The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2012 4:14 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- MacBook Pro
- Laptops
- Notebooks
Ports & Expansion
Port layout has been greatly simplified on the next-gen MacBook Pro. Along the left side there’s now a MagSafe 2 connector, two Thunderbolt ports, one USB 3.0 and one 1/8” jack for mic/headphones. The right side has the other USB 3.0 port, a full sized HDMI port and an SD card reader.
MagSafe 2 is a thinner version of Apple’s MagSafe connector, and it’s used on both the Retina MacBook Pro and the 2012 MacBook Airs. The rMBP still ships with the same 85W power adapter as before, but now with an integrated MagSafe 2 connector. In order to deal with the change in connector, Apple offers a $10 converter that allows you to plug MagSafe 1 power supplies into MagSafe 2 systems. All new Thunderbolt Displays shipping from here on out will include the MagSafe 2 converter.
The absence of an integrated Gigabit Ethernet port will surely bother some, but Apple offers a Thunderbolt to GigE adapter for $30 to accommodate. Since Thunderbolt effectively offers an external PCIe interface, there’s no performance loss if you go this route vs. the old integrated GigE connector. I was able to sustain nearly 930Mbps between the rMBP with the Thunderbolt GigE adapter and last year’s MBP:
At a price of $30 Apple is most certainly using Intel’s Port Ridge Thunderbolt controller, a cost effective single-channel TB controller without any support for DisplayPort passthrough.
USB 3.0 is provided courtesy of Intel’s 7-series chipset. Apple supports the USB Attached SCSI protocol which should allow for even better performance than what I’m showing below (with all of my focus on Thunderbolt I actually don't have a 6Gbps UASP enabled USB 3.0 dock in house):
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orthorim - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
First of all, PC manufacturers are followers.Second even if they wanted to do it, how are they going to get Microsoft to fully support retina mode? It's evident from the review that Apple's had to do a lot of work on the software side to make it work, and it's still not perfect.
That's Apple's huge advantage: They make hardware and software.
The obstacle for a PC manufacturer would be:
- Get retina displays in quantity (same issue Apple faces - it's doable but by no means easy)
- Get Windows to support retina mode - even if MS were willing, no one knows what amount of effort would be involved. I guess it would be extremely hard to do.
- Get gfx card manufacturers to optimize their drivers to it's fast
All of this takes time and effort...
PubFiction - Friday, August 3, 2012 - link
None of you get it.Super resolution is a by product of OLED. Not of apple, not of anyone else. LG says they can make a panel and apple pays the highest price to have exclusive access fo a while. Are you guys really so stupid that you think apple actually makes these panels?
IF LG does not push IPS displays down in price and up in resolution OLED is quickly going to supplant LCDs as the premium product.
Let me make it clear to the sheeple, PC companies do not give a shit about you or giving you bette stuff until it becomes neccessary to maintain their business, apple happily sold everyone TN panels with low resolution for years while PC makers were offering IPS, wide gamut in work stations laptops.
gorash - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Come on, 1080p screens have existed for some time, and obviously it would move to 4k at some point when it's ready. From the performance standpoint, "Retina" doesn't seem to be all that ready. Maybe in the next year or so, it will be.OCedHrt - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Although the reviewers at Anandtech didn't really like the Z, it is the best laptop I have used to date.solipsism - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Even if Apple can these 27" IPS panels made at a reasonable price and quantity you still have to deal with rending all the pixels in a way that adds more pros than cons.Remember 4k is 4x the pixels of 1080p. Taking the 27" from 2560x1440 to 5120x2880 is going from 3,686,400 px to 14,745,600 px.
DeciusStrabo - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
4k isn't 4x the pixels of 1080p. 4k is QFHD, which is 3840x2160 (6.1 million pixels vs. 2 million in 1080p).However, since we already have a spec for 8K (7680x4320 ~ 33 million pixels) things to indeed get interesting soon.
lukarak - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
3840x2160 = 8,294,400/
1920x1080 = 2,073,600
--------------------------------
2 x 2 = 4
DanNeely - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
4k is a lot more than just quadHD. I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the dominant mass market version; but most current 4k cameras record video at 4096x2304/2160.Ohhmaagawd - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
"emember 4k is 4x the pixels of 1080p. Taking the 27" from 2560x1440 to 5120x2880 is going from 3,686,400 px to 14,745,600 px."I really doubt it needs to double to be "retina".
Not sure what the sweet spot is, but my gut is somewhere around 3500-4000 pixels wide.
Acanthus - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Apple and their forward looking business sense = buying every factory in the world that can produce high dpi displays. (Yes, they really did that)Anticompetitive =/= "forward thinking"