Earlier this week, Ars Technica covered Apple’s announcements at WWDC, which included details about iOS 6 and a refresh to the MacBook Pros, Macbook Air, and more subtle upgrade to the Mac Pro line. We often bring you highlights from the forums to show you some of the more relevant discussions from the week, and you can register for an account to join in the discussion.
Discussions about the new MacBook Pro updates have been pretty heated for at least a month now. The thread “MacBook Pro Updates?” which started back in May, had been speculating how Apple might update the line of notebooks. After Monday’s announcements, Ars readers dove head first into the discussions of the new specs, and you can find those starting on page eight.
The ease of upgrading these new Apple computers rose as one of the first questions, and njponzer asked, “Is the SSD in the Retina MBP integrated into the motherboard, or is it on a removable module like the Macbook Air uses?” This question, answered in Chris Foresman’s piece on MacBook Pro parts, is that yes, it’s removable, but not necessarily compatible with other models.
For many users, the MacBook Pro update is one that needs to be evaluated before making a purchase. TheHunter says, “this very much feels like a product where waiting for revision 2 may be very beneficial. I'm thinking specifically in the area of graphics cards and thermals. The video makes it sound all nice and happy that the airflow is designed well, but the previous generation MBPs can be pretty sketchy when it comes to heat and fan noise. Definitely something I'll be keeping an eye out for in reviews. Graphics may also be an issue—that's a lot of pixels to be pushing around, even more so if you add two (!!!) external displays. Seems like performance could [be] lacking in some situations—again, something to watch for in reviews.”
Other OpenForum members lamented the lack of Ethernet in the new MacBook Pro. Nevarre said, “The push away from things like Ethernet [is] getting really, really frustrating. I'm really OK that the hardware is bounded by USB for size and I'm somewhat happy that DVI and VGA are no longer size constraints, but I would prefer it be bounded by RJ45. At some point you can make stuff thinner—e.g. iPads are quite do-able today—but you have to settle on some solution that's more elegant than a bag full of dongles.”
cateye added personal observations about the role of Ethernet in the enterprise: “Wifi is great, and works in almost all situations, but when it doesn't work, it really doesn't work. Ethernet is pretty essential in a high-density corporate setting. I'm glad Apple is offering the dongle right away, but... eesh. I'll freely admit that's my own bias against dongles, though.”
These specific observations about the laptop’s ports and parts are at the center of a big question posed inside the OpenForum: What makes a machine pro, after all? wavelet adds, “Nothing "Pro" about the Retina machine at all: No user-upgradeable/replaceable memory (Ivy Bridge does support 32GB, but those machines won’t); Losing the optical was expected, and not a big in itself, but there's no internal storage bay instead so you can't have a large, cheaper spinner + SSD. I suspect they needed the extra space for the larger battery required for the retina display, but for my usage and eyesight a retina display has no advantage… you can't even decide on your own capacity/speed/price tradeoff on the SSD.”
The thread also tackles other issues related to the new hardware, including RAM concerns and the new display and its pixel count and rendering. You may be wondering how the new retina screen looks. In the most recent postings, znu offers this up: "(Mine showed up today, if people have questions.)" Surely, as more readers are getting their hands on the actual hardware, you can use the thread as a way to learn more about how these multiple points of discussion come into play. Has your MacBook Pro arrived? Tell us your opinions on its new components by joining the discussion. Register for an account to join in the discussion.
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