
Apple unveils Haswell-based MacBook Pros with Retina display - danso
http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/22/apple-unveils-haswell-based-macbook-pros-with-retina-display/
======
josteink
Apart from Haswell and display-resolution ("Retina" 2880x1800 vs 1920x1200),
my Dell laptop from 3-4 years back seemingly has better specs than this. And a
built in 3G modem.

What's the news here? Am I missing something?

~~~
melling
I don't know. Could you post a link to the actual specs? Otherwise, we have to
guess.

* How many Thunderbolt ports did it have?

* Number of USB 3 ports?

* Discrete graphics card performance?

* What did it weigh?

* The SSD drive was how fast?

* Battery life?

~~~
cookiecaper
In the last six months, I've had: a normal MBP, an rMBP, a Lenovo, and a
System76 Bonobo Pro.

>* How many Thunderbolt ports did it have?

Who cares? Do you have a Thunderbolt device? If so, does it really provide an
appreciable performance benefit over USB 3.0/eSATA/Firewire/DVI-Out? I've
actually asked the Apple store and the only thing they've carried for
Thunderbolt has been USB hubs and additional display adapters.

>* Number of USB 3 ports?

Most mid-end and higher machines I've seen since 2011 have at least 2, which
is the same as my rMBP. Most other machines have also had 2 or more USB 2.0
ports, which my MBPs didn't.

>* Discrete graphics card performance?

Great on most mid-end and higher laptops.

>* What did it weigh?

I'm sorry, were we talking about a laptop for real work or a netbook/tablet? I
strongly prefer a laptop with enough ports to be self-contained and a few more
ounces of weight than a MBP with 2 ports total, necessitating dragging an
external USB hub everywhere (typically these need to be powered to be decent,
also). If I wanted a tablet, I'd buy one (and have bought one; a Transformer
Prime with keyboard dock, which works great for airplane etc.).

>* The SSD drive was how fast?

I've never compared my SSDs, I guess I have better things to do than
benchmark. However, I never noticed an appreciable difference between the SSDs
in any of my laptops, desktops, or external enclosures. I've always bought
decent SSDs and got my first one in 2011.

>* Battery life?

Highly dependent on usage profiles and applications, but in most cases, I
didn't notice any superiority in the MacBooks.

I will say that without a doubt the screen on the rMBP blows everything else
I've used out of the water (haven't tried the Chromebook Pixel yet). It was
sad, however, that there was poor support in non-OS X operating systems for
"HiDPI", basically meaning you had to either run at a resolution that was
unreadable without magnifying equipment, or you had to jack the DPI way up and
get funny behavior in other applications. That's not Apple's fault, though.

~~~
Void_
>>* What did it weigh? >I'm sorry, were we talking about a laptop for real
work or a netbook/tablet?

What? Then get a desktop!

I drag my laptop to school, office, coworking, etc. I never connect anything
to it, I have desktop for that. (Hackintosh if you wanna know.)

~~~
cookiecaper
>What? Then get a desktop!

I have a desktop, a "serious work" laptop for remote engagements (gets packed
up twice a day), and a netbook and tablet for circumstances where it doesn't
make sense to deploy the real laptop (airplanes, etc.).

It's much more comfortable to work on the real laptop, physically and
technically. The keyboard is full-size with a numpad. The screen has a decent
amount of real estate at a readable resolution. The battery is big and lasts a
long time. There are a lot of ports -- all the ports I need, unlike a MacBook
with which I always have to scramble for adapters and hubs, especially so with
the "lighter" MBPs. The machine has great specs and a lot of disk space; it's
much faster than the lightweight laptops I've used (excluding rMBPs, which are
in general fairly decent in raw compute power).

It doesn't bother me to carry around a slightly heavier bag than to be stuck
without all of that stuff.

------
revelation
Why oh why would they skimp on the extra $30 for 8GB of RAM?

I have no idea how we got to the point where you need 4GB of RAM just to
comfortably use a system, but looking at the memory consumption of Chrome
gives a clear indication where we are heading.

~~~
Ruska
Especially when you consider the fact that it's impossible to upgrade the RAM.
Sure, many users are fine with 4GB now. However, many users that want a laptop
that will satisfy their needs for several years will be frustrated to learn
that their machine can't be upgraded.

~~~
cookiecaper
Hasn't been a problem for Apple thus far. Their fanbase seems totally content
to just throw the whole thing out every 3-5 years and buy a new one.

~~~
AYBABTME
I think that's true for all the market, not particular to Mac. I don't think
_most_ people usually keep their computers for more than 2-5 years.

~~~
cookiecaper
You're right that some PC brands also have high turnover, but remember that
people are buying those PCs for $300-$500. Most people who invest $2k+ in
computers keep those machines around for a while; even if their high-end
usefulness has expired by year 5, there're lots of medium-end and low-end
applications that can continue to be used on high-quality hardware.

------
Void_
Refurbished 13 inch Retina with 8GB of RAM - $1.059
([http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD212LL/A/refurbished-
macb...](http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD212LL/A/refurbished-macbook-
pro-25ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5-with-retina-display) )

Refurbished 15 inch Retina with dedicated graphics - $1.599
([http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC975LL/A/refurbished-
macb...](http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC975LL/A/refurbished-macbook-
pro-23ghz-quad-core-intel-i7-with-retina-display))

------
kumarm
Specs for Macbook Pro are no better than 2011 Mac Book Pro If you don't care
about Retina Display.

Can Innovate My Ass. (Apple's own standard way of putting it).

Specs from 2011 MAc Book Pro:

* Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7

* Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

* Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB

Good to know Moore's law is out of fashion for Apple.

~~~
cube13
This is really a problem with Intel's branding and CPU numbering more than
with Apple, unfortunately. I can't tell you the difference between an i7-4500
and i7-4500k, but I can tell you that sandy/ivy bridge gives a heck of a lot
better performance than the previous Westmeres and nehalems.

~~~
sunneh
The K represents a specific series of the same cpu but with an unlocked cpu
multiplier for over clocking purposes in the desktop environment.

------
ufmace
Looks very interesting. I had been thinking of getting a Chromebook Pixel for
the screen and painless updating. But if I can get a Retina Macbook for the
same price with better battery life and more features and a full Unix-y OS,
sounds like a no-brainer.

~~~
tomp
Personally, I was really hoping for a non-Mac based system as my next laptop.
However, programming on Windows is still terrible, Linux is AFAIK still to
hard, slow and unfriendly (the last time I used Ubuntu they were heading in
the wrong direction as far as UI usability is concerned), and ChromeOS is not
a real OS. So, with only two decent hardware choices (Chromebook and MacBook),
I have to decide for a Mac due to superior software.

~~~
AYBABTME
Honest question: what do you mean by Linux being slow?

~~~
tomp
When Ubuntu's new dekstop system came out a few years ago (when I last used
Linux - I think it was named Unity), it really slowed down my rythm. Part of
it was that it generally slowed down the system (but maybe the hardware was a
little too old/slow for it anyways), part of it was that it was unintuitive
and thus slowed down my workflow. Mac doesn't do that - multitouch really
helps here, though, so the comparision might be unfair (since multitouch
requires really good hardware touchpad first).

------
berberous
I was kind of hoping Haswell would boost battery life more than this. The old
15" rMBP was 7 hours, add in Mavericks and you get ~8 hours. The new models,
with Mavericks, are only 9 hours.

~~~
zokier
Yeah, definitely bit disappointing. They are using quite large battery,
integrated graphics, and still reach relatively poor battery life. Quick
comparison to Air shows that while Air gets 13 minutes/watt-hour (take that
SI!) according to the specs, new rMBP gets only 7.5 minutes/watt-hour (both
being 13" models).

15" model gets only 5 minutes/watt-hour, but I guess that difference is
explained with discrete GPU and larger display.

------
auctiontheory
Why are they still shipping otherwise high end laptops with just 4GB RAM? Does
the speed of SSD make up for the lag when paging or swapping? (I doubt it.)

~~~
melling
The speed of the SSD is pretty fast. I've only got 4GB in my 2010 MacBook Pro
and it's a lot quicker than my 2010 27" iMac with a faster processor, 1TB hard
drive, and 4GB of RAM. Having said that, I would definitely get the 8GB.

------
ciferkey
I am quite excited to see another Iris Pro laptop. I have been disappointed in
what I have read about the Clevo w740su
([http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-
clevo/721987-clevo-w74...](http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-
clevo/721987-clevo-w740su-14-1-a.html)). Hopefully we'll see more dropping on
the market.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I also just want a good Haswell/Iris laptop, with Apple quality hardware, and
the ability to get Linux on it... at a lower price than $1,300 :(

EDIT: Actually the Iris Pro that's in the $999 Galago UltraPro is only
available on the $2,000 15" Macbook Pro.

Ugh I wish System76/Clevo would just put a decent backlit keyboard on that
computer.

------
benguild
Honestly, I had the original rMBP and had the terrible LG display swapped for
a Samsung. I was cool without upgrading, but the problem I have is that all of
my multimedia won’t fit on the machine. Stretching photo and music libraries
across externals and stuff just becomes a logistical nightmare when
considering redundancy.

So, for storage costs alone, I went for the latest machine with the new 1TB
SSD option. It hurt a little to upgrade so quickly, but given the insane costs
of replacing an SSD under warranty, when one fails I figure it’s cheaper than
upgrading mine to a larger third-party one.

~~~
dublinben
Do you really need hundreds of GB of multimedia on your SSD at all times? When
I got my first 60 GB SSD, it was painful, but cloud services are so much
better these days. You can even get huge portable HDDs for hardly anything
now.

------
hemancuso
Apple now only sells one laptop with discrete graphics - the highest end 15"
retina MacBook Pro which starts at $2599. I didn't think we'd get here so
fast.

------
untog
_Please note that the memory is built into the computer, so if you think you
may need more memory in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of
purchase._

Sigh. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but... sigh. Plus, flash memory isn't
even an option- if you want 512GB you _have_ to go with the upgraded CPU too.

------
auctiontheory
I can easily justify spending upwards of $1500 on a machine I will heavily use
for several years. But it's much harder to justify buying a $1500 laptop that
could be stolen or spilled on any time I take it out of the house. (Just one
"incident" is enough to finish my investment.)

~~~
karanlyons
Your homeowner's/renter's insurance should cover items stolen from your person
outside of the home (I'm not clear on the legal wording, but my insurance
covered a stolen iPhone.).

Moreover, anything can be stolen from you or become otherwise lost or
incapacitated. Do you have a laptop that is theft and spill proof?

------
blt
I've been waiting for this update for months... I told myself it will be worth
the super $$$, and I've been living with a crappy Dell for years... but damn,
those ram upgrade prices are hard to swallow.

------
goatslacker
Out of curiosity and a bit off-topic. What laptops, both Windows and Linux and
regardless of price, currently compete with the Macbook Pro on specs and the
small details like battery life, backlit keyboard, etc?

Are there any?

~~~
andor
There's always a tradeoff. With the Macbook for example, you get a glossy
screen and Thunderbolt doesn't work in Linux.

* The Asus Zenbook 301 is a pretty good mixture of size and performance. It's as small as a Macbook Air, but has a higher TDP processor and Iris graphics.

* Manufacturers suddenly care about good screens. If all you want is a high resolution IPS/MVA/PVA/etc. screen, there's lots of choice.

* The "business" models from Lenovo etc. seem to be getting smaller and more aesthetically pleasing. Their build quality was always pretty good (in terms of robustness), now they also look OK. You can get a Thinkpad T440s with a _matte_ 1080p screen, real Ethernet port, backlit keyboard and everything.

------
jguimont
So is the 2.0Ghz quad core i7 in the 15" a better choice than a dual core
2.8Ghz core i7?

Wonder how much a difference there are.

~~~
MichaelGG
The newer processors have more fine-grained "Turbo Boost" so if you're using
single-threaded or two-threaded programs, they can clock up to 3GHz+. I looked
on Apple's site, but didn't find which processor they're using. But from
Intel's site, the only 2Ghz quad core seems to be this one:

[http://ark.intel.com/products/76087/](http://ark.intel.com/products/76087/)

So you could hit 3.2GHz single-threaded.

------
tuananh
Only the high-end Macbook Pro Retina 15 got discrete graphic card!!! Is Iris
onboard graphic card that good?

~~~
gutnor
AnandTech tested the IRIS Pro 5200 to roughly on par with the 650M (last
generation MBP), with obviously significantly better power management.

For Intel, that is quite an achievement. But it is just quite a bit too short
for Apple to get rid of discrete graphic completely.

For the type of graphic performance that Apple put in its laptop (medium
range), it is likely that Intel will catch up in a generation, maybe 2.

~~~
andor
The Iris Pro 5200 has 128MB DRAM ("Crystalwell") embedded in the CPU/GPU
package. This one is in the 15 inch model. The Non-"Pro" Iris 5100 in the 13
inch Macbook is the same GPU, same clock speed, but without the embedded DRAM.

Depending on the task, the 5200 seems to be up to twice as fast. Also, the
DRAM is actually a huge Level 4 cache for the CPU, which means that it should
speed up other things than graphics as well.

Benchmarks:

* [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-5100.91977....](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-5100.91977.0.html)

* [http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Pro-Graphics-5200.90...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Pro-Graphics-5200.90965.0.html)

------
rsync
The headline should read:

2+ years later and still no retina macbook air.

... since that is the _only_ relevant datum here.

~~~
revelation
Maybe the Air is on the way out, being replaced by the iPad? The new one is
called iPad Air after all..

With the recent price cuts and other changes to make the MBP more appealing to
the general public instead of power users (no way to upgrade it, integrated
graphics, thinner/lightweight), that seems like a reasonable strategy in a
post-PC world.

~~~
untog
I don't think so. The Air was only updated a few months ago. More likely that
the battery technology just hasn't got there yet- the Air doesn't have the
space for a battery large enough to power a Retina display.

