The 2012 MacBook Pro Review
by Vivek Gowri on July 18, 2012 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- MacBook Pro
- Laptops
- Notebooks
The 2012 MacBook Pro is a pretty intriguing product. It’s the latest and last in a line of standard-setting notebooks that helped shape the direction of the notebook industry over the last 5 years. This design has been around for a while, accompanied by the same general specsheet formula: the latest Intel processors, a performance-class GPU, a high quality display panel, and a $1799 starting price. These things haven’t changed since the original Intel MacBook Pros from 2006 (with the exception of the odd low-end 2009 MBP15, which started at $1599 and came with an Nvidia 9400M IGP).
The unibody MacBook Pro is one of the best engineered portables around, and the longevity of the design speaks to that. But at this point, it’s an aging design. Nearly four years in, the design has endured well, but it retains features that are starting to matter less and less - a DVD drive, Firewire, an IR window for the remote that hasn’t been included with new Macs in years. Possibly even Ethernet. I know some of our editors and readers rely on having an Ethernet connection, but I personally haven’t plugged an RJ45 jack into a notebook in years. Like, five or six years. You can see that Apple agrees - the Retina MacBook Pro has none of those things. The optical drive has been unceremoniously dumped, as has the IR port. The Firewire port and Ethernet jack have been traded for a second Thunderbolt port and an HDMI out (finally, HDMI comes to Macs - hooray for no longer needing those infernal adapters!). Based on my usage model, I make that trade twelve times out of ten. Two ports I never use for one I use regularly and one I will use going forward, and becomes worth more as more Thunderbolt accessories become available.
And when you think about it in those terms, you see where the normal 2012 MBP is flawed - it’s a design that’s rooted in the past, a four year old design with a one year stay of execution. That normally wouldn’t be a problem, but with the future being sold alongside it, it becomes a much more difficult sell. Especially when you consider this: if you were to buy the base 15” MBP and upgrade to a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD and 8GB memory (bringing it to spec-parity with the base rMBP), you’d be approximately $100 shy of the rMBP pricing. That’s $100 for a smaller, lighter notebook that’s just as fast and has a *significantly* better display. If you’re eligible for student discount, that difference is actually zero, because the rMBP has a greater student discount than the base MBP15. The rMBP is pretty pricey, but when you think about it, it’s a pretty good deal.
There are only a few legitimate reasons I can think of to skip the rMBP and get the MBP15, with the most reasonable of them being that you’re very fundamentally opposed to the soldered memory and custom SSD form factor. Another is if you’re highly dependent on a DVD drive and Ethernet and don’t want to pay for or carry around an external SuperDrive or GigE adapter. Or, you have a hard-set $1800 budget and simply don’t care about an SSD, extra memory, or having a good screen (or plan to upgrade them later).
But here’s my take – the 2012 MBP is a great notebook and a very solid portable system. I just don’t want one. For my money, I’ll either save some and get a discounted 2011 MBP15 or spend a bit more to step up to the Retina. And maybe this is telling, but as soon as I was done with the benchmarking and the major part of the writing for this review, I stopped using the MBP and picked up a base Retina. It’s the future, simple as that.
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dagamer34 - Thursday, July 19, 2012 - link
There is no scaling hardware in the rMBP. Apple instead uses custom software scaling algorithms. Did you really read Anand's review?Regardless, with a Mac, you are basically paying for support up front in the form of stores where you can easily get your Mac serviced, and if it's badly screwed up, totally replaced.
Sunburn74 - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
If thats true, how come with every windows laptop, anand is sure to include little macbook and macbook air jabs here and there?robco - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Most likely be cause Apple sweats the details in their designs while others don't. If they can't get something adequate for their goals off the shelf, they design their own. I've yet to see a review of an ultrabook where it manages to have a good display, good keyboard, solid build quality and, the big one - a trackpad that works well. Yet the MacBook Air hits all these points. The panel is decent (not the very best, but good), the keyboard is great to type on and backlit, the unibody design is solid and the multitouch trackpad works great. Battery life is also very good.I think it's the frustration that other companies are either unwilling or unable to design laptops with the same level of care and attention to detail. Apple provides a very good end-to-end consumer experience. It's a shame that so far few have come close to matching it.
Sunburn74 - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
No what I'm saying is, if anand truly believes there is no cross shopping between apple and windows machines, why with every windows machine review he has little jabs about how they pale compared to apple and he throws in an obligatory "you can buythis machine but for more money you can just buy apple", but with apple reviews he fails to mention that windows machines exist at all.You can't play both sides of the field at once.
seanleeforever - Thursday, August 2, 2012 - link
because Anand is a Mac lover (i think he made similar statement in one of his apple product review) and as such, he felt obligated to point out how inferior other PC manufacture is in comparison.it is like, when you describe how smart a monkey is, you always list a human as a reference, but you never do the other way around.
Me, on the other hand, don't care crap about apples' product. it is too limiting and i think OSX is (at least to me) less functional than windows, which fits college girl perfectly since all they do is facebook and youtube, and you don't have to worry as much when clicking randomly ads or fancy icon on the web.
i have yet to see a serious programmer use mac. just saying.
mavere - Thursday, July 19, 2012 - link
Considering that only Apple laptops can legitly run OSX, it means that if you're in the market for a Macbook, you're pretty much *only* in the market for a Macbook.The sparse comparisons to other Macbooks were warranted in context of a barely upgraded product, and the review even ends in an anti-endorsement!
Honestly, you're just complaining because you have preconceived notions of the brand, and are just upset (for some reason) that the reviewer didn't build up on those biases, even if he didn't refute them at all.
Sunburn74 - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Not really. There are plenty of people who consider both macs and windows. I consider myself in that category. I'm willing to switch to a macbook air if the price is right, OS regardless. However, I just don't see why I should suffer through an OS switch at those prices compared to what comparable windows machines offer.But thats just the thing: when guys like us who have no problem putting bootcamp on say an iMac or something, or having 2 or 3 oses, or dare I say run linux if our mood so fits us read reviews like this, we get no actual information other than "drool anand loves macs... buy one....drool some more".
How about some objectivity? Some comparisons for people who could buy a macbook pro or could end up going with a nice high end sony vaio or something.
ggathagan - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
But that has been done to death in so many other articles, it ends up with the reviewer essentially beating a dead horse.Seriously, do you really need the reviewer to state for the umpteenth time that if you are platform-neutral, you tend to get better value from a non-Apple product; that you pay extra for the Apple name and look?
Krane1 - Sunday, August 12, 2012 - link
I doubt that. Maybe one half of 1%. Other than that, you either buy foreign or domesticananduser - Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - link
I am eagerly awaiting for the MBP 13" review.