15" Retina MacBook Pro

Hackintosh users will increase with the release of New Mac Pro?

Apple introduced the new MacBook Pro at the Worldwide Developers Conference a few weeks ago. With a thinner look this "Retina" redesign is the future of notebooks. Apple could have chosen a simpler path of revising it's MacBook Pro with the retina display being optional so Apple users could get a feel for the redesign. But then again, Apple usually does not have any problems pushing consumers to adapt to a new design. Even if they might not be comfortable with it at first. Apple is aggressive with their designs to push ahead in the technology world. Is it to much to fast or brilliant? Looking at the relative raw performance and the specifications, will you walk away impressed?

Specifications

15" Retina MacBook Pro, $2,199

• 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz) with 6MB shared L3 cache
• 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory
• Storage: 256GB solid state flash drive
• Screen: 15.4" diagonally, 2880 x 1800 native resolution
• Size: 14.13" width, 9.73" deep, 0.71" thickness
• Weight: 4.46 pounds
• Power supply: 85W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter

Spinning hard drives. Gone. The new MacBook Pro went in the same direction as the MacBook Air and replaced the spinning hard drive with a much more innovative SSD (Solid State Drive). Optical Storage. Useless when you can stream video and buy music from iTunes. Firewire and Ethernet ports. Obsolete. But still Apple has kept the previous MacBook Pro design around for people who are quite not ready for the change. A big difference between the new Pro and the Air is that the Pro will now be running on a quad-core Ivy Bridge processor built on Intel's latest 22nm process. And of course the biggest difference is all this hardware pumps 5.1 million pixels to the 2880x1800 pixel Retina display—the sharpest, highest resolution display Apple has shipped in any of its computers thus far.The Retina MacBook Pro looks the same as the previous MacBook Pros but is just a little thicker than current MacBook Air. Shaving of 27% of the volume and a pound of the weight from the previous design.

Overall, the new Retina MacBook Pro is a great upgrade from the previous design. Just like most products some consumers cannot wait to get their hands on it and other consumers will sit back give it some time before their purchase.



The Good:
Retina display really does impress
Quad-core Ivy Bridge processor and NVIDIA GT 650M GPU are powerful
Thinner and lighter than old 15" MacBook Pro, same weight as 13" MacBook Pro
USB 3.0! Two Thunderbolt ports! HDMI!

The Bad:
FireWire and Ethernet require dongles
Despite thinness, won't replace an Air for most users considering a switch
Build-to-order options get expensive fast

The Ugly:
Soldered RAM and proprietary SSD make later upgrades impossible