Gadgetory

I'm Dan Ackerman aware you're here taking a look at the brand new 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display now this is one of those products that we knew was coming we didn't know exactly when but here it is just in time for the start of the holiday shopping season now if you've seen the original 15-inch MacBook Pro with the Retina display you pretty much know what the deal is here this is a product that is really halfway between a traditional MacBook Pro and that smaller lighter MacBook Air it's a thinner and lighter than a pro but it doesn't quite taper to a point away in air-duct so it still has it sort of squared off MacBook Pro feel even though it's lighter it's actually a little bit dense and almost heavy in the hand it feels a little bit heavier when you pick it up then you think it you it will just by looking at it let's take a look at the retina MacBook Pro versus a 13-inch MacBook Air if you look at them side-by-side you're going to see that the pro actually has a slightly smaller footprint than the MacBook Air it's about the same thickness in the back it's it's it's it's obviously thicker in the front but the length and width on the air is actually a little bit bigger of course the air is definitely a little bit lighter as well if you put them side-by-side you're going to see that again the pro does seem like it's a little bit small area if you consider how far out it comes and it's got that nice two edge to edge glass over the display which you don't have on the MacBook Air but the real selling point beyond all that is this gorgeous 13.3 inch screen in this case i think it's a 2560 by 1600 display that's a little bit lower than on the 15-inch version but still miles beyond what you'd get in any other Windows laptop of any size now on the screen you don't actually see that native resolution you see an interpolated resolution of either 1280 by 800 1440 by 900 a couple different settings that you can pick so it looks like it's that lower resolution but the image is much crisper and clearer especially when you're viewing text it's the kind of thing that I'm sorry to say really presents itself much better in person than then online or on you know you really do have to kind of see a Retina display in person just like on current generation iPad or iPhone really appreciate it like the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina you've got some connections and ports in here that you don't usually find it a MacBook you have not one but two Thunderbolt ports that both double as DisplayPort ads and you've got HDMI that's really great for hooking this up to a bunch of external monitors at the same time you of course lose the optical drive and there's no Ethernet jack so just be prepared for that now all this does not come cheap the starting price on this guy is 1699 and for that you only get a 128 gig SSD and an Intel Core i5 processor in order to trade up to a 256 gig SSD that's another $300 and then a couple hundred more on top of that if you want a core i7 now there are a lot of people out there trying to sell $1600 Windows laptops right now we've certainly seen a bunch of really high-profile Windows 8 launch systems trying to hit that price so you know there are a lot of people who think that that there's an audience out there for a 16 or 17 hundred dollar laptop that does kind of remain to be seen but if I had that much money to spend I think that the these super high-res displaying here is definitely one of the features that you'd look for and that would really justify that kind of price that being said the 15-inch retina is still probably the most universally useful and practical macbook that Apple makes right now and that 13-inch air is still the most portable and still the most easily accessible for mainstream audiences especially because it's not just dinner aligner but it's a lot less extensive I'm Dan Ackerman and that is the Apple MacBook Pro 13 inch model with Retina display