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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ragnarokvr1 - Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - link
I'm utterly sick of reading about macintosh "innovation", it reminds me of people referring to Stracraft "2" as a revolutionizing video game in the series. ANYTHING macintosh does DELL does better, at a cheaper price.Comfort of keyboard? That's a PERSONAL TASTE, I personally HATE keyboards that have their buttons separated by spaces in-between, it makes me look down every time I type as if I was laying my hands on a computer for the first time back in 97.
I have NO IDEA what this writer is on about, all macintosh does is take components from Intel, AMD or NVIDIA, stick them in a lackluster chassis, stick an outrageous price tag on it and call it a revolution. I thought this was a professional website. I guess I was wrong.
KoolAidMan1 - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
Starcraft 2 is one of the best games of the last five years, the laptop industry follows Apple's lead, and you have terrible opinions.ragnarokvr1 - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
it's people like you that make this world a living hellKoolAidMan1 - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
Look who's mad.I'd be mad too if in my world I deluded myself into thinking that overweight housewives were supermodels and vice versa
ramb0 - Sunday, July 8, 2012 - link
i hope for your sake you're just trolling. Otherwise, you're never going to be anything more than the loser you are today. good luck sir.Macgurl111 - Friday, July 6, 2012 - link
Thank you for this review. When placing the 2010 mbp next to the rmbp it does look a bit dated. I have been using this for 2 weeks and so in love with it. Once again thank you for your review. And wow 442 comments on a website? :) Congrats hahatipoo - Monday, July 9, 2012 - link
Tried one of these in store and the window resize animations were just painful, the frame rate was really slow so the animation was really choppy, and as the review states Safari scrolling was easily below 30fps on some pages. Hope these are fixed.K1 - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
My RMBP reached 96C when i opened multiple videos in youtube and played all in 1080p resolution. Once i closed them the temperature is immediately back to <60 (in a min or so..). I used 'Temperature Monitor'hummerchine - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Steller review Anand...I'm impressed beyond words. This is why your site is on my top-ten list of sites to check on a regular basis. I'm flabbergasted by all of the negative comments...you were so right on! Why in the heck do the negative ones even read your reviews? I mean, seriously...FANTASTIC job on everything you do...please keep it up!
hummerchine - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Uh, make that "Stellar"...