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Retina-equipped Apple MacBook Pros get faster, cheaper

by Mark Tyson on 13 February 2013, 15:45

Tags: MacBook Pro, MacBook Air

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Apple has announced a number of price cuts and spec bumps in a mid-cycle update today. The Retina-display equipped 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks got price cuts and upgraded processor choices and the 13-inch MacBook Air with 256GB SSD (non-Retina) got a simple price cut.

MacBook Pro

It is now possible to get your mitts on a Retina display equipped MacBook Pro for just £1,249. The 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 powered MacBook Pro with 13-inch Retina display is £200 less than it was yesterday. If you decide to splash the same amount of cash as you would have had to yesterday (£1,449) you can get a 0.1GHz faster version with double the fixed storage; a 256GB SSD.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro is also benefitting from mid-cycle tweaks. The base model at £1,799 now features a 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 chip (up from 2.3GHz) while the top end machine at £2,299 comes with a 2.7GHz i7 (up from 2.6GHz) and 16GB of RAM as standard. It seems that, rather than cut the prices of the 15-inch Retina MacBooks, Apple has been happy to provide these incremental speed boosts.

MacBook Air

The sleek and slim MacBook Air, the most expensive version equipped with a 13-inch screen and a 256GB SSD, has been reduced in price to £1,199. That’s £50 off, making it exactly £200 more than the otherwise identical 13-inch MacBook Air model with a 128GB SSD installed.

A week earlier Apple reported Mac sales over the holiday quarter were down 21 per cent year on year. Are these latest price and specification tweaks enough to make any readers wish to snap up a Retina MacBook Pro or MacBook Air?



HEXUS Forums :: 14 Comments

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Oh how wonderous. I will now save 50 pounds on the 700 quid I am paying for nothing other than “cos it's apple”.
The base model at £1,799 now features a 2.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 chip (up from 2.4GHz)…
Didn't realise there was a difference between 2.4GHz and 2.4GHz…

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No I won't be buying an Apple laptop.
That's pretty good, the 13" now comes in £500 (25%) cheaper than the Sony VAIO equivalent.

It doesn't have the Blu-Ray writer the Sony has, but the Sony has a 1600x900 display Vs the 2560x1600 Retina
At least the Sony will have basic connectivity such as Ethernet though :rolleyes:

It is a shame that there isn't more high res laptops coming out from other companies for a better direct comparison.
This is just the beginning of the price cuts. The macbook range has been behind the competition in terms of screen resolution for years, until now of course. Apple's fixation with simply doubling resolutions means the only way they'll catch up is to push all their macbooks to “retina”, not that it's a secret or anything. They know this needs to be done fairly quickly and there's no way they could get away with pushing all the MBP prices up so by next year I'd bet that even the entry models will be retina for the same price. As much as Apple likes to charge extortionate prices, their design choices and the need to keep up with the competition should result in more reasonable prices in the future.

I like to think that Cook has his head screwed on a bit better but maybe they'll always continue as the Jobs cult