Apple launches next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina screen

conor.hogan.2

Yeah, very cheap. But as I said, I will still likely buy one when this MBP fails as no one else builds anything near it imo.

Mostly for me it boils down to being forced to pay for their ridiculously overpriced SSD/HDD and Ram which before I could do myself for fractions of the price. It really adds price on fast to go 8GB and get a 512GB SSD (and then be stuck with this config for the life of the laptop…)

Money wise if you want a 13" MBP, you are going to get screwed if you want 8GB and an SSD.

When you spend this much on a laptop you tend to be picky over the "little things".

Zapp Brannigan

I'll be having this. Just have to decide if I can get away with the base model with the 256 SSD or if I'll have to upgrade to the 512. Not too worried about the processor bump, just the storage space.

Will also be bumping the RAM to 16gb, cos it's actually reasonable from Apple for once!

conor.hogan.2

Only 40% of users are on Lion. Very very telling.

Colonel Panic

What does it tell you?

Mister Man

If I can get the money together, I would buy this in a flash!

The price is going to be a huge turn off for many users, who never needed a professional grade laptop in the first place. I think the MBP line is coming to the end of the line now, and the retina MBP will take over. I think we'll see the casual users, who bought the MBP and didn't really need the power, switch over to the cheaper MBA, which makes sense at the end of the day.

The fact you can't upgrade RAM & SSD is a bit annoying, given it's an expensive machine, but I'm sure theres more of a reason then "Apple wanted more money" Personally, I make do currently on 4gb of ram on both machines. I would do with 6gb, so 8gb would be fine for me, and most users (Granted, you're going to get people needing a lot more then the 16gb max)

I don't have any interest in the Thunderbolt port, If I'm correct in saying this (Correct me if I'm wrong) the first storage device to use Thunderbolt was unbelievably expensive. I'd rather 1 thunderbolt port, and 3 usb 3.0 ports, but that's just me, I use a lot of USB's.

All and all, I'm liking the new MBP. 15" is a great size, HDMI port is nice, Retina display should be amazing, SSD as standard & 8GB ram as standard. Hopefully I'll get the money together soon to get one of these!

Colonel Panic

Money gouging is only part of it I'm sure.

Part of it is the price of making the thing so thin! That said, if Apple are going to force my hand re: upgrading RAM and storage. Something I've done on every Mac laptop I've owned, I might just make my current machine my last Pro and wait for Retina screens to filter down to the MBA.

Zapp Brannigan

One thing that\s driving up the price for me is the Applecare. With everything being soldered in and the display as part of the Unibody, there's no way I want to pay for a repair if something goes wrong!

Sad Professor

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Only 40% of users are on Lion. Very very telling.

And as was pointed out at the keynote, it took Lion 9 months to reach that penetration rate, compared to the 27 months it took Windows 7.

So yeah, it is very telling.

Sean Quagmire

Price seems ok to me but I am not really tempted to upgrade over my 2010 mbp. This is a pro machine and they are doing away with some pro features as standard and IMO are too quick to say ‘just get an adapter/optical drive’ etc. I am going to hold off for another year or two anyway.

Side note, glad to be getting the ‘save as…’ feature back in mountain lion. Hopefully the person who pushed the version/duplicate ‘feature’ got the bullet.

Greentree_uk

With Compu b opening on Saturday in Dundrum, it's likely they'll have their special opening prices! 10% off a retina would be very tasty indeed

tylerdurden94

Any idea of when these will be available in shops over here?

NetNinja

Greentree_uk wrote: »

With Compu b opening on Saturday in Dundrum, it's likely they'll have their special opening prices! 10% off a retina would be very tasty indeed

Didn't know that. Will they in where the Sony center was?

conor.hogan.2

Colonel Panic wrote: »

What does it tell you?

That people are not liking Lion, the price of it was so cheap and Apple has very little legacy so more people should be flocking to the new OS*

*as opposed to slow moving Windows because of legacy systems.

Sad Professor wrote: »

And as was pointed out at the keynote, it took Lion 9 months to reach that penetration rate, compared to the 27 months it took Windows 7.

So yeah, it is very telling.

Yeah, enterprise and actually supporting older users along with 100's of euro per license really hinders upgrades.

Apple have very little legacy and the licenses are very lax and very cheap. 3 times the time to reach the same level of adoption for a platform with 9 times the market share, seems like a fair comparison alright.

Probably as fast as other upgrades but considering the price drops the adoption rate is very slow imo.

Colonel Panic

It still had a pretty high attach rate for an OS that was only available via the Mac App Store given that most people just don't give a crap about software updates until they HAVE TO use them.

I guess it's just convenient confirmation bias for you and your Lion vendetta over the change in Spaces!

conor.hogan.2

Colonel Panic wrote: »

It still had a pretty high attach rate for an OS that was only available via the Mac App Store given that most people just don't give a crap about software updates until they HAVE TO use them.

I guess it's just convenient confirmation bias for you and your Lion vendetta over the change in Spaces!

It was cheap and Apple has pretty much zero legacy so it is low imo. Apple users

Yes slight confirmation bias but the number is still low, do you actually think it is high?

I'd also like to point out I bought a Lion license I just did not install it on my MBP I installed it for my parents MB (I will update to ML, before I get majorly left behind….)

Colonel Panic

I think it's pretty high given that it was only an incremental update without any install media for people to purchase and it happened in 9 months versus the time it took for Win7, given that Win7 is a more widely used OS and in businesses, there are people who are STILL using WinXP.

Macs aren't really enthusiast machines anymore. My sister and all her mates rock 2007 era Macbooks with Leopard on them.

Sad Professor

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Yeah, enterprise and actually supporting older users along with 100's of euro per license really hinders upgrades.

Apple have very little legacy and the licenses are very lax and very cheap. 3 times the time to reach the same level of adoption for a platform with 9 times the market share, seems like a fair comparison alright.

Probably as fast as other upgrades but considering the price drops the adoption rate is very slow imo.

Alright, then lets compare it to Snow Leopard, which cost the same. According to this, it took Snow Leopard until April 2010, 8 months after it was released, to reach 43 percent. So Lion is a little bit behind it, but not enough to justify your assertion that 40 percent after 9 months is a poor adoption rate.

conor.hogan.2

SL was only incremental over Leopard, and it still had more adoption in a month less.

I think Lion adoption should be higher but hey that is just me. You can not compare it to Windows Apples to stale oranges comparison.

Colonel Panic

Why should it be higher? Most people just do not care about OS updates. 40% is a massive attach rate in a sub 12 month period of time.

Such a low attach rate says nothing about the alleged issues with Lion, which is where this whole debate is coming from.

Sad Professor

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

SL was only incremental over Leopard, and it still had more adoption in a month less.

I think Lion adoption should be higher but hey that is just me. You can not compare it to Windows Apples to stale oranges comparison.

Lion was an incremental update as well. The fact that it had more new features and the under-the-hood changes than SL probably held people back if anything, making them slower to make the jump.

And, as Colonel Panic said, Lion was download only. Many people at the time complained that they hadn't a sufficiently fast or reliable internet connection to be able to download it. Not to mention the hassle this caused for people with multiple Macs. You also needed Snow Leopard first, which made it more awkward for Leopard users to upgrade. The SL disc was officially only an upgrade as well, but Tiger users were still able to use it. Apple released a Lion USB thumb drive a month later, but it was twice the price as the download.

So all in all, I'd say Lion did pretty damn well.

conor.hogan.2

I think that number is low.

Lower than other OS updates anyway even with increasing sales.

Sad Professor

Anyway, getting back on topic, if I was buying a new Mac tomorrow it would definitely be a 15-inch MBP and I would give serious consideration to the Retina model. It is a bit pricey, but by the time you add in an SSD and 8GB of RAM, it's not that much more expensive. And if you configure the low-end 15-inch on the Apple Store it actually works out the same price.

I'm really not too pushed about the Retina display, though. The most appealing thing about the Retina Pro for me is the slimmer design. I really wish Apple had been bold enough to do away with optical drives and HDDs completely. The Retina is surely a major drain on the battery. They could easily have delivered a slimmer 13 and 15-inch minus the Retina but with superior battery life. I'm hoping they might still do this.

Colonel Panic

I've got a 1650 * 1050 display on my MBP and I think it's fine. I believe that the default screen real estate you'd get with the retina display is the same as a 1400 * 900 screen which I think is a little cramped.

There are other scaling options on the Retina based machines but I'd need to see what they look like in real life. I don't think we'll see proper resolution independence until Retina screens filter down to all the Mac products and developers get around to updating their apps.

I've mentioned before that if I was doing it all over again, I'd just get a MBA. This is more true now you can spec them with 8GB RAM. I've been putting serious thought into selling my MBP today to get one but it's hard to justify selling a machine with 2 years Applecare and an aftermarket 512GB SSD no matter how well they hold their value.

conor.hogan.2

Does anyone know more about Apple Maps?

Is it iOS only? It looks amazing.

Mister Man

Colonel Panic wrote: »

It still had a pretty high attach rate for an OS that was only available via the Mac App Store given that most people just don't give a crap about software updates until they HAVE TO use them.

Very true. I, for one, am like this. I'd don't update my software/apps/OS unless I really have to, or a new features was added, other then that, I tend not too bother - Although that is somewhat to do with my terrible internet speed.

Has anyone ordered one from Apple.com yet, or are you all waiting for them to appear in stores?

Deep Thought

Am personally looking at the MBA, 13 inch with 256GB SSD

I was looking at the MBP 13 inch, but with SDD thats an extra few hundred...

15 inch..and SSD..you are hitting 2750

taylorconor95

Deep Thought wrote: »

Am personally looking at the MBA, 13 inch with 256GB SSD

I was looking at the MBP 13 inch, but with SDD thats an extra few hundred...

15 inch..and SSD..you are hitting 2750

Only if you go with Apple's stock SSD's! You could get a vertex 3 for cheaper than one of those things and save you a few hundred maybe

opinion guy

opinion guy wrote: »

Have to say - the design of the new fan blows my mind. Such a clever way to reduce noise. I wonder does it scale - can planes use it too.
Mind-blowingly clever and yet so simple.

It does scale and indeed it's been used for donkeys years in automotive fans etc. It's not a new concept.

It's less efficient at moving air so the fan needs to turn faster compared to a symmetric one.

I think they've blown their load with a 2880x display, there was really no need to go so high, especially in one step.

Deep Thought

taylorconor95 wrote: »

Only if you go with Apple's stock SSD's! You could get a vertex 3 for cheaper than one of those things and save you a few hundred maybe

Can you expand on this

taylorconor95

Deep Thought wrote: »

Can you expand on this

Obviously this won't work with the new MBP because the storage is hard soldered onto the motherboard.

But what I did was buy a Vertex 3 120GB SSD for ~€150 when I bought my MBP, and saved I think it was €250 or something at the time by not buying an Apple SSD. I then took out the 320GB HDD that came with it, put it into the optical drive bay, and put the SSD into the HD bay. It is great