Retina Macbook Pro 15" official

[GT1999]

Dear Apple,

You have officially won my heart. Your new MBPs have everything I could ever want. Too bad I can't afford one. I will have one, one day.

Yours truly,
GT

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

For the first time, I actually want a MacBook Pro but the price completely turned me off. I cant justify a $2200 purchase on a laptop that will be pretty much obsolete in 2-3 years due to the fact that it is non upgrade-able.

It will only be "obsolete" in that it will no longer be state of the art. It will be more than sufficient for anything most people would want to throw at it for at least 4-5 years and probably longer given that it is such a highly-spec'ed machine. Also, the resale will be excellent - based on my own experiences with Apple laptops I fully expect it will be possible to resell it for more than $1K after three years, and get something new.

I don't think price is a legitimate area to criticize this machine, particularly not when no other vendor is making anything nearly as impressive at anything like the $2,200 price point.

The major reason I am not going to be buying one is that I am still quite happy with my mid-2009 13" MBP (not obsolete yet!), particularly since I got a new battery and SSD in the last few months.

 

[Eug]

To the Apple fanboys who claimed USB 3 is unnecessary because Macs have Thunderbolt:

The benefits of finally getting USB 3.

Cost difference: TB enclosure = $200-300 premium over bare drive. USB 3 enclosure = $25-50 premium over bare drive.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

compared to the regular 15" MBP, looks like you're paying $400 for:
awesomesauce screen
256GB SSD (instead of 500GB of 1960s tech)
4GB of ram
thinner, lighter

that's actually a bargain. (heheh, the regular 15" MBP 256GB SSD costs $500, so it's actually more expensive than the retina MBP)

Apple may mark up the 256gb SSD but plenty have places have had them for $200 or less.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

To the Apple fanboys who claimed USB 3 is unnecessary because Macs have Thunderbolt:

The benefits of finally getting USB 3.

Cost difference: TB enclosure = $200-300 premium over bare drive. USB 3 enclosure = $25-50 premium over bare drive.

Agreed - USB 3 is a great upgrade. I hope Mountain Lion will provide a way to get USB 3 working on my Hackintosh.

 

[Anubis]

I'm glad Apple is pushing this. LCD technology has allowed for higher res for a while but no manufacturer has done anything because they don't care about advancement and are satisfied with their un-innovative designs that bring only minor improvements to the table.

apple is pushing it but we had 1920*1200 displays in 15inch laptops 10 years ago, i still have a working dell that runs that same rez, however about 5 years ago everyone went to 1080p and then even lower. im glad apple is bringing it back but honestly they are overshooting the mark,

1440/1600p is hard enough to read on a 27/30in monitor 1800p is gonna be TINY on a 15 inch screen (assuming no text scaling)

 

[runawayprisoner]

apple is pushing it but we had 1920*1200 displays in 15inch laptops 10 years ago, i still have a working dell that runs that same rez, however about 5 years ago everyone went to 1080p and then even lower. im glad apple is bringing it back but honestly they are overshooting the mark,

1440/1600p is hard enough to read on a 27/30in monitor 1800p is gonna be TINY on a 15 inch screen (assuming no text scaling)

OSX has both text and interface scaling, so 2880 x 1800 is essentially 1440 x 900 but with 4x sub pixels for random things. That's the quickest way to explain it.

 

[Anubis]

OSX has both text and interface scaling, so 2880 x 1800 is essentially 1440 x 900 but with 4x sub pixels for random things. That's the quickest way to explain it.

Explain to my dumb brain. Do you get the benefit of the larger rez if everything's scaled 4x?

 

[alkemyst]

Not all retina MBP's will be over $2300. This is the first and only offering and it's pretty well loaded. Once the initial demand and current MBP/Air inventory subsides I am sure they will have a $1799ish offering and other screen sizes.

 

[JackBurton]

Not all retina MBP's will be over $2300. This is the first and only offering and it's pretty well loaded. Once the initial demand and current MBP/Air inventory subsides I am sure they will have a $1799ish offering and other screen sizes.

??? The cheapest MacBook Pro with the Retina display is $2199, and it will remain that price until the next version next year, or until they release the next MBA which will be next year. This is not something that will change in the next 6 months.

 

[JackBurton]

Explain to my dumb brain. Do you get the benefit of the larger rez if everything's scaled 4x?

Think of it as Anti-Aliasing, but better.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

??? The cheapest MacBook Pro with the Retina display is $2199, and it will remain that price until the next version next year, or until they release the next MBA which will be next year. This is not something that will change in the next 6 months.

Yeah, I'd have to agree. They did, after all, just substantially update the non-Retina MBPs as well. I am not sure they will ever have an all-Retina line, since it must be a seriously expensive upgrade. I expect that before long you'll be able to get a Retina machine at a $100-150 discount through vendors like MacConnection, but I would not expect a sub-$2K MSRP for a Retina machine for at least a year (roughly the same time frame in which a competitor might realistically make a machine with a competitive display).

 

[runawayprisoner]

Explain to my dumb brain. Do you get the benefit of the larger rez if everything's scaled 4x?

If there is a 4x sized asset for interface graphics, then that would be used instead, so you get 4x more details.

And texts look sharper because now they have 4x more sub pixels to render with.

If you open a photo in Photoshop, for example, then you can view up to 5MP... in its native resolution. With the old MBP, you can't even view up to 3MP in native resolution.

And you can preview prints at 200 dpi in physical real size.

 

[alkemyst]

??? The cheapest MacBook Pro with the Retina display is $2199, and it will remain that price until the next version next year, or until they release the next MBA which will be next year. This is not something that will change in the next 6 months.

Possibly true. The retina being released now was a fast-track move by Apple. there are a lot of changes planned for 2013.

There is already a big want for a 13.3" / compact retina version...I do believe we will see it soon.

 

[JackBurton]

Possibly true. The retina being released now was a fast-track move by Apple. there are a lot of changes planned for 2013.

There is already a big want for a 13.3" / compact retina version...I do believe we will see it soon.

Maybe, but it won't be from Apple. Apple already has their hit product for their laptop line up this year, and it will remain hot for awhile. Going forward, this thing will be talked about, dissected, and compared to for the next several months. Their next hit will be the iPhone 5 (or new iPhone) with iOS6 coming out later this year. Same thing as the MacBook Pro (retina), it will be talked about, dissected, and compared to for the next several months. Once they're done with that, they'll most likely move on to the NEW new iPad or a retina display equipped MBA next year. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Pheran]

... and no Ethernet port. Again.

Geez... doesn't anyone living in the magical world of Apple users ever need to transfer large files over a network?

Yup, total fail on Apple's part. I have a MBP from early 2011 that I really like. But when the time comes to replace it, it looks like I won't be going with an Apple product. No builtin ethernet = no sale.

 

[alkemyst]

Wireless is going to be the method of mobile connections....there is a thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter available.

 

[alkemyst]

Maybe, but it won't be from Apple. Apple already has their hit product for their laptop line up this year, and it will remain hot for awhile. Going forward, this thing will be talked about, dissected, and compared to for the next several months. Their next hit will be the iPhone 5 (or new iPhone) with iOS6 coming out later this year. Same thing as the MacBook Pro (retina), it will be talked about, dissected, and compared to for the next several months. Once they're done with that, they'll most likely move on to the NEW new iPad or a retina display equipped MBA next year. Rinse and repeat.

Apple hasn't moved that slow with new tech in their laptop lines ever.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Yup, total fail on Apple's part. I have a MBP from early 2011 that I really like. But when the time comes to replace it, it looks like I won't be going with an Apple product. No builtin ethernet = no sale.

Interesting. As it happens this is not a feature I care one iota about, but if I did I would just get the adapter.

 

[Eug]

I think we're done for MacBook Pro releases for the next 6 months to a year.

It's probably like back in late 2002 when they released the 15" TiBook, and then released the 12" and 17" Aluminum PowerBooks in Jan 2003. Those were the three machines sold for most of the rest of the year, until they updated all three in the fall of 2003.

Explain to my dumb brain. Do you get the benefit of the larger rez if everything's scaled 4x?

Certain applications are actually built to use the higher resolution, but the actual OS interface elements and text are built around 1440x900. So, superficially when you're using the computers for general business type usage, it will look like the previous 15" MBPs but just with clearer text. However, when you actually start looking at the detail of the video and images in Final Cut and Aperture, you'll be using the true native resolution.

It's kind of analogous to the way the iPhone works. The OS is built around 480x320 in terms of text size, so that text is the exact same size on the iPhone 4 (retina) as it is on the iPhone 3G (non-retina). The text is just clearer on the iPhone 4. However, images are much more detailed on the iPhone 4, because it's using the full 960x640 resolution on the iPhone 4.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Wireless is going to be the method of mobile connections....there is a thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter available.

And a USB ethernet adapter... which goes for a lot cheaper.

 

[badb0y]

Yup, total fail on Apple's part. I have a MBP from early 2011 that I really like. But when the time comes to replace it, it looks like I won't be going with an Apple product. No builtin ethernet = no sale.

They have an adapter for Ethernet and firewire.

Know that you guys are a minority and other things like USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt get priority over legacy tech.

 

[Eug]

And a USB ethernet adapter... which goes for a lot cheaper.

The Apple USB Ethernet adapter is FastEthernet (100 Mbps), not GigE. And it's the same price as the Thunderbolt GigE adapter, at $29 at the Apple Store.

 

[jalaram]

From iClarified:

Retina Display MacBook Pro Shipping Time is Now 2-3 Weeks...

 

[Pheran]

They have an adapter for Ethernet and firewire.

Know that you guys are a minority and other things like USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt get priority over legacy tech.

I may be a minority, but I can still vote with my dollars. I already have to have an annoying dongle for serial connections, I'm not dragging around another one for ethernet.

And GigE is "legacy tech"? LOL