Cons: You pay for quality, expensive for casual use.
Who it's for: Professionals, designers, media-heavy users, video and photo editors, travelers, students, performance-minded users, anyone needing both performance and portability.
Who it isn't for: Casual or light users, those who think they'll need to expand, people who hate Apple and just don't like their products regardless.
Why 5 stars: It's easy to criticize a device for its shortcomings, but in the end Apple has designed one of the best laptops ever sold. Its performance and value are off the charts, and it would be disingenuous to penalize it for the minor "wish list" we could draw up for it. It succeeds in the most important areas (like CPU power), sacrificing in relatively unimportant ones (no ethernet connection).
The new Macbook Pro Retina
This is a review from a real owner, not opinion...not discussion. I work in a design company (web, print, video, apps). What I look for in a system is reliable, efficient performance at the best value. The new MacBook scores off the charts in these areas - let's look at why.
POWER: I had two designers who'd outgrown their iMac i7s, running 90% CPU capacity (three words: Adobe Master Suite). The new machine represents a massive performance boost with the new CPUs. And it's nice to see Apple include the quad core Ivy Bridge on these...at times they've been slow to update the CPUs on the MacBooks. And although the display gets all the press coverage, it's really the other hardware that makes the system. It SCREAMS, and can handle a massive amount of abuse (we tested editing video AND using Photoshop AND streaming Netflix AND running a dozen other programs in the background - try that with most machines and watch them curl up and die). If you're animating the latest Pixar release you might want to look at alternatives, but for anything else this is a perfect business machine, and we really like the added "oomph" when editing video or running intense graphics.
DISPLAY: When I upgraded my iPad from gen 1 to 3, I immediately wondered how I'd ever lived without the twenty centillion pixels of retina. Same here. The display is amazing, but more importantly it's useful. You can now edit video in full 1080p while leaving room on the desktop for any necessary toolbars, etc. And my designers tell me that this is the first MacBook they can design on in terms of display correctness - previous models didn't really live up to their standards for that, and they'd have to double-check designs on their desktops.
Some nerdy talk about the display: Mostly for pros, here are some features of the display as reported by independent sources. This unit diplays 99% of the sRGB color space, a significant spike from earlier MacBooks (71%). It also incorporates a new LCD surface, doing away with the cover glass and substantially decreasing glare while preserving contrast. Users will want to be extra-careful since damage to the display surface is now to the LCD directly, but the tradeoff is that this system is massively anti-reflective (something we noted right away). And Apple has left the viewing angle very wide - most other laptop brands use a narrow angle to save battery, but this makes them less reliable for design since the image distorts as you move to the side, even by a couple of inches. They like to report their specs based on the narrow viewing cone, which falls into a gray area of "truth in advertising." The designers here confirm that you can rely on the display without having to constantly shift around to ensure it's not distorting - they report that you have to move pretty far to the side before it changes. Overall...for a designer...the new display is a bar above anything else, even the high-end monitors we have here (including Apple and other brands).
DESKTOP/LAPTOP HYBRID: We were also sold on the portability. We liked that these truly have the power to be a desktop replacement (and we needed that power), but we also love the portability. My designers like the ability to easily move workstations, and I like being able to send their work home with them (don't tell them I said that, ha.)
UPGRADABILITY: Some will gripe that you can't easily open this machine. They'll moan that you'll want to expand and upgrade. I don't presume I can build a better system than Apple's design team, and the iPad has been wildly successful without upgrades.
The future of computers seems to be systems that won't allow for much in the way of hardware upgrades, which really raises the ire of some. But when I do the math, it's evident that we've reached a price point in computers where it almost never makes financial sense to upgrade. We press our computers into service for about two years, and almost universally I've found selling an older machine and buying a new one to be about 40% less costly than upgrading...and this option gives us the latest CPU, display, etc...not just a RAM boost.
VALUE: With an entry-level price tag of $2199, the new MacBook is spendy. This price point seems to be based on the usual Apple value, adjusting upward for the primary new features (display, CPU, slim form factor). In order to warrant the expenditure, a buyer needs to have a use for all three of these. The bottom line is that this system isn't cost effective for casual users, who would be better suited with the other MacBooks in the lineup, but its a steal if you can use the power.
And that's the biggest caveat with this system. I see several reviews criticizing the cost of this machine. This isn't logical, and their complaints are largely the result of buying (or offering opinion on) a system they don't really need. They should be buying and reviewing the entry-level laptops or the iPads, which will meet 99.9% of what they need a computer for. For the design work we do, we need the power, display and portability, and for us these systems are a superb value.
Summary
Overall, this is a fantastic computer, but it's not for everyone. This system fills a gap in the Mac lineup for users who work above the current iMac capabilities, or those who need portability with desktop power. Those who don't require this performance might want to look at other Macs, but if you run graphic-intense programs, do video editing, watch a lot of media via your computer, Apple has really delivered.
In many ways, this system feels like a distinct footnote in the evolution of Apple products, leading to a point where unbelievably thin and light laptops rival desktops in performance and price. Apple is certainly hopeful that this will bring new customers their way, as the iPad has, although it remains to be seen whether this new system will attract new Mac users, or simply encourage existing customers to move over from their iMacs and Mac Pros. Regardless, Cupertino has put together a heck of a machine, once again.
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