
The Retina MacBook Pro 13” - tomdale
http://patrickbgibson.tumblr.com/
======
johansch
The 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.)

~~~
kylec
If 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.

~~~
johansch
Font rendering looks quite crappy in anything but exact 2x resolution doubling
mode. I haven't looked into it, but suspect that subpixel rendering is
disabled.

~~~
Osmium
This isn't true, speaking as a happy retina MBP (15") owner. It's almost
remarkable just how perfect _everything_ , including fonts, look at the scaled
resolutions. It certainly surprised me; the sheer tininess of the pixels
really messes with your intuition with this. When you can no longer
distinguish between pixels, things like scaling work far better than you have
any right to expect.

The only time I have ever seen any issue with scaling was whilst moving a 1
pixel horizontal line across the screen on the "highest resolution" setting,
and that's only because I was looking for it.

~~~
johansch
I have played around with a 15" rMBP in a store and colleague's 13" rMBP at
work. Both exhibited the same symptoms in scaling modes other than 2x: font
outlines were a lot more blurry than in the 2x mode.

~~~
masklinn
Were you looking at native cocoa text controls or at e.g. Chrome?

~~~
johansch
Text rendered by Safari in a web page.

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jzimdars
I 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.

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dikbrouwer
Did 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
That is a good thing, because it means that Chrome should be able to fix this
fairly easily.

~~~
nickporter
This is especially apparent on pages with fixed background images. See
<https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=155313>

------
jedahan
Typing 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
I 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.

~~~
robryan
Scrolling 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.

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dgbsco
I'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
It's not about the money. It's about performance. Speaking for myself, scroll-
jitter is completely unacceptable at any price.

~~~
dgbsco
I couldn't agree more. However, that isn't the case with the new 13.

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ROFISH
The 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
Underpowered with one screen, I'd love to see it with 3...

~~~
kylec
Whether 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
>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?

~~~
manicdee
What 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?

------
it
I'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
It's because the rMBP uses 2 pixels to display 1px which is why fonts and
graphics appear sharper.

~~~
hrabago
Actually it should be 4 pixels to display 1 "point".

------
aw3c2
permalink: [http://patrickbgibson.tumblr.com/post/35140489041/the-
retina...](http://patrickbgibson.tumblr.com/post/35140489041/the-retina-
macbook-pro-13)

------
wazoox
Well I plan to replace my Macbook with a 1920x1080 Asus Zenbook Prime... and
this only confirms my choice.

~~~
w1ntermute
I'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
But 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.

~~~
ericabiz
The Thinkpad build quality far eclipses the Asus'--to the point where handling
them side by side (as we got to do since I have both of them) is a pretty eye-
opening experience. The Thinkpad _feels_ sturdy and the Asus feels flimsy.
Also, whatever Asus is using for mouse drivers drove me insane. You'll see all
kinds of online complaints about mouse lag and stutters. The Thinkpad does not
have this issue, and also has 2-finger scrolling. You will not miss the
difference in resolution compared to the huge upgrade in hardware quality.

~~~
shredfvz
I reverted to using Panasonic Toughbooks exclusively after buying, and
subsequently returning a Lenovo W520 at $200 out of pocket, and I'm prepared
to defend the following Toughbook rave in a verbal deathmatch if need be.
Every other laptop I've encountered feels like cheap plastic. Apple, Lenovo,
Toshiba, Asus, Dell, HP - literally every other laptop on the market today is
poor in comparison. The hinges are weak, the design isn't sturdy, the little
things aren't done right, and mostly they feel like uninspired works of crap
designed to make a buck off of consumers.

The fact that Lenovo advertises some of their products as rugged is simply
laughable.

------
driverdan
Something 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_.

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niels_olson
I had similar problems with my rMBP15 but I Haven't noticed them in a while.
Fixed in software updates?

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SkyMarshal
_> 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>

~~~
SoftwareMaven
There 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
Thanks, 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...](http://store.sony.com/c/SB-Series-
Notebooks/en/c/S_SB_SERIES_PAGE)

------
mtgx
The 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
You 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
According 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.

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jdminhbg
> media-rich websites like The Verge

Well, that's one way to put it...

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auggierose
I 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.

~~~
bnastic
No, it's very clearly and visibly not, don't kid yourself. I have a 17" MBP
and I compared them side by side.

~~~
auggierose
For starters, no font problems AND a bigger screen real estate. Which are the
two most important aspects to me as a programmer.

------
mccolin
Thank 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.

~~~
evanmoran
If 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!

~~~
mccolin
Thanks for the info. I code and also use the machine for laying out documents,
web browser, and lightweight design, etc. Mostly coding. I'm normally desk-
bound, however, and am weighing the value of the Retina screen if I'm going to
spend most of my time looking at an external monitor. I have, however, not
heard a bad review of the 15"r.

I'm surprised to learn the machines are not RAM upgradeable. That's a major
negative.

~~~
aes256
> I'm surprised to learn the machines are not RAM upgradeable. That's a major
> negative.

Between that, the glued-in batteries, the on-board storage, and the lack of an
optical drive (i.e. a slot for a second hard drive), I'm really put off the
new retina MacBooks.

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rdl
Yeah, I think the MBA13 (8GB) or the rMBA15 are the two most optimal choices
for "primary Apple machine for most high-end users".

~~~
Derbasti
If 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
I'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
I 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.

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chucknelson
Well, 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.

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smoyer
I 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.

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gnu8
I seem to remember the previous 13" Macbook had graphics capability. This one
doesn't. Seems like a sharp downgrade to me.

~~~
robryan
Not sure they have ever made a 13 inch MBP with discrete graphics.

~~~
RShiki
No 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.

