Mikey Campbell
Though Apple's two new flagship MacBook Pro models with multitouch Touch Bar stole the show on Thursday, the company also launched a third, more affordable 13-inch model aimed at the MacBook Air faithful.
Introduced by Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller near the end of today's festivities, the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro shares an aesthetic with its more expensive siblings, as well as features like a thin unibody design, all-metal hinge and wider trackpad, but foregoes the new Touch Bar and a few ports.
By removing the cutting edge Touch Bar in favor of traditional function keys, and incorporating less costly internal components, Apple was able to achieve a more competitive price point closer in cost to the MacBook Air line of products.
Compared to the 13-inch MacBook Air, the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro is identical in heft, but boasts a smaller overall footprint and 13 percent less internal volume. More importantly, the Pro model comes with a Retina Display, a feature for which many Air users have been waiting. It seems Apple has no intention of updating the ultra-slim model to a high-resolution display, as the 13-inch MacBook Air is still non-Retina only.
Specs for the new low end Pro model start with a 2.0 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory, Intel Iris Graphics 540 and 256GB of flash storage. The laptop also features two Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB-C capabilities, offering greater I/O flexibility than Air.
The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro ships today from $1,499.
In conjunction with the new 13-inch MacBook Pro debut, Apple quietly discontinued the 11-inch MacBook Air, previously the company's cheapest thin-and-light offering. The 13-inch MacBook Air received a minor upgrade as well, with RAM doubling from 4GB to 8GB.
Stay tuned to AppleInsider's Mac Price Guide over the next few weeks, where we'll be offering exclusive discounts on Apple's new MacBook Pros.
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83 Comments
MBP is nice. But I am sooo disappointed they wasted time on Apple TV and NOTHING came on iMacs, Mac Pros or even Mac Minis. I am tried of all this wagawuga.
Doesn't have 12 hours battery life and has no magnetic power cord. My two favourite features of the MBA. My third favourite feature? Its price.
I'm not saving it's easy to add a Retina display and keep the computer going for 12 hours. I only say what's most important to me. Ideally we'd have both. As for MagSafe: the safety aspect of MagSafe isn't why I love it. It's the simplicity of magnets. It's a feature that causes me delight every time I go to plug in—I lazily catch the wire and let the magnet connect itself to power.
Also, no Lightning port on the new MBP? Your saying I need to use a dongle to connect the headphones that shipped with iPhone 7? Why? Apple make both products. Either add a Lightning port and a headphone port to MBP or kill the blooming' headphone port they called archaic and give us Lightning. Might seem like a small detail, but I know for certain this would cause me annoyance that would not retreat. Frankly kind of puts me off the computer. I'm not joking.
$1499 is affordable? For an i5 with 8gb of ram. Hahahaha.
Well, my 17" MBP is almost dead. Will I replace it? Hell no. For the money I'd want more than this. At the very least the charger should contain all the ports they removed. Not compelling at all. Unlike Steve Jobs, there's no logic for what they are doing. Steve would have constructed an argument. This just came across as weak. Less for more rather than less is more is the new design philosophy.
They should have done two old connectors and two new connectors like they used to.
I don't own a single thing with USB-C connector. And I have tons of gear.
Hell, the iPhone can't even connect to the computer anymore.
This is a thinner more powerful macbook air.
It's not a macbook pro.
Bummed...
I think it's a great machine, but I'm disappointed the SD card has been axed, which is so useful to have integrated in a professional notebook. All these fucking dongles.