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The Retina MacBook Pro 13”
- mtgx 14y agoThe 13" Macbook Pro with retina display is proof enough that Apple will waste no time switching to ARM for Macs. They simply care about other laptop qualities a lot more than about total horsepower. If it's just "good enough" or even slightly underwhelming in terms of performance, it doesn't mean they will not do it.
- nsxwolf 14y agoYou draw that conclusion because of the video performance? I'm not following. The CPU performance wasn't even mentioned in the article. Is it a step backward from the 13" MBP?
- kylec 14y agoAccording to Apple both variants of the 13" MBP use the same CPUs - either a 2.5GHz i5 or a 2.9GHz i7 - so I imagine the CPU performance is identical between the two. Of course, there might be a bit of a CPU hit for apps having to deal with the retina display, but I suspect that the GPU plays more of a role there.
- chucknelson 14y agoWell, for some the display quality over performance trade off is worth it, while for others (like the author here), it's not. Haswell will most likely handle the retina resolutions just fine. The iterative polish that Apple is known for will not be lost on the retina MacBooks.
- ROFISH 14y agoThe reason why I bought it is because it's Apple's cheapest laptop with two monitor outputs. I can hook up three additional screens to do programming/Photoshop/whatever. You can't do two/three (native) screens on an Air or even the non-Retina MBP. (You can with USB, but it's laggy and there's no USB 3 things for Mac.)
- jonknee 14y agoUnderpowered with one screen, I'd love to see it with 3...
- kylec 14y agoWhether it's "underpowered" depends on what you're doing, I'd say. Writing text, looking at photos, watching videos, browsing 99% websites, etc it performs just fine, and I'd venture to say that that's probably what most people will be doing with the machine. I had mine hooked up to 2 30" monitors the other day and it worked great.
- jsnk 14y ago>It turns out this machine can’t smoothly scroll media-rich websites like The Verge without noticeable choppiness. I'm not so sure. If it can't even scroll websites, how can it handle 2 30" monitors just fine?
- kylec 14y agoI think the choppiness of scrolling The Verge was overstated. It's noticeable if you're looking for it, but it doesn't affect the use of the site. And 99%+ of sites scroll smoothly, even when multiple monitors are attached.
- manicdee 14y agoWhat if the problem with The Verge is due to The Verge, and nothing else? Is The Verge doing retina upgrades for their graphics properly? Is their JavaScript doing stupid stuff like loading the double-resolution graphics every time the cursor moves instead of just the first time the page loads? Why is The Verge choppy on a Retina display Mac? As for handling 2 30" monitors, the graphics chip is more than capable of handling text, terminals and swathes of PDF documentation on that much real estate: it's non-taxing. The moment you start doing crazy JavaScript (such as some sites which count how many characters you have left in a text area about a dozen times a second), things go downhill: this is a CPU load problem not a graphics display problem. So again, I have to wonder what's causing the choppy scrolling on The Verge?
- jedahan 14y agoTyping from a 13 rMBP purchased today. Hopefully its an upgrade from my 2010 mba 13" but from the sounds of this review I'll probably be returning mine too in a few weeks, as I have a similar workload as the author. Thanks for writing the review.
- kylec 14y agoI think the author's primary complaint was that it wasn't worth the premium; if you've already bought it, haven't you already made that decision? Yes, it's not completely smooth scrolling The Verge (something that, as a Verge reader, I didn't even notice until it was pointed out), but personally I'd rather have that amazing screen for looking at text and photos and watching videos instead of having 60fps scrolling on a 1440x900 screen.
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- kylec 14y agoSure, I was just picking a few generic examples, but there's lots of "pro" stuff that doesn't need a super beefy GPU - developing software, editing audio and images, etc.
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- robryan 14y agoScrolling issues seem more like a software issue, sure there are a lot of pixels to move around but the retina stuff is pretty new. I doubt that the software is at the limit of what the hardware can do.
- litwack 14y agoIf you're going to return it, you have 14 calendar days, not a month, as I too initially presumed.
- johansch 14y agoThe downgrade from 1440x900 UI/chrome resolution to 1280x800 is what kills it for me. This is the first review that I see addressing this issue; I was beginning to think I was the only one noticing this glaring issue. (The 15" MBP retina display suffers from the same issue.)
- X-Istence 14y agoI was under the impression that the 15" Retina MBP had a native resolution of 1440 by 900.
- johansch 14y agoIt has a "UI resolution" of 1440x900, yes. But the way the chrome in OS X is designed, 1440x900 is suitable for a 13" screen, not a 15" screen. The previous high res option of MBP 15" had a resolution of 1680x1050. This (doubled) would have been a good resolution for the new 15" MBP retina display.
- X-Istence 14y agoI have been using 1440 by 900 for years on my 2007 MacBook Pro, and I have no complaints regarding it. I have seen the high res version of the 15" and it felt too small to be comfortable to read.
- johansch 14y agoCongratulations, the retina MBPs are designed for you :).
- stock_toaster 14y agoVery much agree.
- kylec 14y agoIf you need more screen real estate, you can change to a different scaled resolution in the System Preferences. If you need it, you can go with an effective 1440x900 or even 1680x1050 resolution. It's not an integer mapping between virtual pixels to real pixels like it is with 1280x800, but it looks almost as good - and better than a native 1440x900 or 1680x1050 display.
- rdl 14y agoYeah, I think the MBA13 (8GB) or the rMBA15 are the two most optimal choices for "primary Apple machine for most high-end users".
- Derbasti 14y agoIf only they sold retina desktop monitors. Without a big monitor, any amount of pixels on the laptop will only serve as an exceedingly high resolution twitter stream most of my day. That said, I welcome they day when I can buy a >= 24 inch retina desktop monitor and I full well plan to spend a buckload of money on it as soon as it becomes available. (IF it is compatible with both Macs and other computers. That is a requirement)
- Einherji 14y agoI've been sitting here patiently waiting for a 5120x3200 px 27" iMac. When/if that ever happens apple can feel free to take all of my money.
- rdl 14y agoI assume that won't happen until Haswell (for FMA) and only in discrete gpu. I'd hate it if they did something like 21.5, 21.5 Retina, 27 as the 3 models.
- jdminhbg 14y ago> media-rich websites like The Verge Well, that's one way to put it...
- wazoox 14y agoWell I plan to replace my Macbook with a 1920x1080 Asus Zenbook Prime... and this only confirms my choice.
- jherdman 14y agoGive the 13" Air a shot. It's easily the best machine I've ever owned.
- RyJones 14y agoI'm happy with mine, as well. The battery life, especially, is impressive in day-to-day use.
- ericabiz 14y agoMy fiance has the 13" Air and when I got my X1 Carbon he went nuts. Once you see the difference in screen resolution, you will not want to go back to the Air. If you compare them side by side, you will see how blurry the text looks on the Air. If you have ever had an iPad 2 vs. iPad 3 side-by-side, you'll know exactly what I mean. Lenovo finally turned out an awesome ultrabook!
- hackoder 14y agoThe 13" Air and 14" Carbon are fairly similar in screen resolution (right?), however I believe that font rendering on Mac OS seems to be sub-par.
- w1ntermute 14y agoI'd recommend the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The screen is 14" but in the same size as a 13" ultrabook, it has the TrackPoint (although the trackpad is very good too), and it has great Linux compatibility. And then there's the ThinkPad build quality.
- ginko 14y agoBut the X1 Carbon only has a 1600x900 resolution. While better than 1280x800, this is still too little for having 2 windows side-by-side in most cases. I know this because I have a Thinkpad T430 myself. The Thinkpad build quality also isn't what it used to be.
- dgbsco 14y agoI'm not sure what all the fuss is about. My new MBPr13 is fast, gorgeous, and light. Sure it's expensive, but you get what you pay for.
- dmpatierno 14y agoIt's not about the money. It's about performance. Speaking for myself, scroll-jitter is completely unacceptable at any price.
- dgbsco 14y agoI couldn't agree more. However, that isn't the case with the new 13.
- anotherbadlogin 14y ago"My new MBPr13 is fast, gorgeous, and light. Sure it's expensive, but you get what you pay for." RTFA instead of regurgitating platitudes to keep your cognitive dissonance at bay.
- aw3c2 14y agopermalink: http://patrickbgibson.tumblr.com/post/35140489041/the-retina-macbook-pro-13 http://patrickbgibson.tumblr.com/post/35140489041/the-retina...
- niels_olson 14y agoI had similar problems with my rMBP15 but I Haven't noticed them in a while. Fixed in software updates?
- jzimdars 14y agoI just made the same upgrade from a 2011 i7 MacBook Air to the 13" Retina MacBook Pro and I disagree with nearly every part of this review. Battery life seems on par with my Air. Performance is improved on the MacBook Pro. A good example is something like installing imagemagick from Homebrew. On the Air that resulted in max-fans, the MBP handled it without breaking a sweat. I haven't noticed any UI sluggishness. I loved my Air (like many have said, it's my favorite computer I've ever owned) but this machine is every bit as nice, feels more capable (CPU-wise) and has a gorgeous display. The only drawback is the extra weight and thickness.
- mccolin 14y agoThank you so much for writing this. I've been on the fence (fences?) deciding on the right model for a laptop upgrade. The portability of the Air? Features of the "basic" 13" Pro? The screen of the 13" Retina? The much better performance of the 15" Retina? This is the first review I've read that adequately addresses the real-world performance issues of the newest member of the lineup. I find the pricing of the current Mac laptop lineup to be out of whack with the feature steps between each level, which makes picking the best performance and value difficult.
- anotherbadlogin 14y agoNot to mention Apple's making the same mistakes over and over. Same shitty glossy screen. Same idiotic mania to make products thinner at the expense of battery life (especially stupid from the company that swears you never need to change a battery). Same keyboards with no real Delete keys. Now glued-in batteries. Soldered-in RAM. This entire decline of Apple's product line reflects massive failure to recognize what Apple has helped prove: a lot of people don't need a computer. Computer users and tablet users are DIVERGING, so the last thing the devices should do is CONVERGE. If someone fires up a computer now, he needs a COMPUTER and not a crippled gimmick. Why would I buy a computer if it's just a tablet with a keyboard? I can buy... A TABLET WITH A KEYBOARD. People are finally realizing that Apple is sadly detached from real-world usage, but they've been getting a free pass on it for decades. Literally decades. They capitalized when the competition simply showed greater stupidity than they did: 1. Creative Labs utterly blew the design and marketing of MP3 players. 2. Everyone blew the UI and functionality of cell phones, which pretty much fell off a cliff after the StarTAC. 3. Microsoft became moribund, lost, and increasingly irrelevant as the only things a lot of people needed to do were surf the Web and play media. The sheen is off. It may be fiascoes like Maps that started some critical thinking, but there are many more fundamental problems that reveal Apple's dire need for a common-sense overhaul of its product line. Stuff like this: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/will-apple-ever-fix-iphones-biggest.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/will-apple-ever-fix-i...
- evanmoran 14y agoIf you code and/or game I'd recommend the 15" retina, it is the best computer I've ever owned and worth every penny. The screen size is useful for putting terminals next to your code editor, etc. And for gaming I was recently playing Natural Selection 2 (through boot camp) and I found I was loading new maps MUCH faster then other people. We are talking 5-30 seconds faster and in several hours of play not a single person loaded the game faster. Pretty amazing. Lastly if you do go the Apple route get max RAM as these newest computers aren't upgradable. Good luck!
- dikbrouwer 14y agoDid you try scrolling using Safari instead of Chrome/Firefox? With the Retina display, scrolling is significantly smoother on Safari (aka it's not smooth on a 15" Retina on Chrome either).
- robryan 14y agoThat is a good thing, because it means that Chrome should be able to fix this fairly easily.
- nickporter 14y agoThis is especially apparent on pages with fixed background images. See https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=155313 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=155313
- it 14y agoI'm not sure why he says the effective resolution is 1280x800. The resolution is 2560x1600. I just sold my 13" Air and bought a 13" rMBP; very happy with it so far.
- MikeKusold 14y agoIt's because the rMBP uses 2 pixels to display 1px which is why fonts and graphics appear sharper.
- hrabago 14y agoActually it should be 4 pixels to display 1 "point".
- gnu8 14y agoI seem to remember the previous 13" Macbook had graphics capability. This one doesn't. Seems like a sharp downgrade to me.
- robryan 14y agoNot sure they have ever made a 13 inch MBP with discrete graphics.
- RShiki 14y agoNo but they used to make 13" MBP with nvidia chipsets rather than intel's crappy ones. Even the 11" MBA used to have nvidia chipsets. It is a new trend with Apple to downgrade the integrated gpu (compared to the competition, and their own past products). The first incident began with the switch to MacIntels and people who liked the Mac Mini suddenly had to bear with the Intel GMA rather than ATI Radeon. Same thing happened during the switch to intel from iBook (radeon) vs Macbook (gma). TBH it feels like Apple always go for the highest margin components (low cost for Apple while still selling the laptop for a premium price) whenever they feel like they can get away with doing so.
- driverdan 14y agoSomething is clearly wrong here. Have you updated everything to the latest version (OS X 10.8.2, latest firmware, etc)? If so and you're having the problems you described it sounds like a defective unit. I have a 15" rMBP. It had a lot of graphical issues before upgrading to Mountain Lion. After the upgrade I only had 1 issue with bootcamp and resetting SMC solved that. I run at 1920x1200 and all natively rendered stuff (eg fonts) is crisp. Integrated video (same Intel 4000) works fine for all web browsing. I do notice low frame rates with some OS transitions but nothing on the web. I get 6+ hours of battery life easily.
- smoyer 14y agoI have the 15" and absolutely love it. When the machine isn't taxed, I've gotten more than 7 hours from the battery and I do quite a bit of coding and reading on it. YMMV.
- auggierose 14y agoI hurried to buy my 17inch Macbook Pro for exactly that reason a week before it vanished from the apple university store. My resolution is NATIVE 1920x1200, which is better than the 1920x1200 you get on a Retina 15inch.
- relix 14y agoYou can use an app to set the display to the native 2880x1800 resolution if you wanted to.
- bnastic 14y agoNo, it's very clearly and visibly not, don't kid yourself. I have a 17" MBP and I compared them side by side.
- auggierose 14y agoFor starters, no font problems AND a bigger screen real estate. Which are the two most important aspects to me as a programmer.
- SkyMarshal 14y ago>The Retina MacBook Pro 13” has an Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset, which is rather underpowered. Does anyone know of a 13" or smaller notebook with a good discrete GPU? The only one I know of is the Sager NP6110 [1] with a high end Nvdia GT650M. If Sager can do it, why aren't there a lot more of these? [1]: http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6110-clevo-w110er-p-4343.html http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6110-clevo-w110er-p-4343.html
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoThere is a Sony that has one. I don't know the model, but I know a previous co-worker chose it when we upgraded laptops specifically for the decent graphics card with an 11" screen for compact carrying (I was still surprised how much fatter it was than a MacBook Air, but I think that is down to the VGA port). If you are seriously interested, drop me a line or reply and I'll track him down to find out.
- SkyMarshal 14y agoThanks, looks like it's the Sony Vaio S, several configurations offer the discrete gpu. http://store.sony.com/c/SB-Series-Notebooks/en/c/S_SB_SERIES_PAGE http://store.sony.com/c/SB-Series-Notebooks/en/c/S_SB_SERIES...