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Friday, June 15, 2012, 11:43 am
First look: Apple's next-gen MacBook Pro with 15" Retina display
Days after the new MacBook Pro with Retina display was unveiled, the first shipments of Apple's next-generation notebook have begun to arrive. AppleInsider offers a closer look at its new, thinner design and high-resolution display.Once it's taken out of the box, it becomes readily apparent that the new MacBook Pro is considerably thinner and lighter than its 15-inch predecessor. At 0.71-inch thick and 4.46 pounds, the change in size stands out for someone who may be upgrading from a previous-generation MacBook Pro.
With that said, this notebook is labeled "Pro" for a reason, and the beefed-up internal components, including a minimum 256-gigabyte flash memory drive and Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, make the new MacBook Pro noticeably thicker and heavier than Apple's largest MacBook Air at 13 inches. At their thickest points, the MacBook Air and new MacBook Pro are identical, but the MacBook Air features a tapered design that gets considerably thinner toward the front of the device.
Once it's turned on, the new Retina display is the obvious highlight of the notebook. Text is crisp, colors are vibrant, and all of OS X 10.7 Lion has been given a facelift to take advantage of the new high-resolution screen.
Like the MacBook Air, the new MacBook Pro boots quickly, goes to sleep as soon as the lid is shut, and turns on nearly instantly when reopened. The addition of flash-only storage to Apple's high-end notebook is a major performance boost.
AppleInsider will have its full review of Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro with Retina display in the coming days. For now, here's a look at the new notebook:
AppleInsider, through its sponsor MacMall, is offering the lowest prices anywhere on new MacBook Pros with the promo code APPINSDRMWB33196.
 MacBook Pro
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Discount
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| 2.5GHz 13" (4GB/500GB HDD) | $1,199.00 | $1,112.79 | $1,079.40* | sold out | $1,119.35 | $119.60 | |||
| 2.5GHz 13" (8GB/500GB HDD) | $1,299.00 | n/a | $1,212.49* | n/a | n/a | $86.51 | |||
| 2.9GHz 13" (8GB/750GB HDD) | $1,499.00 | $1,398.99 | $1,357.02* | $1,499.00 | $1,374.00 | $141.98 | |||
| 2.9GHz 13" (8GB/1TB HDD) | $1,599.00 | n/a | $1,546.18* | n/a | $1,559.00 | $52.82 | |||
| 2.9GHz 13" (8GB/256GB SSD) | $1,899.00 | n/a | on order | n/a | $1,799.00 | $153.01 | |||
| 2.3GHz 15" (4GB/500GB HDD) | $1,799.00 | $1,709.96 | $1,658.66* | $1,649.00 | $1,659.00 | $150.00 | |||
| 2.3GHz 15" (4GB/750GB HDD) | $1,899.00 | n/a | on order | n/a | n/a | $61.82 | |||
| 2.3GHz 15" (4/750/ANTI-GLARE) | $2,149.00 | n/a | n/a | n/a | $2,149.00 | $0.00 | |||
| 2.7GHz 15" (8GB/750GB HDD) | $2,599.00 | n/a | $2,516.01* | n/a | n/a | $82.82 | |||
 13-inch MacBook Pro (MBP) with Retina
display
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| 2.5GHz 13" MBP (8GB,128GB) | $1,699.00 | $1,419.00 | $1,377.38* | $1,399.00 | $1,416.10 | $321.62 | |||
| 2.6GHz 13" MBP (8GB,256GB) | $1,699.00 | $1,599.00 | $1,551.98* | $1,649.00 | $1,599.00 | $147.02 | |||
| 2.5GHz 13" MBP (8GB,256GB) | $1,999.00 | $1,539.99 | $1,479.99 | $1,499.00 | $1,479.99 | $549.01 | |||
| 2.9GHz 13" MBP (8GB,256GB) | $2,199.00 | n/a | $1,599.99 | sold out | sold out | $599.01 | |||
| 2.5GHz 13" MBP (8GB,512GB) | $2,499.00 | n/a | $1,699.99 | sold out | $1,899.95 | $799.01 | |||
| 2.9GHz 13" MBP (8GB,512GB) | $2,699.00 | n/a | $1,799.99 | sold out | n/a | $899.01 | |||
| 2.5GHz 13" MBP (8GB,768GB) | $2,999.00 | n/a | $1,839.99* | sold out | $2,149.00 | $1,159.01 | |||
| 2.9GHz 13" MBP (8GB,768GB) | $3,199.00 | n/a |
$2,279.49* |
sold out | sold out | $919.51 | |||
 15-inch MacBook Pro (MBP) with Retina
display
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| 2.3GHz 15" MBP (8GB, 256GB) | $2,199.00 | $1,944.99 | $1,899.99 | sold out | $1,899.00 | $300.00 | |||
| 2.4GHz 15" MBP (8GB, 256GB) | $2,199.00 | $2,079.98 | $2,017.58* | $2,199.00 | $1,999.00 | $200.00 | |||
| 2.6GHz 15" MBP (8GB, 512GB) | $2,799.00 | $2,299.99 | $2,299.99 | sold out | $2,249.00 | $550.00 | |||
| 2.7GHz 15" MBP (16GB, 512GB) | $2,799.00 | $2,649.99 | $2,570.48* | $2,799.00 | $2,599.00 | $228.52 | |||
| 2.7GHz 15" MBP (16GB, 768GB) | $3,199.00 | n/a | $2,699.99 | sold out | sold out | $499.01 | |||
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Previous Comments View All
I played with one at the Apple Store in Albany, NY last night.
For graphics professionals this is a solid NO for a computer right now.
The pixel doubling makes everything that is non-Retina ready looks horrible. Text in Illustrator and InDesign look so low res that it makes you think you are working on an old junky PC.
The overall machine is beautiful and exquisite though. Looks alone this is a 10. Functionality in the real world, unless all you use is Email and Safari, and at that point buy an Air, is a 3.
What a tease! My order has been stuck in processing since Monday. C'mon Apple!
When did Apple switch away from the right angle magsafe and why?
Does anyone know if you can attach two monitors to this MacBook Pro? Like one monitor per Thunderbolt port?
I played with one at the Apple Store in Albany, NY last night.
For graphics professionals this is a solid NO for a computer right now.
The pixel doubling makes everything that is non-Retina ready looks horrible. Text in Illustrator and InDesign look so low res that it makes you think you are working on an old junky PC.
The overall machine is beautiful and exquisite though. Looks alone this is a 10. Functionality in the real world, unless all you use is Email and Safari, and at that point buy an Air, is a 3.
I think updates for Adobe products are imminent. From the pictures, aside from being slightly thinner, the "body" really doesn't look any different to me than my several year old MacBook Pro, so I don't know how it can be called "beautiful and exquisite" with the implication that it's different than past machines.
Personally, I won't be happy at the loss of HDDs until the price of SSDs come down very close to the price of HDDs. I'm also not thrilled about the fact that you can't upgrade anything in this machine and that it's non-repairable. Not that I'm in the market for a new computer right now anyway, but I think that's a show-stopper for me. My MacBook Pro is of the vintage that you can still replace the battery, memory and HDD easily and that's a pleasure. I replaced the battery and the HDD in the past year - a 768MB HDD with a flash cache for around $200. A 256GB to 768GB upgrade now costs $500 and you can only do that on the $2800 machine (and only when you purchase it), bringing that to $3300 and $3378 if you still need a Superdrive (which I do). No thanks.
I played with one at the Apple Store in Albany, NY last night.
For graphics professionals this is a solid NO for a computer right now.
The pixel doubling makes everything that is non-Retina ready looks horrible. Text in Illustrator and InDesign look so low res that it makes you think you are working on an old junky PC.
The overall machine is beautiful and exquisite though. Looks alone this is a 10. Functionality in the real world, unless all you use is Email and Safari, and at that point buy an Air, is a 3.
Supposedly, most apps on the App store are ready, and I think all current Apple-branded apps have been updated already. Adobe already said they are working on their apps.
When did Apple switch away from the right angle magsafe and why?
Did they really switch to right angle? I thought right angle mag safe was Air-only, Pros were straight-on.
Perhaps a real camera (and a lens cleaning) would be in order for photos of a revolutionary high-resolution screen?
I played with one at the Apple Store in Albany, NY last night.
For graphics professionals this is a solid NO for a computer right now.
The pixel doubling makes everything that is non-Retina ready looks horrible. Text in Illustrator and InDesign look so low res that it makes you think you are working on an old junky PC.
The overall machine is beautiful and exquisite though. Looks alone this is a 10. Functionality in the real world, unless all you use is Email and Safari, and at that point buy an Air, is a 3.
I am waiting on mine to arrive ... but ...
As a software engineer, this is nearly perfect.
Quad core CPU @2.7GHz, Nvidia GeForce 650M GPU /w a CUDA compute capability of 3.0, 16GB RAM ...
For heavy duty crunching, I'll throw code up on the grid, but for prototyping and testing this is a pretty damn sweet platform.
"Professional" is not only graphics. Some of us cut code for a living. Some even cut the code that the "professionals" use ... and I can guarantee you we are using more than just email and safari.
Does anyone know if you can attach two monitors to this MacBook Pro? Like one monitor per Thunderbolt port?
This from Apple's website:
Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, at millions of colors.
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Lowest Prices Anywhere!
| Model | Price | You Save |
|---|---|---|
| Core i5 MacBook Pros w/ Retina | ||
| 13" 2.5GHz/8GB/128GB | $1,406.48 | $292.52 |
| 13" 2.5GHz/8GB/256GB | $1,479.99 | $519.01 |
| 13" 2.5GHz/8GB/512GB | $1,699.99 | $799.01 |
| Core i7 MacBook Pros w/ Retina | ||
| 13" 2.9GHz/8GB/256GB | $1,599.99 | $599.01 |
| 13" 2.9GHz/8GB/512GB | $1,799.99 | $899.01 |
| 15" 2.3GHz/8GB/256GB | $1,899.99 | $299.01 |
| 15" 2.6GHz/8GB/512GB | $2,299.99 | $568.01 |
| 15" 2.7GHz/16GB/768GB | $2,699.99 | $499.01 |
| Model | White | Black | |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPad mini (WiFi only) | |||
| 16GB WiFi |  |
$329.99 | $329.99 |
| 32GB WiFi | |
$429.99 | $429.99 |
| 64GB WiFi | |
$529.99 | $529.99 |
| iPad mini (WiFi + 4G) | |||
 |
 |
 |
|
| 16GB 4G White | $459.99 | $459.99 | $459.99 |
| 32GB 4G White | $559.99 | $559.99 | $559.99 |
| 64GB 4G White | $659.99 | $659.99 | $659.99 |
| 16GB 4G Black | $459.99 | $459.99 | $459.99 |
| 32GB 4G Black | $559.99 | $559.99 | $559.99 |
| 64GB 4G Black | $659.99 | $659.99 | $659.99 |
Awesome ? Insanely great ? I hesitate ....