This is my fourth Macbook Pro now. First was in the summer of 2009, a 13″ core 2 duo. Then in 2011 I bought a 15″ i5 just before they came out with the new models in Feb 2011. I was lucky enough to still be able to return the first 15″ and get the newer model, and have been on that one until now. For me, it wasn’t much of a step up when I got this new 2012 model. I already had 8GB of RAM in my 2011 model MBP, I already had a 500GB SSD drive in it. I was used to the speed, and it did everything I needed to very well. But I was intrigued by the higher resolution offered with the retina display. I do a LOT of remote work for clients, and being able to have a 2880×1800 screen was too tempting to pass up. Of course, it turns out that OS X can’t run at 2880×1800. Highest it can do is 1900×1200. Which, granted, is STILL a huge leap over the 1440×900 that the previous 15″ could do, and still gave me more real estate for my remote sessions. The thinness and over a pound difference from last year’s model would be very useful for me as well since I take mine everywhere. I use it as my computer for both home and work. So the fact that it was more portable was another bonus. I did MS Tablet PC’s from 2004 till 2009 when I got my first MBP, so the lack of an optical drive wasn’t a fear for me. I almost never need one, and already have a USB apple Superdrive for my mac mini, so I can use that as needed. (and of course my first morning taking it to a client, I needed to burn an ISO and didn’t have my drive with me, so just shows that no matter how well you plan, something can bite you – I’ll start keeping the superdrive in the back of my car from now on). After all this time with the “standard” sized MBP’s, and never having used a Mac Air, this is amazing to me. Every time I pick it off the stand next to the couch where I leave it running when I’m at home, i’m surprised again at the thinness of the base piece, how small it feels when I grab it. And the lesser weight is noticeable as well for someone used to the “normal” macbook pro. The keyboard is pretty much the same, feels like they are a little more shallow throw though, there’s a slightly different feel to them. Two things that cause me inconvenience though is the lack of a gigabit port, and the magsafe 2 adapter. I have several magsafe power bricks at locations at home, work, etc… I never have to pull out a power brick, they’re always where I need them for my normal use locations. I just have the one in the bag in case I need it at a client’s. So I wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of having to replace all of those power adapters. But Apple sells the $10 adapter, so that worked alright for me. The loss of the gigabit port is another downside for me, since I do use that regularly at work, when I want to multi home my laptop between our wireless network for the office and another network when I’m building systems for clients. But the $29 thunderbolt adapter didn’t seem like highway robbery to me, and it was worth it for the smaller form factor. But for the price, they could’ve simply included that if you ask me. The screen – well, there are no words. Even just looking at it at a store doesn’t do it justice – but when you do the same thing you’ve been doing on a “normal” mac screen for years and see how it looks here, it’s like a slap in the face. It is simply amazing. The clarity, the crispness, the angle of view from the sides and top, it’s just mind boggling. And then I found out with my Parallels Windows 7 VM that windows virtual machines *DO* see the available resolution so you *CAN* run windows at the full 2880×1800 resolution. Bonus! Granted, you had better have really good eyesight like I do, since it’s amazingly small. But it was so slick working at that resolution… My 2011 15″ MBP had SATA III and I had used both a Crucial SSD as well as a Sandisk Extreme SSD with it, both of them 6 Gb/s drives, and the new retina’s soldered on SSD benchmarks faster than they did. I ended up taking the SSD out of my “old” 15″ 2011 model and putting it in an aluminum USB 3.0 enclosure I got for it, so I have some pretty snappy external storage now. Thunderbolt would’ve been nicer but nobody has come up with a real portable Thunderbolt enclosure yet, so I’ll settle for the USB 3 for the time being. So far the apps I use with the Retina display actually look fine. I don’t use Chrome, so I haven’t seen that “horrible” experience people have reviewed about third party apps on the retina. I do have Office 2011 for the mac on here, and it looks fine as well. Lots of other programs, and so far I haven’t seen anything that made me cringe or even notice anything lacking. The speakers are actually amazing – I was so used to the horrible speakers on my MacBooks that I never even thought of seeing if these “better” ones were really any better until a few days after I had it. I noticed even the apple…
There are already some very good long winded reviews available and I would recommend you read those as well before making your decision. I will try to keep mine short for your sanity. The best way I could put it is that Apple has made their first “ultrabook” and has far exceeded every other brand in performance, feature and price.
Pros: +The most amazing screen you have ever seen. +The high Apple quality you pay extra for with performance that rivals steroid using windows laptops. +Much thinner and lighter than other MacBooks. +A dream laptop for a photo, video or graphic editor.
Cons: -Cost -Less upgradable than Macs of the past -Performance increase not proportional to cost increase
If you don’t know what all the buzz about the retina display is then you haven’t seen it yet. On one hand even if you aren’t planning on buying the model, you should go look at the screen before everything has it in 2 years and it is no longer new and exciting. On the other hand if you go and see it every other screen will look fuzzy after that. I use to love my old mac’s screen, but now I just find myself starring at the pixels that I have been made aware of. This mac actually outperform and windows laptop I have had an encounter with which is a new feeling for me and macs. I have always used my mac for web surfing and a windows for gaming and heavier performance related tasks, but even when running complex photo editing this computer still shines (my old mac would struggle with adobe photoshop) The weight is also noticeably lighter than my older mac book that was around 6 pounds, which isn’t a lot of weight difference, but it makes a lot of difference when you are lugging the laptop around. It also has USB 3.0 which I don’t really make use of yet, but as more and more devices convert over to this it will be a nice change.
The only negative I could say on this piece is that it is even less upgradable/repairable than MacBooks of the pass. This is largely due to the abandonment of a hard-drive in normal form. The choose not to use a SSD (which is just flash in the shape of a hard drive) and use some random apple flash drive shape that you will not be able to place anything but an apple made drive in. I really can’t say I was pleased with that fact. Also being the first 2k display, a huge jump in cost was added (about $400 from previous models), but this mac does have about every piece of hardware you could want in a laptop. At least for me I couldn’t want more at this time.
Overall, five stars meaning I love it. There is nothing to really dislike about this laptop other than the price which if you buy apple products you know you pay a lot for them, but get years of use out of them. I have owned 5 apple products and everyone of them is still in use, the oldest being a 8 year old iPod.
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This review is from: Apple MacBook Pro MC975LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION) (Personal Computers)
This has to be the best laptop ever, the laptop is super quiet, amazingly fast! The only thing that holds this laptop back is the internet speed coming into my house, otherwise the internet would be fast too, but I just cant believe how powerful this thing is. I was playing GTA san andreas last night on it and adjust the graphics on the game to support full retina display and boy did it look amazing, no lag what so ever! This has to be the perfect laptop I have been looking for for all of these years! I love it so much! I just cant get over how thin and light this thing is for all it packs under the hood and the battery on mine normally lasts around 8 hours per charge. In all I am blown away and I love this laptop! Just wish price was a little lower but it is still worth it!
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Authors bio is coming up shortly. 
5 stars for product, 1 star less for lack of upgrade possibilities,
This is my fourth Macbook Pro now. First was in the summer of 2009, a 13″ core 2 duo. Then in 2011 I bought a 15″ i5 just before they came out with the new models in Feb 2011. I was lucky enough to still be able to return the first 15″ and get the newer model, and have been on that one until now.
For me, it wasn’t much of a step up when I got this new 2012 model. I already had 8GB of RAM in my 2011 model MBP, I already had a 500GB SSD drive in it. I was used to the speed, and it did everything I needed to very well. But I was intrigued by the higher resolution offered with the retina display. I do a LOT of remote work for clients, and being able to have a 2880×1800 screen was too tempting to pass up.
Of course, it turns out that OS X can’t run at 2880×1800. Highest it can do is 1900×1200. Which, granted, is STILL a huge leap over the 1440×900 that the previous 15″ could do, and still gave me more real estate for my remote sessions.
The thinness and over a pound difference from last year’s model would be very useful for me as well since I take mine everywhere. I use it as my computer for both home and work. So the fact that it was more portable was another bonus.
I did MS Tablet PC’s from 2004 till 2009 when I got my first MBP, so the lack of an optical drive wasn’t a fear for me. I almost never need one, and already have a USB apple Superdrive for my mac mini, so I can use that as needed. (and of course my first morning taking it to a client, I needed to burn an ISO and didn’t have my drive with me, so just shows that no matter how well you plan, something can bite you – I’ll start keeping the superdrive in the back of my car from now on).
After all this time with the “standard” sized MBP’s, and never having used a Mac Air, this is amazing to me. Every time I pick it off the stand next to the couch where I leave it running when I’m at home, i’m surprised again at the thinness of the base piece, how small it feels when I grab it. And the lesser weight is noticeable as well for someone used to the “normal” macbook pro. The keyboard is pretty much the same, feels like they are a little more shallow throw though, there’s a slightly different feel to them.
Two things that cause me inconvenience though is the lack of a gigabit port, and the magsafe 2 adapter. I have several magsafe power bricks at locations at home, work, etc… I never have to pull out a power brick, they’re always where I need them for my normal use locations. I just have the one in the bag in case I need it at a client’s. So I wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of having to replace all of those power adapters. But Apple sells the $10 adapter, so that worked alright for me. The loss of the gigabit port is another downside for me, since I do use that regularly at work, when I want to multi home my laptop between our wireless network for the office and another network when I’m building systems for clients. But the $29 thunderbolt adapter didn’t seem like highway robbery to me, and it was worth it for the smaller form factor. But for the price, they could’ve simply included that if you ask me.
The screen – well, there are no words. Even just looking at it at a store doesn’t do it justice – but when you do the same thing you’ve been doing on a “normal” mac screen for years and see how it looks here, it’s like a slap in the face. It is simply amazing. The clarity, the crispness, the angle of view from the sides and top, it’s just mind boggling. And then I found out with my Parallels Windows 7 VM that windows virtual machines *DO* see the available resolution so you *CAN* run windows at the full 2880×1800 resolution. Bonus! Granted, you had better have really good eyesight like I do, since it’s amazingly small. But it was so slick working at that resolution…
My 2011 15″ MBP had SATA III and I had used both a Crucial SSD as well as a Sandisk Extreme SSD with it, both of them 6 Gb/s drives, and the new retina’s soldered on SSD benchmarks faster than they did. I ended up taking the SSD out of my “old” 15″ 2011 model and putting it in an aluminum USB 3.0 enclosure I got for it, so I have some pretty snappy external storage now. Thunderbolt would’ve been nicer but nobody has come up with a real portable Thunderbolt enclosure yet, so I’ll settle for the USB 3 for the time being.
So far the apps I use with the Retina display actually look fine. I don’t use Chrome, so I haven’t seen that “horrible” experience people have reviewed about third party apps on the retina. I do have Office 2011 for the mac on here, and it looks fine as well. Lots of other programs, and so far I haven’t seen anything that made me cringe or even notice anything lacking.
The speakers are actually amazing – I was so used to the horrible speakers on my MacBooks that I never even thought of seeing if these “better” ones were really any better until a few days after I had it. I noticed even the apple…
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|Best Laptop Available,
There are already some very good long winded reviews available and I would recommend you read those as well before making your decision. I will try to keep mine short for your sanity. The best way I could put it is that Apple has made their first “ultrabook” and has far exceeded every other brand in performance, feature and price.
Pros:
+The most amazing screen you have ever seen.
+The high Apple quality you pay extra for with performance that rivals steroid using windows laptops.
+Much thinner and lighter than other MacBooks.
+A dream laptop for a photo, video or graphic editor.
Cons:
-Cost
-Less upgradable than Macs of the past
-Performance increase not proportional to cost increase
If you don’t know what all the buzz about the retina display is then you haven’t seen it yet. On one hand even if you aren’t planning on buying the model, you should go look at the screen before everything has it in 2 years and it is no longer new and exciting. On the other hand if you go and see it every other screen will look fuzzy after that. I use to love my old mac’s screen, but now I just find myself starring at the pixels that I have been made aware of.
This mac actually outperform and windows laptop I have had an encounter with which is a new feeling for me and macs. I have always used my mac for web surfing and a windows for gaming and heavier performance related tasks, but even when running complex photo editing this computer still shines (my old mac would struggle with adobe photoshop)
The weight is also noticeably lighter than my older mac book that was around 6 pounds, which isn’t a lot of weight difference, but it makes a lot of difference when you are lugging the laptop around. It also has USB 3.0 which I don’t really make use of yet, but as more and more devices convert over to this it will be a nice change.
The only negative I could say on this piece is that it is even less upgradable/repairable than MacBooks of the pass. This is largely due to the abandonment of a hard-drive in normal form. The choose not to use a SSD (which is just flash in the shape of a hard drive) and use some random apple flash drive shape that you will not be able to place anything but an apple made drive in. I really can’t say I was pleased with that fact. Also being the first 2k display, a huge jump in cost was added (about $400 from previous models), but this mac does have about every piece of hardware you could want in a laptop. At least for me I couldn’t want more at this time.
Overall, five stars meaning I love it. There is nothing to really dislike about this laptop other than the price which if you buy apple products you know you pay a lot for them, but get years of use out of them. I have owned 5 apple products and everyone of them is still in use, the oldest being a 8 year old iPod.
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|Best Laptop Ever,
This has to be the best laptop ever, the laptop is super quiet, amazingly fast! The only thing that holds this laptop back is the internet speed coming into my house, otherwise the internet would be fast too, but I just cant believe how powerful this thing is. I was playing GTA san andreas last night on it and adjust the graphics on the game to support full retina display and boy did it look amazing, no lag what so ever! This has to be the perfect laptop I have been looking for for all of these years! I love it so much! I just cant get over how thin and light this thing is for all it packs under the hood and the battery on mine normally lasts around 8 hours per charge. In all I am blown away and I love this laptop! Just wish price was a little lower but it is still worth it!
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|