13-inch Retina MacBook Pro Review (Late 2012)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 13, 2012 2:53 AM ESTFinal Words
When I reviewed it, I really liked the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. It's very fast, amazingly portable given its size and has a wonderful display. Its 13-inch counterpart, takes the portability to a completely different level. While I loved toting the 15 around (especially compared to its 2011 predecessor), it'd still feel like a burden after a long day of meetings. Using it in coach on most airlines was also problematic at times.
The 13-inch rMBP fixes the portability problem. Through a simple display switch, Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro form factor went from uninteresting to perfect in my eyes. I do miss the larger display of the 15 from time to time, but the available scaled resolutions on the 13-inch rMBP make it a viable productivity machine. You don't sacrifice display quality at all in the move to the smaller panel. Brightness, contrast and color reproduction are all great. The MacBook Pro Retina Displays are easily the best Apple ships among all of its products.
Battery life is very good on the new machine thanks to its integrated 74Wh battery. Compared to a 15-inch rMBP, the 13-inch model delivers competitive battery life that is sometimes even better depending on whether or not the 15 has its dGPU active. Thermals and acoustics are also excellent thanks to the lower power components used inside.
13-inch rMBP (left) vs. 15-inch rMBP (right)
Then there are the givens: solid keyboard, trackpad, good WiFi, decent speakers and a well built chassis. The 13-inch rMBP retains all of these things.
You do give up performance in transitioning to the 13-inch Retina. You lose out on the quad-core CPU option and there's no room for a discrete GPU. If those matter to you, then you'll likely have to wait at least one more generation (maybe two) before Apple has a product that can satisfy all of your needs. I swapped out my 15-inch rMBP for the 13-inch model for the past couple of weeks in order to see if I'd really notice the performance difference. The lack of a dGPU wasn't terribly bothersome, but that's mostly because I didn't have time to play any games over the past couple of weeks. I definitely noticed the missing cores (and decrease in clock speed compared to the higher spec'd 15), although it wasn't something I couldn't get used to. Given how much I'm traveling lately, I'd almost say the loss of performance is worth it thanks to the weight and size reduction that you get with the 13. It's really a much easier notebook to travel with.
All of that being said, I don't really view the 13-inch rMBP as an alternative to the 15, but rather a step up from the MacBook Air. The MBA may be lighter, but Apple definitely blurred the line between the MBA and MBP with the 13-inch Retina. Performance is very similar between the two machines, but the rMBP's display is worlds better. For any power user, I don't know that I'd recommend the 13-inch MacBook Air over the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. It really is the best of both worlds.
Price is an obvious issue with all of the Retina MacBook Pro models. Apple did a great thing by outfitting all of the rMBPs with 8GB of memory, but the base $1699 configuration only comes with a 128GB SSD. Depending on your usage model, that may not be enough. Also if you're looking to minimize UI frame rate issues as much as possible you're going to want the upgraded CPU (although that still won't eliminate low UI frame rates). The problem is that upgrading both of these components together will set you back another $500 ($300 for the 256GB SSD and $200 for the faster CPU), putting the total system cost up at $2199. I would've liked to have seen a 256GB SSD in the base configuration at least. You do get a very good machine for the money, but it is a lot of money to spend.
13-inch rMBP (left) vs. 15-inch rMBP (right)
By far the biggest issue with buying the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display is that you know, in about a year, it'll be updated with even better hardware. It's very clear to me that the 13-inch rMBP was built with Haswell in mind. Without enough room for a discrete GPU, a CPU with significantly faster processor graphics (~2x in the case of Haswell) will open up the 13 to even more customers. Haswell should boast improvements in idle power, however since it's still built on Intel's 22nm process (like Ivy Bridge) it's not abundantly clear to me how active power will be impacted. Looking at the thermal data for the 13-inch rMBP alone leaves me comfortable saying there's some room to introduce more power hungry silicon without making the system unusable.
It rarely hurts to wait as there's almost always something better around the corner. If you are in the market for a Mac notebook however, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display is a great option. It's not perfect. UI frame rates need help and the system is expensive, but it's easily the best balance of portability and productivity in Apple's lineup today.
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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.