Macbook Pro 13″ – With Retina Display and Intel Haswell

MacBook Pro 13 with Intel Haswell and Retina display is perfect for working in mobility without sacrificing performance, agility and effective autonomy of 9 hours.

The proposal of the new MacBook Pro laptop Retina display (2,560 × 1,600 pixels) with Intel Haswell (Intel Core fourth generation), announced by Apple in October, from days available for purchase in the Apple store. It is a proposal that we are not afraid to define comparison for all vendors of computers, both in the consumer segment, both for those who work.

While on the Windows platform, we witness the proliferation of form factors, the declination of hybrids of different forms, and the proposal of many systems notebooks, Apple remains consistent with the basic idea that the notebook must not be contaminated as a form factor, but you can still work file on lines, profiles and sizes, adopting and developing hardware and software integration the advantages offered by new CPUs, adding the interfaces that the feedback they think are most needed to get to an even more convincing, ensuring excellent usability, if not better, even without a touchscreen, but with a great gesture touchpad and well thought out.

These are the impressions that are also user who compares the platforms, and Apple’s latest proposal than the previous generation. Hardware side, as well as graphics and Intel Haswell Iris, the four million pixel of Retina Display is the business card that makes you want the upgrade.

Apple has just put $100 difference between the proposal traditional and the entry level model with Retina MacBook Pro. The first costs $1,199 and the second $1,299. It ‘s almost impossible to resist, even if the hardware is different then. Models with Retina indeed ahead of their time: all with SSD drive, all with a minimum of 8 GB of RAM.

MacBook Pro still has a thickness reduced to just 18mm, weighs 1.5 pounds, just a couple of hundred grams more than the MacBook Air 13-inch. Which looks more and more because of how thin.

Thinner lines, graphics performance, Intel Haswell, equipment interface enriched, would already be sufficient to evaluate the new MacBook Pro as an alternative to the offer on Windows, Apple gives a blow even more to the amount of free software, and includes suites iWork and iLife on the entire new line, obviously with the latest version of the operating system Mavericks OS X. Who today buy a MacBook Pro 13 finds the programs you need for working with Word, Excel and PowerPoint files without having to install Microsoft Office. Apple has also just announced that work on iWork with interesting news within the next six months.

MacBook Pro 13 – Test

We try MacBook Pro 13 with Intel Core i5 2.6 GHz (all are 13-inch dual-core Core i5 or Core i7 quad-core CPU and are reserved for 15-inch models, as well as the graphics Iris Pro ), and will be Intel Iris (GT3), the generation after the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 (GT2), make you appreciate the best performance compared to the previous MacBook Pro.

In our model, unfortunately, we will stop at the basic solution (when it comes to MacBook Pro Retina) of the Iris with 1 Gbyte of RAM, and Iris Pro (Intel HD 5200) is only available on 15-inch), but the system is still very reactive also for the 512 GB SSD drive. MacBook Pro with Retina Display no longer has the old mechanical disks and the best bearing on the price.

The strengthening of the graphics and Ram are possible only during the purchase, because the memory is soldered to the motherboard, then think no upgrades immediately, for the top graphic, then we must necessarily rely on the MacBook with 15-inch display. You can possibly also choose solutions with discrete nVidia GeForce GT 750M with 2GB of memory.

MacBook Pro 13 inches, for those who work on the move is not the son of a lesser god than the 15-inch model. Because it has longer battery life of about an hour, and it has the same interfaces (2 Thunderbolt 2.0, 2 USB 3.0, HDMI, headphone jack, dual built-in microphone in the chassis, slot for memory cards SDXC), not one more not one less, the elder brother.

MacBook Pro 13 with Haswell – Autonomy Dream

The nine hours of work claimed by Apple (8 to 15 inches) for MacBook Pro 13, they are absolutely realistic, with an office job continued, provided you keep the screen brightness reduced and not squeeze it with applications of multimedia processing. Autonomy is still probably a little lower than the values ​​in the normal playing movies on iTunes.

The question that often arises is how it is possible that the autonomy of these Macs, as well as the new MacBook Air, is so high, compared to that of the computer with the same hardware configuration (CPU, graphics, RAM and disk) based on Windows. The answer in part is linked to the optimization hardware and software, only possible with a perfect control between the two components, also plays the limited number of hardware configurations in the catalog to optimize, but certainly Mavericks does its part, as well as the system of energy management, completely transparent to the user, with Nap App puts in dormant applications in the background of your windows (meter Power Nap checks update the data when you need it), just as it does with unused tab’s Safari, which is the browser of choice to save energy.

The system also leverages combined with Nap App, Timer Coalescing, which is already known on Windows 7 and serves to group low-level processes and reduce the workload on the CPU. The CPU resource savings for the Mavericks also go with more than 70 percent.

Mavericks finally also have a smart system capable of detecting the presence of the user in front of the display so as to prevent the transition to the sleep mode, but at the same time is also optimized the calls of the applications, in order to keep the data User avoiding unnecessary consumption. The programs of the iWork suite are also written for the 64-bit architecture, it is with this type of application that the performance advantages are more obvious.

MacBook Pro 13 and Mac OS X, a real alternative to Windows.

In practice everyday, who came from windows and do not use iCloud, but for example, services such as SkyDrive or other services cloud storage – where even remembers your own job files – even without MS Office 365 will continue to access them and use them with Numbers (spreadsheets), and Pages (word processing), without worrying about anything, choosing a last resort if you convert these into Excel or hold the Apple format, but instead Excel spreadsheets for critical and complex remains the availability also for Mac Office 365, but are not so many cases in which it is really essential.

The Mail client that is installed is adequate to safely handle both Exchange e-mail accounts (even multiple accounts, and of course with its Contacts, Calendars and Tasks in Reminders), both Google and Gmail. In addition, Twitter accounts, Facebook, Linkedin, Yahoo!, AOL, Vimeo and Flickr are directly configurable from a single interface, as always.

Now a configuration high on the Windows platform, with these features and overall build quality would approach this without doubt also in the price range (our configuration costs about $1,800, which deviates from the base price for the presence of an SSD 512 Gbytes), but the usability of the system Mavericks, compared to Windows 8.1 is much higher, even for those coming from the Windows world and has always used the Microsoft OS.

This is because the real touch display of the MacBook Pro is just the touchpad, with which you can do everything faster and better. There is nothing to add from the constructive point of view to what you already know, the body “unibody” with only the base can be opened for access to components, it is an idea that only a few manufacturers have followed.

Yet even with a high level of robustness weight is always around 1.5 Kg. There is room for improvement for the MacBook Pro? Certainly still, for example, the keyboard. Mind you, the feedback is excellent, but Apple has yet to significantly reduce over time the shiny effect, since wear.

Apple with the integration of a double socket Thunderbolt second generation, in addition to two USB 3.0, has eliminated practically all of its MacBook Pro laptop any limitation of expansion. Thunderbolt 2.0 has a throughput of 20 Gbit per second, and works with devices in series, without degrading performance in the cascade of the device you want to connect.