The 1996 PowerBook 5300ce has the dubious distinction of being the most expensive Mac laptop ever, listing for a suck-in-your-breath $6,500 (about $8,500 in Canadian dollars at the time. However Mac 360′s Alexis Kayhill demonstrates how you can take a new Retina display MacBook Pro desktop replacement/home office/small business rig well beyond that point (in U.S. dollars) by checking items on the option, configure to order, and peripherals lists.
Apple’s Retina Macs: A Little Too Elite?
The Register’s Andrew Orlowski notes that Apple loves to be ahead of the competition on the technology curve, but wonders if it’s steepened the curve a little too far with the new Retina MacBook that he says is causing angst among Apple’s most loyal professional users.
Orlowshi says the problem per se isn’t the Retina display but rather the absence of serious storage, with the base $2,199 Retina laptop shipping with only 256GB capacity, which video professionals say isn’t adequate for even a day of video work. And while Apple does offer pricey 512GB and 768GB flash stirage memory upgrades at $2,799 and $3,299 respectively, the upshot is that optimal video editing Mac got a lot more expensive this week.
He also observes that dropping optical drive on the Pro laptop is a different dynamic than it was with the MacBook Air -the latter typically used as a second machine, but a MacBook Pro more often as a primary Mac and desktop replacement.
