Apple launches 0.71" thick next-generation MacBook Pro with 15" Retina display
Calling it "the most beautiful computer we have ever made," Apple on Monday announced what it has dubbed the "next-generation MacBook Pro," an all-new ultra-thin professional laptop with a high-resolution Retina display.
Unveiled on Monday by marketing head Phil Schiller at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, the new MacBook Pro is as thin as the MacBook Air, at just 0.71 inches thick, Apple said. It's also the lightest Pro ever, weighing under 4 and a half pounds.
The new model's 15.4-inch display is said to boasts a resolution of 2,880 by 1,800 pixels which equates to a dense 220 pixels per inch, the highest of any laptop in the world Apple says. Like the iPhone and iPad before it, the new Retina Display has pixels so small that Apple says your eyes cannot discern them from a reasonable distance.
The screen has also been improved with deeper blacks and a higher angle of viewing. Glare has also been reduced by 75 percent, Schiller said.
"Today we've updated the entire MacBook line with faster processors, graphics, memory, flash storage and USB 3 connectivity," Schiller said. "We've made the world's best portable family even better and we think users are going to love the performance advances in both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro."
In preparation of the Retina Display-toting MacBook Pro's debut, Apple has updated a number of OS X apps including Mail, Safari, iMovie and iPhoto. Professional software like Aperture and Final Cut Pro also received performance bumps to take advantage of the screen's high resolution.
Third-party apps are also being updated for the Retina display, as Apple showed Diablo III running on the device, and said that Autodesk is working on a new version of AutoCAD.
The next-generation MacBook Pro runs exclusively on Intel's new Ivy Bridge quad-core Core i7 processors and can be configure with up to 16 gigabytes of RAM. Batteris have also been improved as the unit boasts up to 7 hours of life under normal load along with a MacBook Air-like 30 days of standby time.
As far as connectivity, the new machine features the usual SDXC card reader, but adds two high-speed USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, and HDMI-out. Due to the lack of an optical drive, Apple had space to include ports on both sides of the device and relocated the SDXC card slot and one USB port to the right of the keyboard flanking the HDMI-out connector. New Thunderbolt accessories announced on Monday give FireWire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet capabilities to the new transfer technology.
On the audio/visual front, a new FaceTime HD 720p camera is joined by dual microphones, and are accompanied by what Schiller said are the best stereo speakers Apple has ever put into a notebook.
Rounding out the next-generation MacBook Pro's feature set is a backlit keyboard, Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and 802.11n Wi-Fi.
The machine will also sport a new, smaller MagSafe charging port, which Apple has dubbed "MagSafe 2."
Pricing for the next-generation 15.4-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,199 for a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core Core i7 processor and 8 gigabytes of RAM. The most-affordable Retina Display laptop features 256 gigabytes of flash storage and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. The second-tier 2.6GHz model starts at $2,799 which doubles the SSD size and grants buyers access to the fastest-available 2.7GHz Intel quad-core Core i7 chip.
Tech Specs
Unveiled on Monday by marketing head Phil Schiller at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, the new MacBook Pro is as thin as the MacBook Air, at just 0.71 inches thick, Apple said. It's also the lightest Pro ever, weighing under 4 and a half pounds.
The new model's 15.4-inch display is said to boasts a resolution of 2,880 by 1,800 pixels which equates to a dense 220 pixels per inch, the highest of any laptop in the world Apple says. Like the iPhone and iPad before it, the new Retina Display has pixels so small that Apple says your eyes cannot discern them from a reasonable distance.
The screen has also been improved with deeper blacks and a higher angle of viewing. Glare has also been reduced by 75 percent, Schiller said.
"Today we've updated the entire MacBook line with faster processors, graphics, memory, flash storage and USB 3 connectivity," Schiller said. "We've made the world's best portable family even better and we think users are going to love the performance advances in both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro."
In preparation of the Retina Display-toting MacBook Pro's debut, Apple has updated a number of OS X apps including Mail, Safari, iMovie and iPhoto. Professional software like Aperture and Final Cut Pro also received performance bumps to take advantage of the screen's high resolution.
Third-party apps are also being updated for the Retina display, as Apple showed Diablo III running on the device, and said that Autodesk is working on a new version of AutoCAD.
The next-generation MacBook Pro runs exclusively on Intel's new Ivy Bridge quad-core Core i7 processors and can be configure with up to 16 gigabytes of RAM. Batteris have also been improved as the unit boasts up to 7 hours of life under normal load along with a MacBook Air-like 30 days of standby time.
As far as connectivity, the new machine features the usual SDXC card reader, but adds two high-speed USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, and HDMI-out. Due to the lack of an optical drive, Apple had space to include ports on both sides of the device and relocated the SDXC card slot and one USB port to the right of the keyboard flanking the HDMI-out connector. New Thunderbolt accessories announced on Monday give FireWire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet capabilities to the new transfer technology.
On the audio/visual front, a new FaceTime HD 720p camera is joined by dual microphones, and are accompanied by what Schiller said are the best stereo speakers Apple has ever put into a notebook.
Rounding out the next-generation MacBook Pro's feature set is a backlit keyboard, Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and 802.11n Wi-Fi.
The machine will also sport a new, smaller MagSafe charging port, which Apple has dubbed "MagSafe 2."
Pricing for the next-generation 15.4-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,199 for a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core Core i7 processor and 8 gigabytes of RAM. The most-affordable Retina Display laptop features 256 gigabytes of flash storage and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. The second-tier 2.6GHz model starts at $2,799 which doubles the SSD size and grants buyers access to the fastest-available 2.7GHz Intel quad-core Core i7 chip.
Tech Specs
- Size and Weight
- Height: 0.71 inch (1.8 cm)
- Width: 14.13 inches (35.89 cm)
- Depth: 9.73 inches (24.71 cm)
- Weight: 4.46 pounds (2.02 kg)
- Display
- Retina display: 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology; 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch with support for millions of colors
- Supported resolutions: 2880 by 1800 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1920 by 1200, 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640 pixels
- Storage
- All flash, 256GB in 2.3GHz model; 512GB or 768GB in 2.6GHz model.
- Processor
- 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with 6MB shared L3 cache (configurable to 2.7GHz)
- Memory
- 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory (configurable to 16GB)
- Graphics
- Intel HD Graphics 4000 with discreet NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching
- Video Support and Camera
- 720p FaceTime HD camera
- Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, at millions of colors
- Thunderbolt digital video output
- Native Mini DisplayPort output
- DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (sold separately)
- VGA output using Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter (sold separately)
- Dual-link DVI output using Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (sold separately)
- Connections and Expansion
- MagSafe 2 power port
- Two Thunderbolt ports (up to 10 Gbps)
- Two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps)
- HDMI port
- Headphone port
- SDXC card slot
- Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (sold separately)
- Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter (sold separately, available July)
- Wireless
- 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking; IEEE 802.11a/b/g compatible
- Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology
- Audio
- Stereo speakers
- Dual microphones
- Headphone port
- Support for Apple iPhone headset with remote and microphone
- Support for audio line out
- Battery and Power
- Up to 7 hours wireless web
- Up to 30 days standby time
- Built-in 95-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
- 85W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter with cable management system; MagSafe 2 power port
- Electrical and Operating Requirements
- Line voltage: 100V to 240V AC
- Frequency: 50Hz to 60Hz
- Operating temperature: 50? to 95? F (10? to 35? C)
- Storage temperature: ?13? to 113? F (?24? to 45? C)
- Relative humidity: 0% to 90% noncondensing
- Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet
- Maximum storage altitude: 15,000 feet
- Maximum shipping altitude: 35,000 feet
- In the Box
- MacBook Pro with Retina display
- 85W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter, AC wall plug, and power cord
- Printed and electronic documentation
Comments
Me thinks Sony, HP, Samsung, Dell (etc) are all watching this and very nervously running back to the drawing board yelling, "Oh S***, what we gonna do now?!"
it's just...
i want one. it's perfect..
Quote:
Originally Posted by mesomorphicman
Me thinks Sony, HP, Samsung, Dell (etc) are all watching this and very nervously running back to the drawing board yelling, "Oh S***, what we gonna do now?!"
More like, "BA HA HA HA HA HA No Ethernet?! Failure!"
Of course this thing is going to be $3,000 BASE price… Just watch.
Twitter is going mad...
Wow
Let the whining begin...
No 17" ?
Sucks.
$2,199 base price?!
They've just killed their old 15". Why did they bother updating it at all?!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bergermeister
Wow
Let the whining begin...
Beat me to it!
Since when is 0.71 inches / 1.8 cm considered "Extremely thin" ?
I mean in pre-mba/ultrabook era this kind of thickness was a norm for laptops.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jason98
I mean in pre-mba/ultrabook era this kind of thickness was a norm for laptops.
Not PC laptops.
Because this is a radical change and some people would have been very disgruntled if they couldn't have a machine with an ODD. But I'm sure most will anyway because the one they want is no longer the flagship model.
So they updated the old 15in Macbook Pro *and* released a new 15in Macbook Pro? Seems like an odd hedge to me. Do they not feel like people are ready for the jump?
Quote:
Originally Posted by island hermit
Beat me to it!
I started yesterday because it is inevitable.
Apple could give these babies away for free, with $5000 in apps and some people would still complain.
-----
I ... so ... want/need ... want . . need...need one of these.
Proof of this with non-LV or ULV CPUs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
$2,199 base price?!
They've just killed their old 15". Why did they bother updating it at all?!
That's the whole point!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Not PC laptops.
tell me the truth fanboy,
isn't it the must beautiful thing a computer maker has ever done?
now let's do the math.. i have 2 kidneys and 2 lungs. if i sell.... lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
$2,199 base price?!
They've just killed their old 15". Why did they bother updating it at all?!
You got that right, Tally !! Remember though, just 256GB of storage.
Just perfect specs. Will buy one when its out.
where is 13" new macbook pro