Best Computing Product Of 2013: 13-Inch MacBook Pro With Retina Display
DigitalTrends’ Konrad Krawczyk notes that for some time Apple’s MacBook Pro has been considered the gold standard by which other laptops are judged, but its steep $1,499 base model price tag that sent many aspiring buyers scurrying to buy a cheaper PC equivalent for as little as $500 for a cheapo Windows machine, or score a better equipped mobile business and gaming rig for their $1,499.
However, Apple’s dropping the base 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina’s price last October to $1,299,along with adding a Haswell Intel processor and HD 5000 graphics processor makes that model DigitalTrends’ pick for Best Computing Product of 2013.
I think it’s a great choice, even though I personally went with a 13-inch MacBook Air for my ownrecent system upgrade, and it is my pick for Best Computing Product Value of 2013 Also, that $200 nominal price cut when compared with the previous generation (late-2012) 13-inch MacBook Pro is a bit obfuscatory since Apple dropped the standard RAM configuration from 8GB to 4GB, so it’s more like a $100 price cut for equivalent spec. machines. And if you need top-drawer laptop graphics performance you’ll need to go with the larger (and pricier) 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina and its discrete graphics processor with dedicated video RAM.
Krawczyk observes that there’s more to the new 13-incher Pro package than a price reduction, with the new 13-inch MacBook Pro 13 with Retina being also (slightly) slimmer and lighter than the previous version, with Apple’s excellent backlit keyboard, a 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5-4258U (Haswell) processor, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD and battery life competitive with the best Ultrabooks, although well short of the 13-inch MacBook Air’s phenomenal 12-hour battery runtime rating. Of course the Pro’s marquee feature is its 2,560 x 1,600 Retina display.
Overall, I think the late-2013 13-inch MacBook Pro is a worthy recipient of Best Computing Product of 2013 laurels and I’ll second the motion.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/best-computing-product-2013/
You can read DigitalTrends’ full review of the late-2013 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina here:
http://goo.gl/MuOMge
