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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Fx1 - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
It makes a big difference to the glare when you take away that glass. Why don't you go have a look at a rmbp and see how thin the lid is and you too will be impressed. A LOT of work must going into designing these notebooks. Why don't you spend you time bitching at the windows notebook makers and see how CRAP their designs are. Because they deserve it. Full Stop.Spunjji - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Why don't you go and eat a dick, child.gstrickler - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
It's not a matte screen. Matte screens are etched to diffuse the light in many directions. This makes them slightly less "sharp", and lowers their effective brightness slightly. The Retina display in the new MBP has a low reflectance flat surface, not a matte surface. It's an important difference as an etched surface would compromise the sharpness of such a high DPI display.Spunjji - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
I give up. Too many fanboys on both sides.jjbwbc - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
I bought one of these guys and I really love the display but I cannot for my life see if this is glass or plastic or what makes the outer layer of this display.How fragile is it? I mean, it seems like a combination of durable and extremely fragile too. Makes me nervous... can anyone weigh in on how fragile the screen on this guy is compared to regular LCDs?
Constructor - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
It's definitely glass, and likely of the 'Gorilla' variety. It will still scratch or break if you try hard enough. But with no access to Apple's internal QA information we'll have to wait until someone actually manages to break theirs to really know...! ;-)SimaYi - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
I'm disappointed in this review, as I was very much hoping to get some advice about whether this laptop can run recent games at 2880x1800.The only frame rates mentioned for this resolution were Half Life 2 (42 fps) and Diablo 3 (18 fps).
@Anand, is there any chance you will update this article with some detailed feedback about gaming at 2880x1800, and framerates for running recent Windows games in bootcamp at this res?
seapeople - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
No, it can't run recent games at 2880x1800. This is not something that needs to be benchmarked; it is obvious from the combination of a middle-of-the-road laptop graphics card and the highest resolution notebook screen ever made.wfolta - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
And you got this idea, despite the article mentioning Diablo III (about as recent of a game as you can get)? It runs Diablo III (Normal Act III) at 20+ FPS, with most settings cranked to max. It runs other recent games fine. Perhaps you should give details of what games you mean when you say "recent"?And the fact is you can run games at lower resolutions (which still look better at that resolution than if you only had that many pixels) and drop a few settings and double your frame rate.
SimaYi - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Thanks very much for the feedback!Are you saying from personal experience that it runs D3 on High at 20fps? How about if you reduce the settings, say with no AA and lower setttings, can it run D3 above 30fps?
For most games, 25-30 fps is quite playable. Above 30fps is great.
As for "recent" games, I would be extremely interested to know the performance at 2880x1800 (on low or med settings), for games like Skyrim, DXHR, RAGE, Arkham City, BF3, Sniper Elite V2, ME3, Risen 2, MW3, Witcher 2, Civ 5.
Never purchased a mac laptop before and this is the first time I'm seriously considering it, primarily because of the display. However, if I can't run any games at 2880x1800, it seems like a waste.
Trying to decide between either buying an MBP or a Windows laptop with 1080p display and decent GPU, along the lines of a DV6t (Nvidia 650m) or Envy 15 (AMD 7750m).
I wouldn't call the 650m necessarily "middle of the road," as it's one of the fastest mobile cards currently available for laptops that are not bulky desktop replacements. Do Mac laptops run games slower on bootcamp compared to Windows laptops with the same card?