Early Hands-On Impression and Overview of Retina MacBook Pro

[aloshka]

Anyone have any clue what this will look like when hooked into a 27" thunderbolt display? I mean, will the display show everything huge since hidpi on a normal display = huge ass fonts.

 

[bartzumbari]

My beef about the new 15" Pro is:

4)The $1799 (among others) Pro ships with a VERY weak 4GB of ram and 5400RPM drive. It also tops out at 8GB of ram and can't push 1920x1080. Again, this is labeled a "pro" machine...


All around some fair upgrades and they look nice...but the pricing is way off base...and no, I'm not buying a 13" laptop...those died in 1996.

I agree, Apple seems petty even offering a 5200 rpm drive. The current generation MBP can be upgraded to 16G for a little over $100 from Newegg. I reckon the same will be the case for this machine once the new 1600MHz DDR3 is available.

Bart

 

[manu chao]

The pictures on the Apple website only show two USB3 ports--same as the non-retina MBP. It's not a draw, but it'll break one way or the other depending on the individual. I never need HDMI, but I daily need ethernet and firewire 800. I can see how others would like HDMI.

I could have sworn that macrumors said three USB 3 ports in their liveblog. I need DVI or HDMI daily and I need FW800 daily, ie, I already needed a dongle for my 2009 and 2011 MBPs. Switching to the retina 15" MBP, I would replace the mDP to DVI or HDMI dongle with a TB to FW800 dongle. So, for me it would be a draw.

 

[aloshka]

Regardless, I just ordered one, except now the time frame is 5-10 business days. Damn!

 

[faroZ06]

No FireWire??! It's fine if they make ThunderBolt the new pro cable with adapters to FireWire also, but Apple needs to promote ThunderBolt more. It's too obscure and expensive.

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Regardless, I just ordered one, except now the time frame is 5-10 business days. ****!

Well I have to wait... forever.

 

[Zendokan]

I just maxed out the 15"MBP retina...it's €3957,99 ($4949.07)

That's a lot of money...I had set my sights on the 2012 model (all do I would had prefered a 17"), but with such prizes I will have to do some decent soul searching to justify buying one.

 

[cdmoore74]

My heart says yes, but my mind says no.

My mind says yes buy my wallet says no. Guess I will stick with my retina iPad.

 

[bushido]

won't the basic "internet" as in the average website look like crap on such a resolution?

just wondering, i have no idea

 

[tom vilsack]

-could reviewer beat the poor macbook pro on bottom anymore!
-seemed to be rather long boot time? (my 2007 macbook with ssd and sl boots in 19 secs)
-would wait a month or so for release with ml and make sure no bugs (overheating ect)
-very expensive with tax (here in cdn) top model would be well north of $3000
-over all seems nice...but something about today's whole model releases,leave me wanting

 

[/dev/toaster]

Regardless, I just ordered one, except now the time frame is 5-10 business days. Damn!

It's 2 - 3 weeks for me ... since I upgraded the SSD

 

[faroZ06]

won't the basic "internet" as in the average website look like crap on such a resolution?

just wondering, i have no idea

No, it would look the same as it would on a regular display.

Same resolution and same window size => same quality.

 

[Moonjumper]

It may be retina, but isn't it still a 1440x900 workspace?

You can exchange retina for a larger workspace.

Supported resolutions: 2880 by 1800 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1920 by 1200, 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640 pixels

 

[aloshka]

It's 2 - 3 weeks for me ... since I upgraded the SSD

Ehh.. yeah 768 sounds nice.. but 500 bucks is way too much for me. I kept my build exactly at 3k. Anything more is too much.

 

[gugy]

These laptops look incredible.
I'll just miss the 17 inch. I really enjoyed the extra screen size.
Oh well.....

 

[gturban]

2.6 vs 2.7 GHz

Anyone know what difference that 0.1GHz speed-bump and 2MB in cache would do for performance? Great if anyone here has some insight and facts to share..!
Edit: I am naturally going to do the 16 GB RAM upgrade.

 

[olly593]

It looks awesome but £2,000, it's a pity he scratched the ***** out of the one below, may have been a good second hand buy

 

[Bubba Satori]

These laptops look incredible.
I'll just miss the 17 inch. I really enjoyed the extra screen size.
Oh well.....

Expect used 17" MBP price to go up.

 

[Moonjumper]

Fantastic for including the retina, but there is no matte option. The live blog mentioned the screen had been made less reflective, but by how much?

 

[calaverasgrande]

well the no ethernet and no FW800 are dealbreakers for me.
I really dont get why they have 2TB ports AND HDMI but not these regular ports?
I guess in Cupertino they think it is more common that folks will hook up to two external monitors rather than an ethernet patch cable.

 

[aloshka]

Anyone know what difference that 0.1GHz speed-bump and 2MB in cache would do for performance? Great if anyone here has some insight and facts to share..!

.1 won't make a big difference but 2mb cache will. Especially if you use virtualization. Speaking from experience maybe a 3% increase in noticeable speed.

 

[I.am.Andy]

Memory fixed to 8 or 16 GB?

Hi,
I'm wondering whether the memory is fixed to the amount when purchased.
If I buy it with 8 GB can I upgrade later to 16 GB?

 

[/dev/toaster]

Ehh.. yeah 768 sounds nice.. but 500 bucks is way too much for me. I kept my build exactly at 3k. Anything more is too much.

Sadly, I need it ... I carry way too much crap with me

 

[ahfu25]

I expect to see poor college kids with $2000+ macbook pros at Starbucks soon browsing for jobs.

The world we live in lol

I agree 1000%...lol

 

[TopToffee]

Am I the only one who actually doesn't think this is overpriced, considering what's packed in there? (especially in terms of the display)

 

[aloshka]

Hi,
I'm wondering whether the memory is fixed to the amount when purchased.
If I buy it with 8 GB can I upgrade later to 16 GB?

On the presentation it looked soldered. I would guess so is the ssd (not likely)

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Sadly, I need it ... I carry way too much crap with me

Ya. The stores in Colorado had a few of them, but they aren't allowed to sell them today. I was wondering which versions they had. I doubt they have the 768gb edition, but my business rep said he'd call me when he found out.