Apple has announced many new products recently and the new MacBook Pro is one of them. Apple calls it the Next Generation MacBook Pro.
The first thing that strikes you about this new pro is the looks. It is much thinner than the previous model at just 1.8cm, the same height as the MacBook Air at it’s thinnest point. The slimness of this new laptop is impressive but it doesn’t stop there. It boasts a new apple ‘Retina Display’ which has an astonishing 2880 x 1800 display resolution. To put this into perspective it has 3 million more pixels than a HD TV. Apple have also upgraded the processing power and graphics power of this new laptop to the latest Ivy Bridge Core i7 processors and a Nvidia GeForce GT650M graphics card. Apple only give you an SSD hard drive option which will dramatically increase the speed of your computer but come at a price and apple has not given you another option, however it comes with a 256GB SSD which can be upgraded to 768GB of storage which should be plenty of storage for you’re needs. They have replaced all of the USB 2 ports with USB 3 ports and now have two of intel’s super fast thunderbolt ports which is great but they no longer have a firewire port but I doubt that will be missed. This new MacBook Pro delivers an amazing 7 hour battery life even with the new retina display which is very impressive.
The incredible slimness and performance of this device comes at a price though and a hefty price at that starting at €2,350 which is a lot of money. You do get 8GB of ram, an intel Core i7 processor and a 256GB SSD but nearly all of it’s windows competitors turn out cheaper. I suppose it’s the apple premium. Apple have also had to compromise because of the thinness of the laptop. They have no ethernet port because the MacBook Pro is simply to thin to fit an ethernet port. Apple also have a new magsafe 2 connector which it thinner than the current magsafe connector. You can get adapters but it’s an inconvenience. The New MacBook Pro has also been rated the hardest computer to repair or to upgrade so I recommend you take out Apple Care. You can’t replace the RAM or the hard drive. Everything is soldered onto the motherboard which is annoying for people who like to do upgrades themselves.
In summary the MacBook Pro is full of new features and it is very thin but unless you want to compromise an ethernet port, DVD optical drive, magsafe 2 and the fact that you can’t upgrade or repair anything I wouldn’t recommend it. The Retina Display is cool and all but for everyday use it’s pointless. You would never want to see text in super high definition. I would recommend you stick with the non-retina display version as you get much better value for money and has much better customizability. I rate the new MacBook Pro with Retina 6 out of 10.
Review by: Michael McAndrew
BuzzHub 