So its here. As of June 11th 2012, Apple made its annual announcement of new products and the star of the show is the The Next Generation Retina Display Macbook Pro. Its pretty gorgeous in my opinion. I wanted to hate it when it was announced, but when I saw it, I kept thinking how stunning the machine was overall. The Retina Display screen just screams at your eyes and you just want to keep staring at what other things would look like on it.
Aestetically, it is similar to the Macbook Pro, but its trimmed down a bit. Looking at the height, it used to be from 0.95 inches to 0.71 inchs. About a 1/4 of the thickness is gone. You also lose a good pound and some in weight. Its like having a 15″ but carrying a 13″. Pretty slim and light. The width and depth stay slightly the same with mere subtle changes.
Looking at the illustration below you got one that has a faster processor and larger hard drive vs a slower processor, smaller hard drive and a retina display.
So if you’re worried about losing some of the parts we’ve been used to on the original Macbook Pro, I’ll break it down for you.
Hands down, you have to get the Retina Display one. I will tell you why!
What you lose vs what you gain
1. You lose a bit of speed. 2.6ghz down to 2.3ghz. You’ll hardly ever notice the difference if at all.
2. You lose space on hard drive from 750gb down to 256gb. Trust me, you’ll be addicted to the SSD inside the new Retina Display Macbook Pro. It starts up like an iPhone or iPad. (For those who have Macbook Airs will know what I’m talking about)
Also, with all the new cloud storage available (iCloud, Dropbox, Google cloud), you do not need to carry everything in one laptop. Besides that, you need to take advantage of the USB 3.0 the Macbook has to offer. Its super fast for external hard drives once connected. Here is an example of USB 3.0 vs USB 2.0 with the larger line representing faster speeds.
Photo taken from 9to5mac.com
3. You lose the CD Drive. In the past year, I have used my CD drive about 3 times max. Also you can get a used external for dirt cheap on eBay to plug into the USB.
4. You lose the ethernet port. I was a bit sketchy on that myself, but then realized I have never had to use it in almost a year and a half. I don’t do networking or any kind of work related in that field. I take advantage of the Wi-Fi almost everywhere in Southern California.
5. When you get a Macbook Pro, you are going to want to drop extra money on a better screen. So if you take the regular Macbook Pro and add a Anti-Glare Display, which also is a slight better resolution but not Retina Display, it actually jumps to 2299.99.
So hands down go for the new one. But make sure you add 16gb of ram to your configuration. Reason being, this is exactly like the Macbook Air. Once you have it, you can not reconfigure it yourself. You can not add ram, or remove the hard drive. Everything is one piece on the inside.
I understand the additional ram will cost $200 more, but this is something that can not be changed once its done, and also it is pretty reasonable. 16gb DDR3 for Macbook Pro’s are about $125-$200 anyways.
Your out the door total will be $2399.99
And don’t forget about AppleCare if you are clumsy with your computers like I am, but you can add that at the last minute before your year warranty ends.
One more thing about the screen. The glare effect has been reduced by up to 75% from reports on the internet. I have seen it myself and it is true. The screen is much brighter, colorful, and the glare is nearly gone.
Apple has definitely stepped up their game when it comes to the new Macbook. Although many might have wanted a new overhaul design on the laptop, I think there isn’t much that can be changed that will make this computer anymore attractive. It is stunning as it is, and with the reduced in height, and thickness, this is definitely a game changer when it comes to portability.
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