We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: more screens need to be this good, because this display is bloody superb. The screen is just as good as it ever has been, the Retina’s 13.3 inch display running the very high and fuller-than-Full HD resolution of 2560×1600 making images and text look impossibly clear and stunningly bright. We’re told it’s a little heavier - marginally - but for the most part, you’ll still see it and feel it as much the same 13 inch machine from last year, and that’s because it looks pretty much the same, coming with two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, a lone HDMI, the one 3.5mm headset jack, and of course an SDXC card slot in case you want to stick a card in the computer and copy images.īut while it looks the same, the two changes are inside, with the new guts - a heart, if you will - and the new trackpad.įor most of the machine, it’s the same typically excellent MacBook Pro we’ve come to expect out of Apple, and much of our praise for these machines in the past is echoed in this generation, starting with a solid typing experience with just enough travel accompanied by a soft clicking sound as the keys drop in and out.
In the 2015 edition of MacBook Pro, Apple has stayed with the tried and tested aluminium unibody, black plastic screen hinge, and relatively thin design that we’re only now just seeing some proper competitors for in the PC arena. In 2015, the biggest reasons for updating to a MacBook Pro 13 with Retina are the processor change - because Intel’s fifth-generation “Broadwell” chips are now here - and the inclusion of the Apple “Force” trackpad, a new style of trackpad that we’ll see on the upcoming ultra-thin MacBook when it gets released.īeyond these changes, it’s the same typical MacBook Pro with Retina we’ve seen before, and loved before, for that matter, so let’s get stuck into it.įrom a design point of view, nothing has changed, and that is okay by us. The review model was the starting model, which includes a 128GB PCIe flash drive, 8GB RAM, 2.7GHz Intel Core i5 processor, and a price of $1799, which is also the starting price for Apple’s MacBook Pro 13 with Retina.
Wireless connectivity is included, too, regardless of which version you buy, with 802.11a/b/g/n and even 802.11ac, with Bluetooth 4.0 included as part of the package.Ĭasing for the machine is made of aluminium, with the machine featuring a thickness of 18mm when closed and a weight of 1.58 kilograms. Two microphones are build into the computer, as are two speakers.
Ports are much the same as they were last year, with two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, a 3.5mm headset jack, SDXC card slot, and a single HDMI port, as well as the Apple proprietary MagSafe 2 power port, and as usual, there’s a 720p FaceTime HD webcam in the frame above the screen. Intel’s graphics are relied on for most of the graphical work needed here, with no option for a heavier graphics chip like in the 15 inch MacBook Pro with Retina, but the display does come with the same resolution as its 15 inch counterpart, the Retina-labelled 2560×1600 13.3 inch screen offering 227 pixels per inch of clarity.
Memory for these machines comes with 8GB out of the box, though 16GB can be configured, with the storage for Mac OS X 10.10 “Yosemite” starting at 128GB, with options for 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB of PCI-e flash-based storage offered, a little faster than the typical solid-state hard drive options computers may well come with. In this refresh, you’ll find dual-core Intel Core i5 processors are offered with either 2.7 or 2.9GHz of power, though a version can be selected with the 3.1GHz dual-core Core i7 chip, too. Specifically, Apple is starting with the 13 inch Retina model of the MacBook Pro, with the 15 inch variant keeping the previous generation of processor for the moment (generation four, “Haswell”) and the 13 inch getting generation five of Intel’s Core processors, also known as “Broadwell”.