RMBP, but I do know it's already sold out at the Regent Street London store.