13-inch Retina MacBook Pro Review (Late 2012)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 13, 2012 2:53 AM ESTGPU Performance
The Core i5/i7 offered in the 13-inch rMBP integrate Intel's HD 4000 graphics. Although it's a significant step above the HD 3000 (and everything that Intel made before it), the 4000 doesn't yet deliver dGPU levels of performance. Instead you get enough performance to drive older games (e.g. Half Life 2 Episode Two) at mainstream resolutions. Even Starcraft 2 wasn't too bad on the 13, but I had to run the game at 1280 x 800 with medium quality defaults. There's pretty much no chance you're going to run any game at the panel's native 2560 x 1600 resolution. Heavier workloads aren't going to fare well on the 13 either.
I'd consider the 13-inch MacBook Pro enough for light, casual gaming, or basically anything you'd run on a MacBook Air - but nothing more. OS X is still not a very robust gaming platform so I don't know how big of a deal this is, but if you care about GPU performance you're going to want the 15-inch rMBP instead.
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TEAMSWITCHER - Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - link
I'm not so sure....If you take a 13" MacBook Air and upgrade the specs with a 2.0GHz processor, 8 GB of ram, and a 256 GB Flash, you''ll spend $1699. You can order the entry level 13" MacBook Pro with Retina display from Mac Mall for $1630. Yes, the MacBook Air would have twice the flash storage, but the 13" Pro would have a Retina Display and slightly faster processor - plus an extra Thunderbolt port and HDMI port . If you consider the trade-offs, the 13" MacBook Pro is actually priced more-or-less the same.
If you're warehousing tons of data on your laptop 256 vs. 128 Gigabytes of flash isn't going to be much of an improvement. But if the Retina Display is more important to you, the 13" Pro is the way to go. It's kind of cool that Apple is offering much more in the way of choices right now than ever before.
BTW, I have a 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display and it's easily the best laptop I have ever owned. The scrolling choppiness is noticeable, but far, far from unbearable. The screen really is a vast improvement over anything that has ever been offered in this size of laptop.
geok1ng - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Apples decision to glue the non-serviciable battery to the chassis has made the retina MBPs the worts case scenario in a long series of impronvingly unrecicleable products by Apple.The batterys are rated for 300 charges. That is about 2 years usage.
Since there is no easy or safe way to replace the abttery, these retina MBPs are destined to remain plugged toa charger for the remaining of their short life.
And it irks me no end that not a single reviewer outside IFixIt has pointed towards this major "it is not a bug, it is a feature".
The retina MBPs are the epithome of planned obsolescence, and shame on the reviewers who miss this crucial information.
tipoo - Wednesday, November 14, 2012 - link
"The batterys are rated for 300 charges"To be fair Apples batteries are rated to 1000 cycles due to some charging circuitry.
whiteonline - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
As noted, the machine is a tradeoff.I originally purchased a 13 MBP in early 2011. Loved the size, but the screen resolution was unusable for me. So I wound up getting the high-res 15". What I really wanted was a high resolution 13" MacBook Pro.
And here it is.
It's not as powerful as the 15", but the portability compensates for that. Price....well, would have loved for it to be less. But I'm not going to find another 13" notebook with a super high 16x10 resolution screen anywhere.
Zodiark1593 - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
Even though this sounds almost blasphemous, I wish both the rMBPs had the option for standard, high capacity HDDs as even a 512 MB SSD is way too small for me. I know there's always the external HDD, but extras like that, in my opinion, defeats the purpose of mobility more so than weight.phexac - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
This actually includes a lot of programs, especially Microsoft office. Text is blurry and boxy at the same time and far inferior to a regular resolution computer. So yes, for the most basic tasks it works great. If you have to use any program not specifically designed for it (really most programs at this point in time) it's quite a poor experience. Go to the Apple store and fire up Office on this or the 15" version. You'll see the difference immediately.Due this shortage or properly optimized software, the retina macbooks remain a gimmick. I would actually like to one, but I do not consider them useable just yet. I will probably take a few years for software to fully catch up.
robco - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6318/office-for-mac-...http://retinamacapps.com
The list just keeps growing. I think most app developers understand HiDPI displays are the future and are working on updates.
akdj - Thursday, November 15, 2012 - link
Not sure where you've heard or seen this---I'm using the MS suite; Excel, Word and Power Point. They don't look bad AT ALL!!! In fact, the text in Word/Excel is amazing--the UI isn't 'blurry' or 'boxy' period! I use them all day, everyday. Perhaps one of my latest MS updates fixed an earlier issue...as I've only had my 15" rMBP for about ten weeksAs well--I use the entire creative suite from Adobe: Premier, After Effects, PS, LR, Illustrator and In Design---Acrobat Pro as well. All. Perfectly. Usable...and unbelievably FAST on these computers!!! This pixelization, fuzzy, blocky/boxy embellishment is ridiculous--I've YET to find a professional app to be 'un-usable' or even bad enough to complain.
The WWW is a bit different. Lots of 'low rez' photos that're obviously not ready for the high resolution these monitors bring us---but it's coming, as are 'official' updates to premier software like MS & Adobe. In the mean time--I'm sure most will find them 'just fine'
Jeremy
just4U - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
I was just looking at the cost of the one there and geez.. $1700 /w a dual core cpu and integrated graphics? That's insane... I don't care how good that 13" screen is.. It's simply not worth the price their asking.mike71 - Tuesday, November 13, 2012 - link
You forgot to mention since June 2012 Apple has quietly dropped the audio line-in from all non-15 inch models. So Macbook Air and 13 inch pro's do not feature the same combi audio input/output that existed in previous models. I can only think Apple did this to save a few pennies and increase profits.