The 2012 MacBook Pro Review
by Vivek Gowri on July 18, 2012 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- MacBook Pro
- Laptops
- Notebooks
The 2012 MacBook Pro is a pretty intriguing product. It’s the latest and last in a line of standard-setting notebooks that helped shape the direction of the notebook industry over the last 5 years. This design has been around for a while, accompanied by the same general specsheet formula: the latest Intel processors, a performance-class GPU, a high quality display panel, and a $1799 starting price. These things haven’t changed since the original Intel MacBook Pros from 2006 (with the exception of the odd low-end 2009 MBP15, which started at $1599 and came with an Nvidia 9400M IGP).
The unibody MacBook Pro is one of the best engineered portables around, and the longevity of the design speaks to that. But at this point, it’s an aging design. Nearly four years in, the design has endured well, but it retains features that are starting to matter less and less - a DVD drive, Firewire, an IR window for the remote that hasn’t been included with new Macs in years. Possibly even Ethernet. I know some of our editors and readers rely on having an Ethernet connection, but I personally haven’t plugged an RJ45 jack into a notebook in years. Like, five or six years. You can see that Apple agrees - the Retina MacBook Pro has none of those things. The optical drive has been unceremoniously dumped, as has the IR port. The Firewire port and Ethernet jack have been traded for a second Thunderbolt port and an HDMI out (finally, HDMI comes to Macs - hooray for no longer needing those infernal adapters!). Based on my usage model, I make that trade twelve times out of ten. Two ports I never use for one I use regularly and one I will use going forward, and becomes worth more as more Thunderbolt accessories become available.
And when you think about it in those terms, you see where the normal 2012 MBP is flawed - it’s a design that’s rooted in the past, a four year old design with a one year stay of execution. That normally wouldn’t be a problem, but with the future being sold alongside it, it becomes a much more difficult sell. Especially when you consider this: if you were to buy the base 15” MBP and upgrade to a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD and 8GB memory (bringing it to spec-parity with the base rMBP), you’d be approximately $100 shy of the rMBP pricing. That’s $100 for a smaller, lighter notebook that’s just as fast and has a *significantly* better display. If you’re eligible for student discount, that difference is actually zero, because the rMBP has a greater student discount than the base MBP15. The rMBP is pretty pricey, but when you think about it, it’s a pretty good deal.
There are only a few legitimate reasons I can think of to skip the rMBP and get the MBP15, with the most reasonable of them being that you’re very fundamentally opposed to the soldered memory and custom SSD form factor. Another is if you’re highly dependent on a DVD drive and Ethernet and don’t want to pay for or carry around an external SuperDrive or GigE adapter. Or, you have a hard-set $1800 budget and simply don’t care about an SSD, extra memory, or having a good screen (or plan to upgrade them later).
But here’s my take – the 2012 MBP is a great notebook and a very solid portable system. I just don’t want one. For my money, I’ll either save some and get a discounted 2011 MBP15 or spend a bit more to step up to the Retina. And maybe this is telling, but as soon as I was done with the benchmarking and the major part of the writing for this review, I stopped using the MBP and picked up a base Retina. It’s the future, simple as that.
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CalaverasGrande - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Two things, it may sound silly but in the workplace we still need to use wired connections 9 out of ten times. It simply isnt feasible or desirable to have enterprise level wifi installed in all locations.This, and the optical drive is still used as a handoff medium more often than thumb drives. There is a perception that thumb drives can carry viruses more than opticals. Of course they are both just as likely, but this does not change the perception.
As far as "the high price of Apple". If you compare Apple gear to business grade dell and HP the prices are almost identical.
And the bloatware on HP is much worse than the extras Apple gives you.
Me personally I went with a Mac Book Pro because I can always instantiate a VM of Win 7 or XP on my Mac. Much more difficult to go the hackintosh route.
gochichi - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
I disagree that the most sensible reason to not get a rMBP is out of some theological conflict against soldered on memory.And yes, I look at my laptop from 2010 and how affordable it has been to upgrade it to a 128GB SSD and 8GB of RAM and it makes me wonder just how well exactly is the rMBP going to age. Its aging is so important because it's an advanced prototype right now. It needs to age. But I don't think it'll age well from the resale value perspective. I also don't believe it is very usable on actual software.
Let's put it this way, when on the rMBP I would rather use TextEdit and have the text look properly than use Pages or Word. That's a problem, that's not Pro as in professional, that's pro as in prototype. You're holding the future, but not the present. I found it unusable for anything but elite ipad duty (or is it a chrome book... basically if you're on safari it's amazing) .
Now the way it runs say Starcraft 2. Wow, on high settings it looks beyond amazing but too low a frame rate.
I think the retina is just not ready for duty. I was excited to have it and sad to return it. I think if you're actually wanting to get something accomplished I would go with a 13 air or a 1680 by 1050 15" pro or a 17"pro (from 2011).
The rMBP is wonderful but its not the most utilitarian device this year. I'm waiting for 2013 myself. Waiting for software support? You gotta be kidding me.
gochichi - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
rMBP. The future, and really depending on how much money you have and/or how comfortable you are with the hassle of selling your used equipment at a good price it's not wrong at all to get it. I would even say that $/$ it's a pretty high value proposition in the lineup. For instance compared to a 13" Air with 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM...The problem arises when you ask me yet again to upgrade all my software whether I want to or not. I've been a Mac user from PowerPC days, and interestingly enough the 15" Pro model laptop was the first Intel based Mac (just like this is the first Retina Mac). No matter how you got your software, it has a value, you're already good at using it and all that jazz and it is a big deal that the screen on the rMBP is basically emulating a compatible resolution on a ton of software. And much like Rosetta before, the emulation "works" but leaves a lot to be desired.
It's an amazing value, and if you're comfortable with being a guinea pig waiting who knows how long to wait for compatible software for who knows what price then its great.
In having returned it, it leaves me scratching my head for what to get instead. I have a lot of equipment but non of it is Mac. I've been toying around with 2011 MacBook Air (11" mind you) and I like using that more the rMBP because it runs everything natively and I can hook it up to my 27" Dell U2711 just fine. As I escalate the upgrade options and reach ever closer to the rMBP I hesitate. I don't think I should hesitate but I do. For the year is 2012 and if I'm going to spend a ton of money to get something done, for some end goal I guess. I think buying four shares of apple with the money and then selling those shares in 2013 would be a great way to go.
I completely understand how the rMBP is a fantastic product and a brilliant move for Apple. But things are changing, some critical things appear to be changing. For instance, the resale value of Mac equipment is fluctuating more than it has in the past. The closed, cellphone-like equipment is creating a cellphone-like frenzy and sudden disinterest. My interest in a 2010 AIr is slim indeed, while a 2010 MacBook Pro with an SSD is still desirable.
No Mac for me in 2012? I think this may be the answer for me. I passed up a used 2011 13" Air for $850 because "it wasn't good enough" and now I'm punching my throat about it. I also passed up a used 2011 11" Air with 256GB SSD for the same price. Why? Because I had to have the rMBP. Just to realize that even though the thermal/noise characteristics are amazing, the battery life also, everything is emulated through it. And it's not so easy to find a fantastic case for it either (it will be in 2013...) which is what you need when you have a $2,000 iPad/portable iMac without a screen. It has unique features, and I'm hardly the wealthiest guy on these forums so your mileage may vary.
Also worth noting is that wealth is a huge thing in determining whether ANY 15" Pro is for you. (Enthusiasm goes a long way too, like in my case). So back to the wealth thing... my point is that a lot of the people justifying a $2,000 laptop are simply well off in their careers and likely in their 40's or 50's at which point I'm not sure the retina offers much value compared to the sheer brightness of the standard 15" (The low-res one at that). This may also be a mute point because those same eyes may not experience the level of frustration that I experienced while watching poorly emulated resolutions on the rMBP.
I wanted a work horse, and in so many ways it's just an unsatisfying time to purchase. If unlike me you already have a Mac and a work horse, hold on to it for ten more months.
Final comment on software. So you have say Office 2011... worth $100-$300 depending on who you ask. You have CS 5.5... you have all this stuff already, YOU should determine when you want to upgrade and not your hardware. Your hardware is at the service of your software.
Last but not least, Windows 8 handled the rMBP display like a Pro. It also ran hot on Windows, but if Mac OS would handle the display Windows 8 does, I'd be too busy to tell you about how happy I was. Windows 8 isn't even out officially, so buying a $2k laptop on the promise that Windows 8 runs it well, seems impatient of me. And it doesn't fit the primary bullet point that I had when I set sail on all of this: To have a Mac on my technology repertoire.
Oh nice firefighter selling your 2011 13" Air for $850... where are you now?
Peace out. Hope this rambling helped (it's all I was trying to do).
LuckyKnight - Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - link
If ASUS can offer a nvidia GPU in their 13", come on Apple get with it :) I would love something portable as a 13" that can play games.Les Likely - Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - link
The 15.4" matte display is really nice but I'm dismayed to discover that the hardware is not capable of booting into Mac OS X 10.6.8 from either an internal or external HDD partition.I suffered with Mac OS X Lion for a year - definitely an unstable dog of a cat. Result: I still don't trust Mountain Lion. And now we have a crippled generation of hardware, to add injury to insult - but there's no way to rig a safety-net.
Disgusting!
thecuber - Monday, August 6, 2012 - link
How much difference in performance would the extra 512 MB on the GPU cause?It's the only thing holding me back from buying the MBP15
thecuber - Monday, August 6, 2012 - link
How much of a differenece would the extra 512MB memory on the GPU make?thecuber - Monday, August 6, 2012 - link
How much of a difference does the 512 MB in vRAM make a difference. It's the only thing holding me back from buying a MBP15.Systembolaget - Sunday, September 2, 2012 - link
I'm much in favour of the reviews that show that the Retina MBP is not there yet and especially so under Windows, and on the other hand, the non-Retina MBPs are getting old. But, if you're into 3D CAD, rendering and FEM/CFD, what choice do you have now?These all have the same processors and are roughly in the same price bracket. The Apple is ageing and has no IPS panel. The Dell is plasticky and has no IPS panel. The Lenovo lost its fantastic keyboard and now proffers a terrible screen. The HP has a decent IPS panel, but is the most expensive. At the moment, it looks like one can only buy the wrong machine...
- Apple MacBook Pro
i7-3720QM quad-core 2,6 GHz 6 MB L3 cache
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
750 GB SATA 6 GB/s 7200 RPM
1680 x 1050 NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1 GB GDDR5
2,6kg
2.379,00 €
- Dell Precision M4700
i7-3720QM quad-core 2,6 GHz 6 MB L3 cache
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
750 GB SATA 6 GB/s 7200 RPM
1920 x 1080 AMD FirePro M4000 Mobility Pro 1 GB GDDR5
2,8kg
2.482,00 €
- Lenovo ThinkPad W530
i7-3720QM quad-core 2,6 GHz 6 MB L3 cache
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
500 GB SATA 6 GB/s 7200 RPM
1920 x 1080 NVIDIA Quadro K2000M 2 GB GDDR3
2,7kg
2.151,42 €
- HP Elitebook 8560w
i7-3720QM quad-core 2,5 GHz 8 MB L3 cache
8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
750 GB SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM
1920 x 1080 NVIDIA Quadro 2000M 2 GB GDDR3
3,1kg
2.840,53 €
1andrew - Friday, October 12, 2012 - link
Great review by Vivek, but I have to disagree with him. I returned my MacBook Pro with Retina display for refurbished the 2012 MacBook Pro.The MacBook Pro with Retina display simply isn't ready yet. Vivek does say that it will take roughly 1 release cycle for software to catch up with the new display, but he doesn't emphasize this enough. As a student, I use Microsoft Work for hours a day. The blurry pixillated text strained my eyes and drove me insane (although Microsoft finally fixed that last week)
I also enjoy playing games on my laptop. Install Windows via Bootcamp turned into a nightmare The bootcamp install kept failing to make a bootable USB drive, and without a DVD drive it was my only option. I eventually switched over to Windows computer to make the bootable USB drive. Furthermore, Windows 7 hasn't been upgraded for the retina display even with the 150% DPI scaling many of the user elements are too small. Finally, the MacBook Pro isn't fast enough to run most games at full resolution.
The MacBook Pro with Retina display amazed. I loved the thinner form factor, but as my only computer I need a DVD drive. Life without ethernet was miserable. If only Apple included a Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter or an external DVD drive.
Simply put, there those of us who need a fully fledged laptop.