Apple Introduces 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display

[Cristian_25H]

Apple today introduced an all-new version of its popular 13-inch MacBook Pro featuring a stunning Retina display and all flash storage in a new compact design. At a mere 0.75 inches and 3.57 pounds, the remarkably portable 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is 20 percent thinner and almost a pound lighter than the current 13-inch MacBook Pro.

"The 13-inch MacBook Pro is our most popular Mac, and today it gets completely reinvented with a new thin and light design, fast flash storage and a gorgeous Retina display," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "With vivid colors, razor sharp text and more pixels than anyone else's 15 or 17-inch notebooks, the Retina display completely changes what you expect from a notebook."





The new MacBook Pro packs more than 4 million pixels into its 13-inch Retina display, nearly twice the number of pixels in an HD television. At 227 pixels per inch, the Retina display's pixel density is so high the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels at a normal viewing distance, so images look sharp and text looks like it does on the printed page. With four times the pixels of the current 13-inch MacBook Pro, you can view and edit video in pixel-accurate HD and see a new level of detail in high resolution images. The 13-inch Retina display uses IPS technology for a 178-degree wide viewing angle, and has 75 percent less reflection and 29 percent higher contrast than the current generation.

Featuring flash storage that is up to four times faster than traditional notebook hard drives, the all-new MacBook Pro is extremely responsive, whether it's waking from sleep or launching your favorite apps. Fast flash storage combined with the latest Intel dual-core processors gives the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display plenty of power to run your most demanding apps with ease.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display features 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processors with the option to choose faster 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 processors, Intel HD Graphics 4000, 8 GB of 1600 MHz memory, and up to 768 GB of flash storage. Two Thunderbolt and two USB 3.0 ports allow users to connect to multiple displays and high-performance devices, and a new HDMI port offers quick connectivity to an HDTV. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display also features a FaceTime HD camera, dual microphones, improved speakers, three-stream 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a MagSafe 2 power port.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro battery delivers up to 7 hours of wireless productivity and can remain in standby for up to 30 days. With the all new Power Nap feature in OS X Mountain Lion, your MacBook Pro with Retina display stays up to date while it sleeps. Power Nap automatically refreshes Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, and Photo Stream, and when the notebook is plugged in, downloads software updates and backs up your Mac using Time Machine

Continuing Apple's commitment to energy efficiency and the environment, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display meets stringent Energy Star 5.2 requirements and achieves an EPEAT Gold rating. Each unibody enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. Apple notebooks contain no brominated flame retardants, are PVC-free and are constructed of highly recyclable materials.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display ships with OS X Mountain Lion, bringing Messages, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, AirPlay Mirroring, Dictation, Game Center and the enhanced security of Gatekeeper to your Mac. With iCloud built into the foundation of OS X, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to keep your content up to date across your Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Pricing & Availability

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is available with a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.1 GHz, 8 GB of memory and 128 GB of flash storage starting at $1,699 (US); and with 256 GB of flash storage starting at $1,999 (US). Configure-to-order options include faster dual-core Intel Core i7 processors and flash storage up to 768 GB. Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at apple.com/macbook-pro. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is available today through the Apple Online Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

[wotevajjjj]

A hd4k having to power a 2560*1600 display, this should work great is what they must have thought. All jokes aside, thank you apple for coming up with better screens whilest every other company stays at 720/1080.

[Dos101]

Little on the expensive side.....and the lack of an AMD or nVidia GPU is very disappointing.

[camoxiong]

New MacBook Pro every year.

[Prima.Vera]

Imagine using that resolution on a Windows station with that size of display...

"A spectacular 2560-by-1600 resolution on the 13-inch MacBook Pro and an equally impressive 2880-by-1800 resolution on the 15-inch MacBook "
Damn!

[dwade]

It sure is a misfire. Dual core and no discrete GPU is disappointing at dat price point.

[phanbuey]

yeah it is a huge let down to me, especially at that price. Might as well go for the 15 or the 1440x900 air, as it is also 8GB of ram and 128GB ssd and is $400 cheaper.

Needed to be 8GB minimum (16gb configurable), and with at least a quad core if no discrete GPU, with a 256gb minimum SSD. Then it would have been OK at that price.

A dual core 2.5GHZ i5 ivy bridge? really? I am sitting on a 2 year old 2.3Ghz i5 sandy bridge 13" Mac Book Pro, which is UPGRADEABLE TO 16GB of ram from 2 years ago... not much progress IMO from that machine in 2 years.

[wickerman]

I was really looking forward to the 13" Retina MacBook Pro to replace my 2010 Air (which has Nvidia 320M) but only because I believed we would see a dedicated GPU in there. With only the HD 4000 I think I'll just hold off for the Haswell update. $1699 in an Air gets you a 2Ghz dual core i7 (3.2 Turbo/4mb cache), 8gb DDR3L 1600, and 256GB worth of SSD where as $1699 in the new 13" Retina gets you a 2.5Ghz dual core i5 (3.1 Turbo/3MB cache), 8GB DDR3L 1600, 128GB worth of SSD but 2560x1600 vs 1440x900. So I'm not sure at this price which is going to be the better buy for most people.

Also phanbuey, 8gb is the only memory option, according to their site there is nothing lower or higher as it stands on the 13. I could live without the quad core as a base model, but agree it should be an option. But the lack of a dedicated GPU is keeping me from pouncing now. I don't want a 15" laptop, so I guess it is another year of waiting for me. Here's hoping Haswell can really deliver at least 2x the performance of HD 4000 in games or that the refreshed 13" Retina can have a dedicated GPU next time around.

[Jstn7477]

I think people are underestimating the power of the Intel 4000HD graphics controller for the application it is used for. A 13" MacBook Pro is unlikely to be used for gaming of any sort, and the freakin' iPad can run Adobe applications. Low end mobile chips are becoming a thing of the past as IGPs have greatly inproved.

@wickerman: The GeForce 320M is an IGP. Surprise!

[mediasorcerer]

Well, sort of, they don't play games maybe because they can't very well, hd400 allows for some gaming.

Seems very pricey actually, but that's apple for you lol.

[Wile E]

For once, I feel the Apple notebook price premium is justified.

I would pay that kind of money to have those screens.

[phanbuey]

Originally Posted by Wile E

For once, I feel the Apple notebook price premium is justified.

I would pay that kind of money to have those screens.

yeah but would you pay that kind of money for a 13" screen? I think the 15" is justified... i can get a 1gb 650M and 16GB of ram, a quad and 256Gb sad for 2399... sure its expensive, but its fast and awesome, and has nice speakers good battery life and better cooling...

the macbook air 13" is a great deal. but the pro just seems overpriced and underpowered. The screen is great but its not THAT great when the rest of the machine is outdated. I think a haswell refresh will do wonders for this machine.

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by phanbuey

yeah but would you pay that kind of money for a 13" screen? I think the 15" is justified... i can get a 1gb 650M and 16GB of ram, a quad and 256Gb sad for 2399... sure its expensive, but its fast and awesome, and has nice speakers good battery life and better cooling...

the macbook air 13" is a great deal. but the pro just seems overpriced and underpowered. The screen is great but its not THAT great when the rest of the machine is outdated. I think a haswell refresh will do wonders for this machine.

For what I would use a 13" notebook for, it has plenty of power.

[Atom_Anti]

This could be perfect with A10-4600M Trinity inside and Windows 8 installed on it.

[Completely Bonkers]

Well done Apple. Ahead of the whole Windows PC industry. on PC OEMs and their shitty out of date 1990's screen resolutions.

I'm seriously considering this... it would be an instant buy for me if it came with XP drivers... since I have existing XP licenses I could use to bootcamp this.

[phanbuey]

Originally Posted by Completely Bonkers

Well done Apple. Ahead of the whole Windows PC industry. on PC OEMs and their shitty out of date 1990's screen resolutions.

I'm seriously considering this... it would be an instant buy for me if it came with XP drivers... since I have existing XP licenses I could use to bootcamp this.

or you could just use parallels... funny thing is OSX and parallels do better resolution scaling than windows XP GDI/GDI+ framework. lol.

If you bootcamped to this on XP half of your apps would become unusable at native since the windows elements wouldn't draw correctly with the UI scaling needed.