I spent a few brief moments with a new “MacBook Pro with Retina display” at the Apple Store, and thought I would share a few thoughts. This by no means is a fair review (or by type of review, really), but just a handful of impressions.
- The machine is crazy thin. It reminds of me of seeing the Titanium PowerBook G4 after the PowerBook a G3 had been around forever. It is crazy thin.
- I wish my MacBook Air had HDMI out.
- The lack of the “MacBook Pro” badge below the LCD is weird.
- The screen is slightly more glossy than my MacBook Air’s, but doesn’t seem as shiny as the glass-covered MacBook Pros or iMacs.
- Finally, the Retina display is simply stunning. Text looks super crisp, as do the built-in applications. (Of note, the overlay Apple uses on their store models for customers to use to alert the staff they need help looked like crap.) It is as impressive as the iPhone 4 or new iPad were. Web sites re-worked to target the new iPad should look fine on this machine. 512 Pixels looked sharp, as did Apple’s site. CNN and other sites featured clear text, but blurry graphics.
- As good as this laptop looks, I can’t imagine going back to a 15″ machine after using the 13-inch Air for so long.