Apple MacBook Pro MC975LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (OLD VERSION)

by Apple

• 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor
• 8 GB DDR3 RAM; 256 GB Flash Storage
• 15.4-inch LED-backlit Retina Display, 2880-by-1800 resolution
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1GB Graphics
• Mac OS X v10.8 Mountain Lion, 7 Hour Battery Life

Product Description

Style: 2.3 GHz Processor / 256 GB Storage

Amazon.com

The all-new MacBook Pro pushes the limits of notebook performance. It has a stunning Retina display with over 5 million pixels. An all-flash architecture built for speed. The latest quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and next-generation NVIDIA graphics. And an incredibly thin and light design. You've never seen anything like it. Because there's never been anything like it. The MacBook Pro with Retina display is available in a 15.4-inch model.

The MacBook Pro with 15.4-inch Retina display (view larger).

 

The world's highest resolution notebook display with over 5 million pixels (view larger).

Measuring a mere 0.71 inches and weighing only 4.46 pounds, the completely redesigned MacBook Pro sets a new standard in performance and portability for pro users. The world's highest resolution notebook display with over 5 million pixels--3 million more than an HD television--the MacBook Pro with Retina display has such a high pixel density that the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels from a normal viewing distance.

The MacBook Pro includes two high-speed Thunderbolt ports and two USB 3 ports, enabling you to easily connect to external displays and a wide variety of high performance peripherals. And it comes standard with automatic graphics switching that provides performance when you need it and energy efficiency when you don't. You'll also get up to 7 hours of battery life while on the go.

This version of the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (model MC975LL/A) features a 2.3 GHz Core i7 quad-core processor, 256 GB of flash storage, and 8 GB of installed RAM. Other features include ultra-fast Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking, Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, an SDXC card slot, and an HDMI video output (see full specifications below).

Key Features

Breakthrough Retina Display

At 5.1 million pixels (220 pixels-per-inch), the Retina display's pixel density is so high the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels from a normal viewing distance, so text and graphics look incredibly sharp. Images take on a new level of realism and text is pin sharp. And with a 2880-by-1800 resolution, you can see more of your high-resolution images onscreen with pixel-for-pixel accuracy. You'll see fine details and textures in photos like never before, and even tell which photos are in focus just by looking at the thumbnail.

The Retina display uses IPS technology for a 178-degree wide viewing angle, and has 75 percent less reflection and 29 percent higher contrast than the previous generation.

Setting a new standard in performance and portability (view larger).

Flash Storage Architecture

With its entirely flash-based architecture, the MacBook Pro with Retina display makes everything you do incredibly fast and responsive. And when combined with a precision engineered aluminum unibody design, the new MacBook Pro is the lightest MacBook Pro ever and nearly as thin as a MacBook Air. The MacBook Pro's flash storage architecture also delivers improved reliability, instant-on responsiveness, and 30 days of standby time. It's also up to four times faster than traditional notebook hard drives, enabling the MacBook Pro with Retina display to play four simultaneous streams of uncompressed 1080p HD video from internal storage.

 

Intel Core i7 Quad-Core Processing

The MacBook Pro with Retina display packs plenty of power thanks to the latest Intel Core i7 processor, which features a faster processor, more powerful graphics, and a memory controller integrated into a single chip. The third-generation quad-core Intel Core i7 has a 2.3 GHz speed, which can dynamically accelerate up to 3.3 GHz to match your workload thanks to updated Intel Turbo Boost Technology.

Automatic Graphics Switching

You'll get excellent graphics flexibility with two video processors--the discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M processor (with 1 GB of GDDR5 video memory) for heavier workloads and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor for better battery life on the go.

When using your MacBook Pro with Retina display for everyday activities like surfing the Web or checking your email, the integrated, energy-efficient Intel HD Graphics 4000 processor ensures that everything runs smoothly. But when you need more horsepower for things like playing 3D games, editing HD video, or even running CAD software, the MacBook Pro will automatically switch to the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M processor for better responsiveness.

High-speed Thunderbolt and USB 3 Ports

Two high-speed Thunderbolt ports allow the MacBook Air to transfer data at lightning-fast speeds and connect displays like the Apple Thunderbolt Display, enabling you to turn this highly portable notebook into a highly versatile workstation. And with two USB 3 ports, you'll be able to connect the latest USB 3 devices and access a pipeline that's up to 10 times faster than USB 2.

Integrated HD FaceTime Webcam

You'll be able to easily connect with friends, family, and business colleagues using the MacBook Pro's HD 720p FaceTime camera, which is integrated into the thin bezel above the display and features three times the resolution of the previous FaceTime camera. And with Apple's FaceTime application, you're not limited to video chats with other Macs--you can now make video calls to iPhone and iPod touch users.

Key Specifications

 

See larger image.

• 15.4-inch Retina display with LED backlighting and IPS technology (2880 x 1800-pixel resolution, 220 pixels per inch)
• 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 quad-core processor (3.3 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology; 6 MB L3 cache)
• Dual graphics processors with automatic switching between NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M (with 1 GB of GDDR5 video memory) for demanding applications and integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 for power savings
• 256 GB flash storage
• 8 GB installed RAM (1600 MHz DDR3; 16 GB maximum)
• Built-in HD 720p FaceTime HD camera for video chatting
• Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on 802.11n specification; 802.11a/b/g compatible)
• Bluetooth 4.0 for connecting with peripherals such as keyboards, mice and cell phones
• Two Thunderbolt ports (up to 10 Gbps) with native video output support for Mini DisplayPort plus DVI, VGA, dual-link DVI, and HDMI (requires adapters, sold separately)
• Two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps; backwards compatibility with USB 2)
• HDMI video output
• SDXC card slot (supports cards up to 64 GB in size)
• Stereo speakers
• Headphone port
• Dimensions: 14.13 x 9.73 x 0.71 inches (WxDxH)
• Weight: 4.46 pounds
• Up to 7 hours of battery life

What's in the Box

15.4-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, 85W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter, AC wall plug, power cord, printed and electronic documentation

Limited Warranty And Service

The MacBook Pro with Retina display comes with 90 days of free telephone support and a 1-year limited warranty, which can be extended to 3 years with the AppleCare Protection Plan.

Installed Software

At the heart of every MacBook Pro--and every Mac--is OS X Mountain Lion, the world's most advanced desktop operating system. Since the software built into every Mac is created by the same company that makes the Mac, you get a fully integrated system in which everything works together perfectly. OS X works with the processor in your Mac to deliver the best possible performance. Power Nap even takes advantage of the Mac hardware to keep the entire system up to date while it sleeps.

• OS X Mountain Lion (includes Mac App Store, Safari, Mail, Messages, Calendar, Contacts, Reminders, Notes, Time Machine, FaceTime, Photo Booth, Game Center, iTunes, and more)

iLife helps you do more with photos, movies, and music than you ever thought possible. In iPhoto, you can browse, edit, and share your photos in stunning new full-screen views. Create epic Hollywood-style movie trailers from your home video in iMovie. And GarageBand gives you everything you need to make a great-sounding song--including tools for keeping your song in perfect rhythm and guitar and piano lessons.

• iLife (includes iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand)

AppleCare Protection Plan

Because Apple makes the hardware, the operating system, and many applications, the Mac is a truly integrated system. And only the AppleCare Protection Plan gives you one-stop service and support from Apple experts, so most issues can be resolved in a single call. Extend the complimentary service and support on your Mac to 3 years from the original Mac purchase date with the AppleCare Protection Plan. You get direct telephone access to Apple experts for technical questions, and you get global repair coverage--including both parts and labor--for your Mac and select Apple peripherals.

Optional Accessories and Related Products

	85W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter Use an extra adapter for home or work. Apple's innovative AC adapter is made specifically for your MacBook Pro with Retina display.
	Apple Thunderbolt Display The world's first Thunderbolt display doesn't just give you more pixels. It gives you more possibilities. Built-in Thunderbolt technology lets you connect as many as six devices through a single port and transfer data up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0.
	Apple USB SuperDrive Compact and convenient, the Apple USB SuperDrive connects to your MacBook Air with a single USB cable and fits easily into a travel bag. It lets you install software and play and burn both CDs and DVDs, including double-layer DVDs.
	Time Capsule Time Capsule is the revolutionary backup device that works wirelessly with Time Machine in OS X Leopard or later. It automatically backs up everything, so you never have to worry about losing important files. It also doubles as a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station. Choose from 2 TB and 3 TB models.
	AirPort Extreme Base Station Speed, range, and easy setup make AirPort Extreme the perfect wireless solution for home, school, and small business. It offers simultaneous dual-band support and lets up to 50 people share Internet access, a wireless network, a hard drive, and a printer.
	Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter The Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter lets you easily connect to a high-performance Gigabit Ethernet network. Small and compact, it connects to the Thunderbolt port on your Mac computer and provides an RJ-45 port that supports 10/100/1000BASE-T networks.
	Apple Magic Trackpad Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer, and it supports a full set of gestures. Click, scroll, swipe, and rotate to control what's onscreen. Use it along with your mouse or as an alternative to one.
	Apple Wireless Keyboard The sleek aluminum Apple Wireless Keyboard lets you type in front of your computer, on your lap, or anywhere within range. It's also incredibly thin and streamlined, so it sits on your desk surrounded by nothing but glorious space.

Product Description

MacBook Pro (10,1) Core i7 2.30 GHz 15" Retina 256GB SSD (2012)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

285 of 331 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars It's great if you're lucky, just ok if you're not September 23, 2012

By cs2

Style Name:2.3 GHz Processor / 256 GB Storage

I've had mine for just under two months, and had to have it replaced twice. If you do a quick google for Macbook Pro Retina Image Retention you'll see what I'm talking about. Apparently, Apple uses two manufacturers to supply their displays, Samsung and LG. The Samsung ones are fine, the LG ones show ghosting or image retention (IR) after a month or two of use. Both my first one and the replacement had LGs and the IR problem. They are no longer offering to repair or replace the LGs, stating instead that it's "expected behavior" and "within specs." I'm a huge fan of Apple, but this whole process has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Other than the display being sub-par, the computer is fast, light, and all-in-all a nice machine. But the display is the headline feature, and you have a fifty percent chance of getting a good one. I can't stand knowing that someone else paid the same amount of money, but got a superior product.

Update: The truly awful Apple customer service I've had to deal with the past week has prompted me to drop my rating from 3 stars to 1. Until the issues are resolved, this product is not worth it.

180 of 209 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Total power, total performance, best ever...but not for all. June 25, 2012

By Davey Williams

Style Name:2.6 GHz Processor / 512 GB Storage

UPDATED 9-21-12...Systems in use for 3 months.

Pros: A total powerhouse, best laptop display ever made, perfect for professionals, AppleCare, portability, quad core Ivy Bridge processors in a laptop, USB 3.

Cons: You pay for quality, expensive for casual use.

Who it's for: Professionals, designers, media-heavy users, video and photo editors, travelers, students, performance-minded users, anyone needing both performance and portability.

Who it isn't for: Casual or light users, those who think they'll need to expand, people who hate Apple and just don't like their products regardless.

Why 5 stars: It's easy to criticize a device for its shortcomings, but in the end Apple has designed one of the best laptops ever sold. Its performance and value are off the charts, and it would be disingenuous to penalize it for the minor "wish list" we could draw up. It succeeds in the most important areas (like CPU power), sacrificing in relatively unimportant ones (no ethernet connection).

The new Macbook Pro Retina

This is a review from a real owner, not opinion...not discussion. I work in a design company (web, print, video, apps). What I look for in a system is reliable, efficient performance at the best value. The new MacBook scores off the charts in these areas - let's look at why.

POWER: I had two designers who'd outgrown their iMac i7s, running 90% CPU capacity (three words: Adobe Master Suite). The new machine represents a massive performance boost with the new CPUs. It's nice to see Apple include the quad core Ivy Bridge on these...at times they've been slow to update the CPUs on the MacBooks. And although the display gets all the press, it's really the other hardware that makes the system. It SCREAMS, and can handle a massive amount of abuse (we tested editing video AND using Photoshop AND streaming Netflix AND running a dozen other programs in the background - try that with most machines and watch them curl up and die). If you're animating the latest Pixar release you might want to look at alternatives, but for anything else this is a perfect business machine, and we really like the added "oomph" when editing video or running intense graphics.

DISPLAY: The display is amazing, but more importantly it's useful. You can now edit video in full 1080p while leaving room on the desktop for any necessary toolbars, etc. And my designers tell me that this is the first MacBook they can design on in terms of display correctness - previous models didn't really live up to their standards for that, and they'd have to double-check designs on their desktops. UPDATE NOTE: Over the summer, there were some reports of image retention on LG-produced screens. I researched this, and could find no major tech site reporting this issue as substantial. Our two units are LG and have been turned 'on' ten hours a day for the past three months. We have no image issues. The complaints I could find are generally posted in open forums, so I'm not sure how accurate the info is...but we're not worried due to the awesomeness of AppleCare and the guys at our local Genius Bar.

Some nerdy talk about the display: Mostly for pros, here are some features of the display as reported by independent sources. This unit diplays 99% of the sRGB color space, a significant spike from earlier MacBooks (71%). It also incorporates a new LCD surface, doing away with the cover glass and substantially decreasing glare while preserving contrast. Users will want to be extra-careful since damage to the display surface is now to the LCD directly, but the tradeoff is that this system is massively anti-reflective (something we noted right away). And Apple has left the viewing angle very wide - most other brands use a narrow angle on their laptops to save battery. Imagine a 'cone of brightness'...the wider this is, the more power is consumed by the display. If you make this narrower the battery lasts longer, but the display is less reliable for design since the image distorts as you move to the side, even by a couple of inches. The designers here at my company confirm that you can rely on the display - they report that you have to move pretty far to the side before it changes. Overall...for a designer...the new display is a bar above anything else, even the high-end monitors we have here (including Apple and other brands).

DESKTOP/LAPTOP HYBRID: We were also sold on the portability. We liked that these have the power of a desktop (and we needed that power), but we also love the portability. My designers like the ability to easily move workstations, and I like being able to send their work home with them (don't tell them I said that, ha.)

UPGRADABILITY: Some will gripe that you can't easily open this machine. They'll moan that you'll want to expand and upgrade. I don't presume I can build a better system than Apple's design team, and the iPad has been wildly successful without upgrades. The future of computers seems to be systems that won't allow much in the way of hardware upgrades, which really raises the ire of some. But when I do the math, it feels like we've reached a price point in computers where it almost never makes financial sense to upgrade. We press our computers into service for about two years, and almost universally I've found selling an older machine and buying a new one to be about 40% less costly than upgrading...and this option gives us the latest CPU, display, new AppleCare, etc...not just a RAM boost.

VALUE: With an entry-level price tag of $2199, the new MacBook is a bit spendy. This price point seems to be based on the usual Apple value, adjusting upward for the cool new features (display, CPU power, portable with a very slim form factor). In order to warrant the expenditure, a buyer really should have a use for all three of these. The bottom line is that this system isn't cost effective for casual users, who would be better suited with the other MacBooks in the lineup, but its a steal if you can use the power. While we upgraded the designers here, I stuck with my iMac, looking forward to the late 2012 new models for my next system...I don't need retina or portability on my personal system, so I'm sticking with the iMac line for now.

And price is the biggest caveat with this system. I see several reviews criticizing the cost of this machine. This isn't logical, and their complaints are largely the result of buying (or offering opinion on) a system they don't really need. They should be buying and reviewing the entry-level laptops or the iPads, which will meet 99.9% of what they need a computer for. For the design work we do, we need the power, display and portability, and for us these systems are a superb value.

Summary

Overall, this is a fantastic computer, but it's not for everyone. This system fills a gap in the Mac lineup for users who work above the current iMac capabilities, or those who need portability with desktop power. Those who don't require this performance might want to look at other Macs, but if you run graphic-intense programs, do video editing, watch a lot of media via your computer, Apple has really delivered.

3 Month Update: Having put these into service for three months, I looked through my review and updated it accordingly. We pretty much feel the same way about this system...it's been awesome to use and has exceeded expectations on every level. It runs Adobe Master Suite better than any computer we've ever used, which is what we most wanted the power for. My two designers say they'd buy this system again if they needed a new computer, where I'm still holding out for a super new 21.5 (or...fingers crossed...24"....my desk won't hold a 27", ha) iMac.

181 of 215 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the best Windows notebook you can buy July 16, 2012

By Techie

Style Name:2.6 GHz Processor / 512 GB Storage|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought my first PC in 1987 and I had managed to avoid Apple products since then. I admit it, I'm biased. I never liked Apple's OS's or most of their hardware. I never cared for Steve Jobs either. However, despite my bias, I'm also rational. And the simple fact is that there is currently no better notebook for my needs than this one. I had to replace my Windows notebook and after a lot of research I found that there is simply nothing else on the market that matches this notebook's power, weight, and silent/cool operation. And of course, we all know the screen is unmatched. So, in a moment of weakness I fell to the Dark Side and bought an Apple product. As you can see above, I actually bought this product here at Amazon. I've been using it for about 3 weeks now for 10+ hours per day.

I can't say a thing about how this notebook performs on the Mac OS side of things because I run Windows 7 on it using Bootcamp (making sure I could do this was a key part of my research before buying). Fortunately, everything runs great on it using Windows 7. I'm a software developer and have been using Visual Studio, SQL Server, and Oracle without any problems. The screen is awesome. The notebook remains cool and I think I've heard the cooling fans running only a couple times. Since I travel quite a bit, what I love most about it is the light weight and thinness.

So, even if you're a die-hard Windows user like me I can whole-heartedly recommend this notebook. The only caveat I'd add for Windows users is that the keyboard is less than optimal for us. Apple's "delete" is our "backspace". Our "delete" is "fn" + "delete". Our PrintScreen is "shift" + "fn" + "f11". And there are a few others I won't bore you with, hopefully you get the idea. In the big scheme of things it's a minor annoyance considering how great everything else works on this notebook.

The only thing I dislike about this notebook is that big Apple logo on the back. Anyone know where I can get nice big sticker with Bill Gates' face to cover it up? In spite of that, I still have to give this notebook 5 stars. Again, I'm biased, but I'm also rational.