15-inch Retina MacBook Pro review: A tale of two laptops
Recently Apple released its second update to the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. These Late 2013 MacBook Pros keep the same 2880 by 1800 resolution Retina display as its predecessor, but use the latest quad-core Haswell processors, Iris Pro graphics and PCIe connected flash.
Image: Michael Homnick
Externally identical to the 4.46 pound, 15-inch models released in February 2013 and June 2012, the changes to this edition of the MacBook Pro are all beneath the aluminum surface. You’ll find Intel’s fourth generation Core processors (Haswell)—specifcally, a quad-core 2.0GHz Core i7 in the $1999 laptop and a quad-core 2.3GHz Core i7 in the $2599 model. They replace the 2.4GHz and 2.7GHz quad-core Ivy Bridge processors, repsectively, that powered the systems that launched earlier this year. The low-end model ships with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of fast PCIe-connected flash storage. The high-end model doubles both the RAM and storage capacity.
Two Thunderbolt 2 ports replace the Thunderbolt ports on the previous Retina models. Thunderbolt 2 is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt, but you need Thunderbolt 2 devices to see the increased bandwidth.
The rest of the connections remain from previous models: two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack and MagSafe 2 power connector. Wireless connections have been updated to the latest specs: 802.11ac WiFi, which as we’ve seen in the MacBook Airs, offers much faster wireless transfer rates; and Bluetooth 4.0.
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