And so, just like that, Apple stopped making 17-inch MacBook Pros. Since 2005 I've been putting up with those gigantic laptops primarily for the screen real-estate. My first, a PowerBook G4 1.67GHz ("PowerBook5,7"), at 1440x900. The second, a mid-2007 MacBook Pro ("MacBookPro3,1"), at 1680x1050. And now, a mid-2010 MacBook Pro ("MacBookPro6,1"), at 1920x1200. The new "Retina-Display" MacBook Pro is 2880x1800, at twice the DPI, so effectively as "big" as the first PowerBook I had. There may be a way to force the OS back into a lower DPI, but that's not yet confirmed. Questions remains about how VMware Fusion support running Windows 7 (will it pick the lower or higher DPI?).
An important change is also the weight. The first two laptops were around 3 KG, and the latest with its SSD is still around 2.7 KG. The new Retina-Display laptop is 2 KB, a significant difference is day-to-day transportation.
An annoying omission is the lack of a matte display, which may be the reason why Apple insist that the new display is much less reflective. Still, it remains annoyingly reflective. Again, I'll wait for more in-depth reviews before making up my mind.
All things considered, I'm not in a rush. There's one year left on my warranty, and my laptop is still quite capable. The 256 GB SSD is getting too small for me (especially with my extensive use of my Windows 7 partition), and there's been significant speed improvements in laptops in the past two years. Oh, and I should never take a first-generation product for a three-year investment, so I'll let other figure out the glitches and problems.
Published on June 11, 2012 at 20:53 EDT
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