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Hands-On with the Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display


This is one of the greatest lines of laptops in the world, the MacBook Pro line. It is Apples greatest laptop lines and pushes out some of the greatest laptops every single year. This year, Apple ushered in some big changes with the removal of the optical drive and the inclusion of the Retina display. Does this laptop live up to the expectations its predecessors made? Is the MacBook Pro still one of the best laptops on the market? Keep reading to answer these questions and more in our hands-on with the Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Hardware

This new MacBook Pro has almost exactly the same unibody aluminum construction as the MacBook Pro's before. The one exception with the Retina Display model is that it is slightly thinner at 0.71 inches thin. This makes it only a little thicker than the MacBook Air's widest point. The MacBook Air is ultimately thinner though, because the Air tapers down to 0.11 inches while the Retina Display Pro stays 0.71 inches throughout the laptop. As we mentioned in the opening, Apple decided to remove the optical drive from the new MacBook Pro to probably make it thinner. This is not that much of a burden, because most people's lives are mostly online today and do not need disks. Some people may play a lot of games that are on disks and need the optical drive, but Apple offered a remedy for this by having their SuperDrive available. We think that they should have kept the optical drive, because the retina display MacBook Pro is already an expensive $2,199 at the least and adding $79 for the SuperDrive makes it even more expensive.

Even though the new MacBook Pro was made thinner, Apple put a pretty decent selection of ports on it. The Retina Display MacBook Pro has a SDXC card slot, a redular HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the new MagSafe 2 charging port. Apple had to make a new MagSafe charger for this new MacBook Pro, because they wanted to make the Retina display Pro as thin as possible. This new charging cable is flatter and longer than the original MagSafe charger and has the cord coming out of the middle of the side instead of from the end. Overall, the new MacBook Pro design is great, but the exclusion of the optical drive could disappoint some buyers.


Since this is indeed a laptop, you may wonder about the keyboard and trackpad. We can assure you that these are some of the best, if not the best, trackpad and keyboard combo on the market. The keyboard is very comfortable to type on, is very responsive, and has a lot of travel. With today's top laptops, there is usually the problem of a flat keyboard, but Apple has not made this keyboard poorly. This keyboard has a comfortable amount of depth and is as comfortable as our own desktop keyboard. The glass trackpad is probably the best trackpad we have ever laid our fingers on. The trackpad has no resistance and registers every wanted touch. With OS X's gestures, this trackpad is incredibly useful and quick. Overall, Apple makes the best laptop and trackpads on the market.

Display

In the MacBook Pro with Retina display, the new Retina display is the main improvement (hence the name). This new display is an absolutely wonderful display. This Retina display is 2,880 x 1,800 pixels and has a ppi (pixels per inch) count of 220. This pixels per inch count is far lower than the iPhone 4's 326 ppi and also lower than the new iPad's 264 ppi. Even though this display is lower than the Retina displays on Apple's other Retina display devices, this is a  great laptop display. Colors appear amazingly, text is incredibly crisp, whites are really white, and blacks are dark, deep abysses. 1080p video is also incredible and high-resolution pictures look fantastic. This new MacBook Pro also offers great contrast and incredible viewing angles. Some of you may think that since this laptop has only a glossy display that it may have glare issues, however, Apple promises that there is a reduction in glare. Those of you who have always bought the matte option will be satisfied with this, but you might want to turn off unneeded lights. Overall, this display is great, but some people may be disappointed by the lack of a matte display option.

Performance

Apple updated the processor in this MacBook to Intel's new Ivy Bridge CPU. You can get the Retina Display MacBook Pro in quad-core 2.3GHZ, 2.6GHZ, and 2.7GHZ flavors to satisfy your needs. The standard MacBook Pro with Retina display's have 8GB (gigabytes) of 1600MHZ DDR3 RAM, but you can get one built-to-order with up to 16GB. The standard Retina display MacBook Pros come with either 256GB of flash storage or 512GB of flash storage, and you can get one built-to-order to have 768GB of flash storage. When we tested our model, performance was absolutely thrilling. every single thing that we could throw at it (video, web browsing, word processing, etc.). Throughout our testing, everything was butter smooth and a joy to do. Our content-heavy website loaded up very quickly on our not-so-fast WiFi. Scrolling and pinch to zoom was also very smooth, thanks to the glass trackpad. This blistering performance does not hinder battery life, because you can get a great nine hours of watching videos. OS X also runs very fluently on the MacBook Pro with Retina display and pairs wonderfully with the trackpad through gestures. Overall, the MacBook Pro with Retina display is incredibly fast, and is one of the fastest laptops on the market.

Software


The MacBook Pro with Retina display runs the same software as the new MacBook Air, OS X Lion. OS X Mountain Lion was just released today as we tested this laptop, so we can only put our opinion on Lion. We absolutely love OS X Lion, even though we are a big Windows user (Vista and 7). Lion was very smooth and worked seamlessly. The gestures Apple put into it make everything seem easy and a joy to use. We have barely ever handled Macs, however, the gestures we used on the trackpad were natural, and we were able to do certain tasks without knowing the gesture beforehand. Even though OS X Lion is great, there are still those compatibility issues. We do realize that you can install Windows onto a Mac easily, but the average consumer might not know how to do that. Most popular programs are on OS X, but we have seen many times when the conversion to view the program (ex. a powerpoint presentation) does not work and the person fails the assignment. People should be able to buy the best products and not have to worry about them. This gripe might be stupid to others because that person could just buy a Windows computer, but this is only our opinion and you should make your own. Overall, OS X Lion is a great and fluid operating system.

Wrap-up


The MacBook Pro with Retina display is definitely one of the best laptops on the market today. With its fast performance, dependable keyboard, great trackpad, amazing display, and great Apple customer service, it makes it an A+ laptop. This is not exactly a clear winner for the best laptop competition, because it has some very tough competition. This is not the only laptop with a 180p display, because ASUS has their great Zenbook Prime line. It also has a great aluminium design, good trackpad, a good keyboard, and it costs over a grand less. The only reasons why someone may buy the Retina display MacBook over the Prime may be because the peripherals are not as dependable as the Pro's and it does not have the great Apple customer service. There is also the great Samsung Series 9 on the Windows side. Samsung's flagship laptop is probably the greatest Windows laptop you can buy and can go toe-to-toe with the MacBook Pro in peripherals. The MacBook Pro with Retina display only beats it in display by a large margin, but you are paying $700 more for that great screen. The MacBook Pro with Retina display is basically for people who do not have any preferences except for having the absolute best at whatever cost. You will be happy with the Samsung Series 9 if you have to have Windows, but our favorite and the best laptop on the market is the MacBook Pro with Retina display.

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