Clarify 13" MBP limitations PLS

[smh2012]

Hi folks,
I don't follow this as closely, nor do I understand, as many of you. I think everyone has noticed that there is way more redundancy that we're used to seeing from Apple in their new offerings. None of us can really speculate accurately on when the 13" retina will come, but I think most agree that eventually it will. Ideally I would like a 13" retina with discrete graphics. Any processor Apple puts in at this point will likely be more than enough, and 8GB of RAM is becoming the standard.

Is there a reason that previous versions of the 13" don't have discrete graphics? Heat? Battery?

Would these still be (or even more so) limitations in the new design preventing this from ever happening?

In the live thread yesterday the poster noted that a huge amount of space was taken by the battery in the 15"; would that be the main limitation for the 13" on top of the heat dissipation that others have noted?

 

[KylePowers]

Well, I believe in 2011 it was all business. Something about Intel and Nvidia not working out some licensing deals or something.

But that doesn't really make sense, since the 15in and 17in had dedicated graphics.

So I think more so than anything, it was simply because of space. Granted, the increased power consumption of a dedicated GPU meant lower battery life and the necessity for better thermal management. Perhaps none of that was possible (to Apple's standards).

With the new retine MBP though, there's a lot more space without a Superdrive. So a dedicated GPU certainly seems plausible. But you're right. The current 15in is extremely conscious in the way it utilizes all its available space and its packed with batteries.

I would imagine though, that a slightly smaller retina display, slightly weaker CPU, slightly weaker dedicated GPU, would all allow for a decrease in required battery cells (but still equating to 7 hours)

But power consumption isn't everything. There would definitely need to be some neat engineering tricks to cool the thing down to an acceptable user level (i.e. It can operate fine at high temperatures, but with heat dissipated through the chassis, it's likely to be uncomfortable to the consumer).

Would they still be able to fit 2 fans in a retina 13in chassis? Possibly, but they'd have to re-engineer the entire motherboard. It essentially needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, which I think is the cause of the delay overall.

 

[smh2012]

Great answer, thanks. Presumably they've been working on this for quite some time and it won't be released in the "years" time-frame. Hopefully we get some inkling of when this will come in the next little while. I want to see how these new announcements perform before I jump in anyhow. And it gives me a bit more time to save and be reasonably fiscally responsible.