The 2012 MacBook Pro Review

by Vivek Gowri on 7/18/2012 2:00:00 PM
Posted in Mac , Apple , MacBook Pro , Mobile , notebook , laptops

With most of the attention from Apple's hardware refresh event centered around iOS 6 and the new Retina MacBook Pro, the updated 2012 edition of the regular MacBook Pro has flown a little bit under the radar. Basically, it’s just an Ivy Bridge-infused version of the venerable unibody MacBook Pro chassis that we’ve known and loved for the last few years. The details don’t bring any particularly earth-shattering revelations, with 13” retaining the dual-core processor and integrated graphics, while the 15” makes the switch from AMD to Nvidia’s new Kepler-based GT 650M dedicated graphics. Along with Ivy Bridge, the 2012 MBP line gets HD 4000 graphics and USB 3.0 across the board, plus a free update to Mountain Lion when it releases later this summer. Naturally, it doesn’t generate the same kind of excitement that the all-new, all-awesome Retina MacBook Pro does. But is a less headline-worthy computer necessarily a worse one?

It’s pretty difficult to find things to write about the 2012 MacBook Pro hardware. You can essentially sum it up in one paragraph, or even one sentence if you try hard enough. The 2012 MBP looks exactly like the 2011 MBP, which looked exactly like the 2010 MBP, which looked exactly like the post-April 2009 MBP. It’s likely to be the last iteration of the original unibody MBP, giving this body style a 4.5 year run as one of the most instantly recognizable notebook computers on the market. I’m not going to go too far in depth with analyzing the design, because we’ve gone over it a few times over the years (here, here, here, here, here, and here. Oh and here too, just for good measure.)

It’s a solid notebook, that much is certain. From an SKU standpoint, Apple has kept things relatively straightforward, with a high end and a low end for both the 13” and 15” models. Starting at $1199, the MBP13 comes with a 2.5GHz Core i5-3210M, 4GB DDR3, and a 500GB HDD, while the higher end SKU bumps that to a 2.9GHz i5-3520M, 8GB DDR3, a 750GB HDD, and a $1499 pricetag. Other than the updated processor/integrated graphics and the addition of USB 3.0, the 13” is identical to the previous model that we covered in depth last year.

The 15” is a bit more interesting. The base $1799 SKU comes with a quad-core i7-3615QM (2.3GHz) and a 512MB Nvidia GeForce GT 650M dGPU, but makes do with a paltry 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard drive. The standard memory and storage configuration in a nearly-$2000 notebook is pretty unacceptable. This being Apple, upgrade pricing is still a hair away from being highway robbery, but at least the matte WSXGA+ screen upgrade costs a reasonable $100. Thankfully, unlike the rMBP and MacBook Air, you can always opt to buy RAM and storage upgrades on your own.

2012 MacBook Pro Lineup Comparison 15-inch Mid 2012 MacBook ProMacBook Pro with Retina DisplayDimensions0.95 H x 14.35 W x 9.82" D0.71 H x 14.13 W x 9.73" DWeight5.6 lbs (2.54 kg)4.46 lbs (2.02 kg)CPUCore i7-3615QMCore i7-3720QMCore i7-3615QML3 Cache6MB6MB6MBBase CPU Clock2.3GHz2.6GHz2.3GHzMax CPU Turbo3.3GHz3.6GHz3.3GHzGPUIntel HD 4000 + NVIDIA GeForce GT 650MGPU Memory512MB GDDR51GB GDDR5System Memory4GB DDR3-16008GB DDR3-16008GB DDR3L-1600Primary Storage500GB 5400RPM HDD750GB 5400RPM HDD256GB SSDOptical DriveYYNDisplay Size15.4-inchesDisplay Resolution1440 x 9002880 x 1800Thunderbolt Ports12USB Ports2 x USB 3.0Other Ports1 x Firewire 800, 1 x Audio Line in, 1 x Audio Line out, SDXC reader, Kensington Lock slotSDXC reader, HDMI out, headphone outBattery Capacity77.5 Wh95 WhPrice$1799$2199$2199

The unit we’re looking at here is the high-end 15” SKU, with a 2.6GHz i7-3720QM and a 1GB version of the GT 650M, plus 8GB memory and a 750GB HDD. It rings up at $2199, which interestingly is the same as the base rMBP (i7-3615QM/8GB/256GB SSD/1GB GT 650M). I’m mostly certain that it’s not the configuration to get - you’re better served by getting a base 2.3GHz 15”, adding the $100 high-res screen, and grabbing a 256GB SSD (~$250) and an 8GB RAM upgrade (~$50) separately from Newegg or Amazon. Boom. You spend roughly the same $400, depending on your SSD choice (I would go Samsung SSD 830), and end up with a system with a better screen that’s faster in most day to day situations. Unless you have a really specific need for the extra 512MB vRAM or 300MHz clock speed increase, I’d recommend against it.

Performance and Battery Life - Ivy Bridge and Kepler At Work. Meet the 2012 MacBook Pro, just like the 2011 MacBook Pro. Performance and Battery Life - Ivy Bridge and Kepler At Work. The non-Retinized Display: Still Good The 13" MacBook Pro - What Now? Concluding Thoughts Print This Article 119 Comments View All Comments Post a Comment Thermals and noise vs retina? by tipoo on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 Any info on that? Does this have the new fan as well? tipoo Reply RE: Thermals and noise vs retina? by NCM on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 Thermals shouldn't be much different than the previous model, since the internals are very similar, as is the TDP. See also the iFixit teardown here: NCM Reply RE: Thermals and noise vs retina? by tipoo on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 The case design and airflow are different though. This doesn't have those side vents, more space for air though. And the whole heatsink design looks different. tipoo Reply RE: Thermals and noise vs retina? by akfanta on Thursday, July 19, 2012 I think the side vents and different case design are only for retina mbp. akfanta Reply RE: Thermals and noise vs retina? by tipoo on Thursday, July 19, 2012 I know. That's why I'm asking if the thermals and noise are different between the two. tipoo Reply Apple, the company of minor upgrades but major price gouging by gnumantsc on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 For $2200 that is absolutely a waste of money on a machine that has a 1400x900 and poorly spec'd. I would rather get the Zenbook pro over Mac any day of the week. gnumantsc Reply RE: Apple, the company of minor upgrades but major price gouging by coder543 on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 For $2200, you should get the Retina Pro which is better than any Zenbook Prime by a good margin, and I would say better than any laptop on the market. (if someone points out a 10lb desktop replacement gaming laptop with an hour of battery life, they are only considering raw number crunching performance. A product is not defined by one number or another, but by all numbers considered at once.) coder543 Reply The number that kills it is... by Ratman6161 on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 $2200 or $1799 or even $1599. I'm just not going to pay those prices for a notebook (anyone's notebook) no matter how good it is. They are just outside the price range I'm willing to pay. Ratman6161 Reply RE: The number that kills it is... by michael2k on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 Did you notice how the $2200 MBP compares to the 2008 8 core Xeon Mac Pro?

You're paying for a portable workstation, here. michael2k Reply RE: The number that kills it is... by iSayuSay on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 A workstation from 2008 .. yeaah .. sure. Might as well say my iPhone is faster than Pentium III workstation box from 1998. I'm paying for a phone more capable than a full fledged computer 12 years ago. How can that be different? iSayuSay Reply Subject Comment Post Comment Please login or register to post a comment.
User Name Password Remember me? Login 1 2 3 4 5 6 12 Next » View All Comments Post a Comment Follow AnandTech
Latest from AnandTech Pipeline Submit News! Broadcom Announces 802.11ac Combo Chip, BCM4335 Vizio Co-Star Pre-Orders Open: $100 for the Next-Gen Google TV Dell Announces New Precision M4700 and M6700 Mobile Workstations ASUS Announces Plans to Bring Jelly Bean to Transformer Pad Series EVGA Tease mini-ITX sized Z77 Windows 8 Gets A Launch Date: October 26th Qualcomm Shows Off APQ8064: Quad-core Krait and Adreno 320 AMD Radeon HD 7970, 7950, 7870 Price Cuts Inbound. 7970GE Available Next Week? NVIDIA Forums & Dev Zone Breached; Up To 400K Password Hashes Taken Plextor Releases M5S SSD Series Samsung To Sell Developer Edition Verizon Galaxy S III with Unlockable Bootloader Motorola Atrix HD Official: $99, LTE, 4.5" HD LCD on AT&T DailyTech Apple to Break Its Vow of Silence on Security Issues at Black Hat Apple iPhones Outsold by Samsung 2-to-1 in Q2, Profit Suffers NASA's IRVE-3 Heat Shield Test Flight a Success NSA Chief to Pitch "Common Core Values" to Hackers at DEFCON 20 Australian Judge Grows Frustrated with Apple, Samsung Case Facebook, Google Up Lobbying Expenses in Q2 2012 7/24/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews USB 3.0 Group Proposes Eliminating Proprietary Laptop Chargers Windows 8 Pumps up Metro UI With DirectX 11.1 Graphics Jellyfish Movement Inspires Reverse Engineering of Muscular Organs Self-Cleaning/Repairing Coating Technology Developed for Cars, Smartphones First 2013 Honda Fit EV Delivered to California Google Nexus 7 16 GB Sells Out, is Android's First Tablet Hit Piracy on Android so Rampant that Madfinger Games Makes "Dead Trigger" Free Australian Text Message, Email Scam Seeks to Extort With Death Threats New Zealand's Controversial Piracy Law Halves Illegal Downloads in a Month 7/23/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews Twitter @AgentKyle @gruber eventually NAND will get faster though, not enough to require TB but enough to need more than USB 2.0 RT @siromega: @anandshimpi do you know of anyone building a 4-6 drive USB 3 UASP external enclosure? Looking for something for a mac mini for ZFS. @siromega hmm I don't but I'll RT this and see what we get :) @zeDrexler I've mentioned my height adjustable desk - GALANT from Ikea, very simple but it gets the job done. I'm happy with it :) I don't know what to say, my heart goes out to all impacted by this - http://t.co/Pd4m97bF @NitroWare hmm are you talking about one of their wireless adapters? the model number doesn't look totally right there @KShermPhoto I wouldn't recommend it :) different SATA speeds, minimal real world gains for most uses @PenLlawen I believe it was Dothan based, which would've put it around 2003 - 2004. The first iPad prototype used a Pentium M @captainwonkish haha no need, I miss stuff like that all the time. Apple seems to only have the i7/8GB configs in stores  

Copyright © 1997-2012 AnandTech, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms, Conditions and Privacy Information.
Click Here for Advertising Information

The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display Review

by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/23/2012 4:14:00 AM
Posted in Mac , Apple , MacBook Pro , notebook , laptops , Mobile

Last year when I wrote about the new MacBook Airs I offered two forward looking paragraphs:

What happens from here on out is what's really interesting. Intel has already committed to moving the TDP of its mainstream parts from 35W - 45W down to 10 - 20W. Since the Air is the new mainstream Mac notebook, Apple has already made that move. The performance in this 10 - 20W segment is going to get much better over the next two years, particularly once Haswell arrives.

The Thunderbolt Display is the first sign of what's to come. Moving IO controllers and expansion into the display, and potentially even moving discrete GPUs out of the notebook are all in store for us. Apple is really ahead of the curve here, but it's easy to imagine a future where laptops become a lot more like the new Air and shift to a couple high bandwidth ports instead of numerous lower bandwidth connections.

Perhaps I was being too aggressive in the prediction of a couple of high bandwidth ports. After all, the next-generation MacBook Pro with Retina Display features four such IO ports (2 x Thunderbolt and 2 x USB 3.0). But you get my point. Gigabit Ethernet and Firewire 800 are both gone. The discrete GPU is still present but I suspect even its days are numbered, at least inside the chassis. The personal computer as we knew it for so long, is changing.

The personal computer is getting thinner, lighter, more integrated and more appliance-like. The movement is no longer confined to just Apple either. The traditional PC OEMs are following suit. Even Microsoft has finally entered the PC hardware business, something it threatened to do for years but hadn't until now. Distribution models will change, the lines between different form factors will continue to blur. What was once a mature industry is going through a significant transformation. It’s exciting but at the same time it makes me uneasy. When I first got into this industry everyone had stories of companies with great ideas that just didn’t make it. As we go through this revolution in computing I’m beginning to see, first hand, the very same.

Apple makes the bulk of its revenue from devices that don’t look like traditional personal computers. For the past couple of years I’ve been worried that it would wake up and decide the traditional Mac is a burden, and it should instead be in the business of strictly selling consumer devices. With its announcements two weeks ago in San Francisco, I can happily say that my fears haven’t come true. At least not yet.

It’s been a while since Apple did a really exciting MacBook Pro launch. Much to my surprise, even the move to Sandy Bridge, the first quad-core in a MacBook Pro, was done without even whispers of a press conference. Apple threw up the new products on its online store, shipped inventory to its retail outlets, updated the website and called it a day. Every iPhone and iPad announcement however was accompanied with much fanfare. The MacBook Pro seemed almost forgotten.

With its WWDC unveil however Apple took something that it had resigned to unexciting, dare I say uncool status, and made a huge deal about it. Two weeks ago Apple did the expected and offered relatively modest upgrades to all of its portable Macs, all while introducing something bold.

Apple calls it the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. You’ll see me refer to it as the next-gen MacBook Pro, Retina MacBook Pro, rMBP or some other permutation of these words.

After using it for the past two weeks I can honestly say it’s the best Mac Apple has ever built. And there’s a lot more to it than hardware.

Portability

If you were hoping for a 15-inch MacBook Air, that’s not what the rMBP is. Instead it is a far more portable 15-inch MacBook Pro. I have to admit I was a bit let down the first time I laid eyes on the next-gen MacBook Pro, it looks good but it doesn’t look all that different. The disappointment quickly faded as I actually picked up the machine and started carrying it around. It’s not ultra light, but man does it make the previous chassis feel dated.

While I never really liked lugging around the old MBP (and it always made me feel like the old fogey at tradeshows where everyone else had something 13-inches or smaller), carrying the rMBP is a pleasure by comparison. Pictures really don’t do it justice. The impressively thin display assembly or overall chassis thickness look neat in a photo but it’s not until you actually live with the rMBP that you can appreciate what Apple has done here. I carry around a 15-inch MacBook Pro because it’s my desktop, and as such it’s incredibly useful to have with me when I travel. For my personal usage model, the Retina MacBook Pro is perfect.

If your workload demands that you need the performance of a MacBook Pro and your lifestyle requires you to carry it around a lot, the reduction in thickness and weight alone will be worth the upgrade to the rMBP. If you spend most of your time stationary however, you’ll have to be sold on the display and internal characteristics alone. The bad news is if the design doesn’t get you, everything else will.

From left to right: 11-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Air, 15-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro with Retina Display

From left to right: 11-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Air, MacBook Pro with Retina Display

From left to right: 11-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Air, MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Design & Silicon Introduction & Portability Design & Silicon Ports & Expansion The King of All Notebook Displays The Retina Display in Numbers The Software Side of Retina: Making it All Work Achieving Retina Driving the Retina Display: A Performance Discussion Boot Camp Behavior & Software Funniness All Flash Storage Thunderbolt Performance Vastly Improved Thermals WiFi, SD Card Reader & Speaker Improvements General Performance GPU Performance Battery Life What to Buy Final Words Print This Article 356 Comments View All Comments Post a Comment A welcome trend. by blackmagnum on Saturday, June 23, 2012 New super resolutions are coming to notebook/ laptop computers. Thanks to Apple and their forward looking business sense. Wonder when it comes to PCs..... with Windows 8? blackmagnum Reply RE: A welcome trend. by Fleeb on Saturday, June 23, 2012 I don't get it, I mean, what if another manufacturer thought of the idea first. I guess it wouldn't sell then. Fleeb Reply RE: A welcome trend. by KoolAidMan1 on Saturday, June 23, 2012 It probably wouldn't happen since other manufacturers are more focused on cutting corners and driving costs down as much as possible. Great for making their products more accessible but not so good for putting in bleeding edge technology. KoolAidMan1 Reply RE: A welcome trend. by Johnmcl7 on Saturday, June 23, 2012 Rubbish, there are plenty of other companies who are far more innovative than Apple whose machines look basic in comparison - Sony's older Z series had a very high resolution 13.1in 1080p screen, blu-ray writer, quad SSDs in RAID 0, integrated and discrete graphics card and the fastest of te dual core i7's while still smaller and lighter than Apple's 13in machines and that was a couple of years ago. Apple aren't even close to touching most of its technology and probably never will.

John Johnmcl7 Reply RE: A welcome trend. by tayb on Saturday, June 23, 2012 Link to prove the existence of that product? It does not seem possible to put all of that into a 13" chassis that is thinner than the incredibly thin MB. Honestly, it doesn't possible to fit all of that into a 13" model in general. tayb Reply RE: A welcome trend. by DeciusStrabo on Saturday, June 23, 2012 http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Ca...

and that's the third iteration of it, 1080p 13.3" - they did it 4 years ago already. DeciusStrabo Reply RE: A welcome trend. by tayb on Saturday, June 23, 2012 That doesn't have 4 SSDs, which was the biggest red flag in my eyes. tayb Reply RE: A welcome trend. by Turbobusa311Hp on Saturday, June 23, 2012 I remember that laptop. It didn't have 4 separate SSD's like you are thinking, but individual chips in a RAID 0. The Signature model was like $4700 though. Turbobusa311Hp Reply RE: A welcome trend. by DJTryHard on Saturday, June 23, 2012 It had quad Raid 0, 4 separate chips.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-vaio-z-quad-...

To summarize:
Core i7 620M
13.3inch 1080p matte panel
256gb ssd in quad raid 0
6gb ram
geforce GT 330M w/ 1gb vram
optical drive

and all this was in 2010... DJTryHard Reply RE: A welcome trend. by extide on Saturday, June 23, 2012 i7 620M is Dualcore Arrandale, not Quad.

Anyways, yeah, that laptop is pretty sweet for it's day. extide Reply Subject Comment Post Comment Please login or register to post a comment.
User Name Password Remember me? Login 1 2 3 4 5 6 36 Next » View All Comments Post a Comment Follow AnandTech
Latest from AnandTech Pipeline Submit News! Samsung's Galaxy S 3 US Marketing Focuses On Features New Windows Start Screen Demoed on Lumia 900 running Windows Phone 7.8 Microsoft Announces First Windows Phone 8 Hardware Partners, Qualcomm SoCs Inside [Update: MSM8960] Existing Windows Phone 7 devices will get updated to Windows Phone 7.8, not Windows 8 Windows Phone 8 Adds support for Multi Core SoCs, Higher Resolutions, microSD, and NFC Microsoft's Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco - We're There Acer’s Timeline Ultra M5: Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks with Kepler GPUs Hynix to Acquire Link A Media Devices (LAMD) Microsoft Surface - We Go Hands On [UPDATE: Detailed Impressions] iBuyPower's Valkyrie CZ-17 Rides In Nokia Announces PureView 808 Coming to USA for $699 Microsoft's Major Announcement in LA - We're There! DailyTech Lian Li Shows Off New EATX PC Case with Front-Mounted PSU Samsung Expects to Sell 10 Million Galaxy S III Smartphones in July Sony, Panasonic to Collaborate on Next Gen OLED Panels for TVs and Large Displays Report: RIM's Bank Advisers Suggest Sale of BlackBerry Handset Business Website "Funny Junk" Steals The Oatmeal's Work, Sues Charities MIT Builds All-Carbon Buckyball and Nanotube Solar Cell Louisiana Sex Offenders Must Make Their Crimes Visible on Social Networks 6/22/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews -- "Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition" Edition United States Accused of Using Flame to try to Cripple Iran's Economy Microsoft Surface Tablet to be Wi-Fi Only at Launch AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Earns "Tie" With GTX 680 Nintendo to Release Larger 3DS XL in Japan Next Month, U.S. in August for $199 Yesterday's Global Twitter Outage Caused by "Cascading Bug" SSDs Become More Attractive as Cost per Gigabyte Continues to Decrease Sony Announces Plan to Increase Production Capacity for Stacked CMOS Image Sensors TWC Prevents DVR Commercial Skipping with New Patent Quick Note: Ford Respond to JD Power MyFord Touch Criticism... Sort of Twitter Logging off :) @PenLlawen I started AT in 1997 when I was 14 :-P @scottwasson congrats man! 10 minute nap/sleep then off to the airport, but at least I don't need to carry any laptops/tablets with me this time. @Bindibadgi you know me too well :-P @Bindibadgi everything but the phone, have no plans of using it except to get around though :) I turn 30 on Tuesday, flying someplace relaxing for a couple of days. First vacation in nearly a decade. 2012 MBA and more when I get back. @tldtoday thank you :) One more review done, will post Monday morning (it's a short one, I promise) :) @mpanzarino thank you very much :)  

Copyright © 1997-2012 AnandTech, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms, Conditions and Privacy Information.
Click Here for Advertising Information