Apple's two new MacBook Pro models with Retina displays, 13-inch and 15-inch, have just been released, vastly improved over their predecessors on many levels, including solid-state hard drives, processors and battery life among other upgrades. The 15-inch model comes with a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor versus the dual-core Intel Core i5 of the 13-inch model. The laptops are available in five basic versions and can be modified according to your needs.
Compared to non-Retina MacBook Pros, the new 13-inch model is 20% lighter and its thickness is 25% thinner than a non-Retina MacBook Pro. Compared to the MacBook Pro model with Retina display released in early 2013, the newer 13-inch models have only slight reductions in weight and thickness.
However, the MacBook Pro's screen resolution has not changed for the new 13- and 15-inch versions compared to the models launched in February 2013. The gorgeous Retina displays feature over 4 million pixels on the 13-inch model. , and 5 million pixels on the 15-inch one. The 13-inch screen (actually 13.3 inches diagonally) is LED-backlit with IPS technology at a resolution of 2560; 1600 and 227 pixels per inch (PPI). The larger 15-inch model (actually 15.4 inches diagonally) is also built on LED-backlit IPS technology, but with more lines of resolution, at 2880 ? 1800 and 220 PPI.
PCIe-based Flash Memory
The five MacBook Pro models with Retina display come with 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of PCIe-based flash memory on Solid State Drives (SSDs). Apple claims that PCIe flash memory allows 60% to improve over the SATA-based flash memory of previous MacBook Pro models. In a side-by-side comparison, MacWorld rated the 15-inch MacBook Pro with 256GB of storage 33% faster than previous Ivy Bridge flash storage. Of course, PCIe-based flash memory on solid state drives is a big improvement over Apple's previous MacBook Pros with traditional rotating disc hard drives.
Upgraded Processors
The new MacBook Pro with a 13-inch screen comes with Intel's Haswell processor (the successor to Ivy Bridge) that is faster than the February 2013 model.
Quad-core Crystalwell processor (15-inch Display)
The higher-end 15-inch MacBook Pro models feature fourth-generation quad-core Intel Haswell Crystalwell processors with 128 MB of integrated DRAM (eDRAM), allowing separate levels of performance for graphics (a kind of fourth-level cache), shared between GPU and CPU.
Iris Graphics
The new MacBook Pros with 13-inch Retina display offer upgraded Intel Iris Graphics that boost frame rates. The result of the comparison conducted by Macworld for the new 13" MacBook Pro with Intel Graphics Iris against the early 2013 model with HD 4000 graphics, showed up to 50% frame-rate improvement.
The 15-inch models actually feature a significant display upgrade, including doubling the GDDR5 (Graphics Double Data Rate Version 5) memory. The 15-inch MacBook Pros feature an Nvidia GeForce GT 750M graphics unit with 2GB of GDDR5 memory, an upgrade from the February 2013 'Pro' model with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M and 1GB of GDDR5 memory.
Battery life
The new MacBook Pros with 13-inch Retina display lasts up to 9 hours per battery charge. Two hours more than older MacBook Pro models that had up to 7 hours of battery life. The larger 15-inch MacBook Pro models provide an improvement of only one hour, which is about 8 hours compared to 7 hours in the previous 15-inch models. (Of course, watching HD movies and playing video games will drain your battery much faster than word processing.)
