Well the 13" MBP is kinda in a weird place already in many people's eyes already since the performance difference between it and the air is very small. Then there's those who appreciate the ethernet, optical drive and replaceable parts. And well, they have their model for this year, at least.
The 13" MacBook Pro is still their most popular model and a lot of people are much more reluctant to move away from internal optical drives. Frankly, I also find the prospect of carrying around Apple's USB Super-Drive to be annoying, though when it inevitably breaks out of warranty, a new one will be $79 if not less, whereas the internal optical drive replacement out of warranty is easily double that cost. Still, it's a nice convenience that a lot of people still like having. Selling those people on external optical drives is harder than most on here might think. If anything, Apple will wait the longest to discontinue the current one as we know it. Whether it is replaced by a retina MacBook Pro or a more powerful retina MacBook Air remains to be seen.
The ultimate MBA does have double the SSD storage space of the base rMBP, but if you're going to spend THAT kind of money get the rMBP.
$2200 for a laptop is a pretty ridiculous amount of money IMO, but if you want it, get it.
Storage space is huge given that (a) there currently aren't upgrade SSDs for the rMBP and (b) upgrading the SSD on either the MBA or the rMBP voids AppleCare and requires an annoying proprietary screw-driver type. Plus in 2012 with only a handful of developers (both web and app) take advantage of that display making it more of an annoyance than a blessing until this changes.
Davidkoh does the air have a quite a bad resolution? I read reviews on amazon and everybody mentions how good the display is, however, I trust what you guys say more.
I notice on wikiedpia that the air has been sporting the same resolution since late 2010.
The 13" Pro has 1280x800, the 13" Air has 1400x900. Most 13" machines on the market, be they ultrabooks or not, sport the former resolution. The resolution as it stands on the 13" Air is actually impressive. That being said, a higher resolution than 1400x900 is ridiculous unless it is done in the higher-pixel-per-inch-count fashion as is done on the rMBP. If you need more physical screen real-estate, buy a computer with a larger screen.
I think only the haswell CPU with the HD 5000(?) can handle 2560x1600 and two Thunderbolt Displays. So we will see the rMBP 13" in 2013 and not this year.
The current 15" rMBP is designed to be able to handle usage when being driven from the Intel HD 4000 in battery savings mode. Plus, there's no reason to not assume that a 13" rMBP would have fewer pixels and thusly less of a demand on the GPU to drive them. Also given that the 15" is historically a more powerful and higher-end machine, there's no reason to assume that Apple won't just give this model one Thunderbolt port and one HDMI port instead of the two Thunderbolt ports and one HDMI port count of the 15" model. Apple could easily unveil the 13" rMBP this calendar year. I agree that it's not likely given the nature of their current line-up, but as others have stated, perhaps they are using the 15" as a test to see how many people buy the classic design over the retina one.
from what's being rumoured, a 13" rMBPro may appear late Sept/early October.
price is an unknown, though it'd have to be dearer than the Air which makes the MBA the better value - hands down.
noting others comments about the pro's and cons of the 15" rMBP, Apple would need to get their stuff together to make a 13" model 'simply work'
the resolution in the Air is crisp bright and very readable
a 13" rMBP would provide that extra grunt that some users need, but that most of us don't.
it all comes down to value for money, but I wouldn't be holding off buying an Air to await (3 months at least) a rumoured rMBP
my $2 worth
It's highly unlikely that a 13" rMBP would have a discrete GPU to satisfy those that have craved one on the 13" MBP since its inception. At best, we'd see a very very weak version of Kepler that is not even in the same realm of performance as the one in the 15" MBP and rMBP. But to be fair, that alone would be enough to separate it from the Air. Quad-core is very unlikely to come to the 13" Pro in any form, Retina or not. Barring those improvements, there's very little separating a would-be 13" rMBP from a 13" Air, especially if the latter were to also be retinized.
No, a retina MBP would not be the same real estate. I would bet you could configure it to run resolutions for more real estate in the same manner you can configure the 15" rMBP to run at 1920x. You don't seem to know what you are talking about.
I have no problem using 1920x1080 on a 13" at all, 1440x900 is too little real estate for me.
Again, for such a small panel, why not just buy a computer with a physically larger screen?
