MacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina Review (late 2013)

Take a glance – or even a more cursory look – at the 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display and you'll struggle to find any differences between it and the 2012 model it replaces. That's because Apple has left well alone, on the 15-inch version at least; the 13-inch drops to 3.46 pounds, whereas the larger model stays at 4.46 pounds and 14.13 x 9.73 x 0.71 inches.

Rather than the wedge shape of the MacBook Air, the Pro is more like a condensed version of the older MacBooks, and it has a reasonable degree of heft to it, too. It's a dense, sturdy thing, Apple's brushed aluminum still feeling more premium to the touch than most of its Windows 8 rivals can manage, while the backlit keyboard and broad glass trackpad are comfortable for extended periods of use. Either side are the stereo speakers, which can be cranked up to impressive levels of loudness despite the absence of a separate subwoofer.

Running along the left side are the MagSafe 2 port, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, a USB 3.0 port, headphone port, and dual microphones. On the right, there's a second USB 3.0 port, an HDMI output, and an SDXC card slot (backward compatible with SD/SDHC cards). Wireless connectivity includes WiFi a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0.

Apple's switch to Thunderbolt 2 means the new MacBook Pro can handle up to 20 Gbps connections with compatible peripherals, twice the speed of the original Thunderbolt specification. That should make a difference for high-data-rate applications like video editing, though Thunderbolt peripherals as still a relatively rare breed, and those supporting Thunderbolt 2 even more so. Things will likely change when the new Mac Pro 2013 arrives later in the year, which should kick-start the accessories market for the port.

Of course, the MacBook Pro with Retina display's crowning glory is its display, a pixel-dense 2880 x 1800 resolution that adds up to 220ppi and means, as with the Retina-enabled iPad and iPhone models, that at typical viewing distances the average eyes can't make out individual dots making up the image.

In the default, Retina mode, the Pro actually replicates the resolution experience of a 1440 x 900 screen, only devoting four physical pixels to each pixel on the screen. That makes everything significantly smoother, though if you prefer you can switch to up to 1920 x 1200 resolution to fit more on-screen at any one time, even if some of the detail gets very small.

High-resolution panels have begun to show up on other notebooks since Apple's original Retina model was released, but the 2013 MacBook Pro's display is still incredibly impressive, with broad viewing angles, strong and even backlighting, and none of the yellowing that some notebook displays can tend toward. Above it is a 720p FaceTime HD webcam.

If the exterior changes are minor, then it's under the hood that things have been mixed up. For 2013 that means Intel's 4th-gen Haswell processors, with the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina getting Core i7 CPUs as standard (the 13-inch picks from the Core i5 range). The $1,999 entry-level model has a 2.0GHz quadcore, paired with 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L memory (up to 16GB supported), while $2,599 gets you a 2.3GHz quadcore and 16GB of memory. Up to a 2.6GHz Core i7 is optional.

Storage starts at 256GB of flash on the entry-level 15-inch machine (with 512GB or 1TB optional) while the more expensive version gets 512GB as standard and 1TB as an option.

The most interesting change for this generation is in graphics. Whereas the old MacBook Pro with Retina display had NVIDIA discrete graphics across the board, now only the higher-spec version gets a standalone GPU. Instead, Apple has decided that Intel's Iris Pro integrated graphics, part of Haswell, are sufficient for most purposes, not to mention coming with a useful reduction in power consumption.

Apple rates the 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina's battery to be good for up to 8hrs of web browsing over WiFi, up to 8hrs of iTunes movie playback, or up to 30 days of standby. As before, the 95Whr li-poly battery pack itself is non-user-accessible, though the introduction of Haswell means Apple promises an extra hour of runtime over the 2012 model.

We ran a number of different battery tests in order to simulate mixed average usage, finding that as you might expect the new MacBook Pro's longevity is very much dependent on how much you tax the processor and graphics. In a basic test of browsing over WiFi with the screen at mid-brightness, we saw an impressive 9 hours and 14 minutes of runtime before the Pro shut down.

Opt for more mixed use, and the runtimes are trimmed somewhat. With a video continuously running looped in iTunes, and roughly ninety minutes of browsing over WiFi and various other OS X apps, the Pro ran for just over six hours before the meter was down to 2-percent. Switching instead to just video playback, we saw 7 hours 18 minutes from the Mac.

Considering the nature of the hardware, that's a more than admirable showing from Apple's notebook. Of course, if you want to do video processing or gaming while running on battery, the MacBook Pro with Retina will crunch through a full charge with the alacrity you'd predict from a mobile workstation. Figure on a few hours of earnest Final Cut Pro processing before you'll be reaching for the charger.