Apple Notebook Refresh Expected Late This Quarter, But Only Modest Shipment Growth for 2013

[luffytubby]

Why can't apple make some cut on the price of SSDs? Everyone knows SSDs are dropping price these days why apple SSDs need to be so expensive?

They make a ton of profit of the upgrades. It's pretty simple.

For most people the screen on the 13" MBP is the reason it doesn't sell.

1280x800 for that price. (the very reflective glass screen cover doesn't help it either)

I disagree. I think it's related to the fact that a 13'' doesn't have any advantages over an Air.

A Macbook Air 13'' is the best notebook for the average computer. 7 hours of battery, comparable performance that is good enough for anything but games/video/sound/photo editing(of the more extreme kind). its good for school, its extremely light, its thin.


the 13'' doesnt have a GPU. it's fat, and for all the whining on forums the average bob joe doesn't care for upgrading his own computer with new ram. and the retina version has only a better screen which is not essential for the average joe.



Frankly its not surprising that the Air is their new main seller. It's the best value for money, it's what makes the most sense. And came with Sandy Bridge, and Ivy just gave us even better performance.


I think a new Air with Haswell could get a reduced bezel using the same edge to glass tech that the retina models have, but I dont think the Airs need Retina technology if it means killing the battery or increasing the price with many hundreds of dollars.

Interesting watching Dell's fall from greatness. back in the day they used to at least offer ALL the latest and greatest hardware so the customer could max out performance, if so desired. Then they adopted the "its good enough for the masses" idiots philosophy which is stock in trade for bean counters, and since then, major decline. I think this is what Apple may be doing as they abandon their most loyal and biggest spending high end power users who want Mac pros and 17" Macbook Pros with lots of options. The reverse halo effect is never pretty.

Dell made a lot of bad choices. questionable build quality and bad customer service was always the stable. many people I know have had Dell laptops that overheated due to poor ventilation.



When you try a Macbook in a store, you feel the difference. You feel the unibody. They still have high quality. The 15 inch Retina Macbook, is the best computer(arguable) they have ever build. It's not for everyone, but the technical leaps and feats of engineering was yet another "Holy ****" from the tech industry.
they introduced the massive screen pixel density increase in recent memory, they made the first real blend of a ultrabook and a serious powerhouse. a mobile work station, which has been the ideal laptop fantasy since the beginning.
the only con? the massive price, and for some(a larger footprint than their 11-13'')

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I really hope they will put a new graphic card in the 15" Retina. This would be the trigger for me to get a new one. Do you think this would be one of the upgrades for June ?

I don't think so. I believe the new Kepler units have been delayed until Q4

But nobody knows for certain yet.



But TBH, the OCed 650m in the Retina MBP, is a godly card. Consider how thin this computer is for a moment!!! Are you sure you need more dGPU performance?

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i would like to see those prices drop. would make it easier to upgrade on a quicker timeframe

Have you thought about the notion that maybe we wont update our Laptops as often as we used to now that we go into SSD world?


SSDs dont slow down over time like hard drives do. peoples computer feels slow after years of hard drive usage and then they buy a new one. a SSD is much more efficent and reliable and long term speedy. it will feel snappier for a lot longer, and combined with more external storage and cloud storage and streaming content I am beginning to think that people will update their computers less frequently.


Another factor; tablets and smartphones are new players , and a lot of internet websites need to accommodate for these low power factor machines. It brings increase in needed performance to a halt for certain services, making your laptop viable for longer.

So why not charge a bigger premium and expect consumers to hang on to their machines for a few years longer?


computers will continue to have their marked stolen by tablets. It will happen and keep happening as people continue to be able to be able to do more of their daily needs sorely on a Ipad, for example.

 

[neutrino23]

I checked out the 15" rMBP at the Apple store today. Amazingly fast compared to my 2010 i7 17" MBP. The screen looks fantastic. Keynote, Aperture run really fast. According to Geekbench it is a little over twice as fast as my current machine.

The price was not bad. I'm looking at $2199 which is quite a bit less than what I paid for the 17" I have now. I usually upgrade about every three years so this is saving me a little bit of money.

For the home office I'll probably get a 27" Thunderbolt monitor and add a hard drive and keyboard. I travel a lot on business. Replacing the 17" with the 15" will make traveling a little easier (smaller computer bag) while the large monitor will make it easy to work with video, Aperture, Keynote, Page, iBooks Author and other document creation at home.

I've tried using VPN (splashtop) to access my home machine from the road. It works as an emergency way to get a file or do a brief calculation. Too slow and awkward for routine work.

Having used the iPad 3 for the past year I am spoiled by the retina displays.