[Macworld]

Post your comments for Apple boosts performance, lowers prices on MacBook Pro with Retina display here

[KPOM]

Good move. This should help spark sales. At $1699 for 128GB and $1999 for 256GB it was a bit of a stretch. Now at $1499 for 128GB and $1699 for 256GB it's much more reasonable for what you get.

[drdreric]

And next comes the models with half a terabyte of flash memory, back at the previous high prices. Which would be great, I just can't do it with only 256 gig.

[flarestorm99]

Nice...I am still waiting to buy my macbook air until they either:
A. Announce they are using Haswell
B. Announce any design changes to the Air this year. (maybe adding retina or having a one of those new nvidia graphics cards)

But, the price drop is nice. I still think their price for upgrading the ssd's are a little high. Now-a-days you can buy an SSD for less than $1 a gb, but apple is still charging more than $1 for the upgrade (looking at the 256gb 13 inch, to upgrade it to 512gb costs $300, when I think it should only be $200-225)

Just my opinion.

[bastion]

flarestorm99, on 13 February 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

Nice...I am still waiting to buy my macbook air until they either:
A. Announce they are using Haswell
B. Announce any design changes to the Air this year. (maybe adding retina or having a one of those new nvidia graphics cards)

But, the price drop is nice. I still think their price for upgrading the ssd's are a little high. Now-a-days you can buy an SSD for less than $1 a gb, but apple is still charging more than $1 for the upgrade (looking at the 256gb 13 inch, to upgrade it to 512gb costs $300, when I think it should only be $200-225)

Just my opinion.

Your opinion doesn't line up with the price difference between 256 and 512GB variants of after-market options. You *can* buy an SSD for less than $1/GB, but that doesn't mean the difference between 64 and 128GB NAND modules is less than $64. HIgher density components tend to have higher unit costs.

[pawhite524]

I always appreciate it when Apple products go down in price and some component gets a tweak upwards.
Now the Apple is DOOOOOOOMED meme can start because Apple "had to lower prices" and is less profitable! Those screamers couldn't get hired by the National Enquirer! They'd be rejected for being too ludicrous!

[DocNo]

flarestorm99, on 13 February 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

A. Announce they are using Haswell

Is it even shipping in volume for PC manufacturers?

Quote

B. Announce any design changes to the Air this year. (maybe adding retina or having a one of those new nvidia graphics cards)

Your going to be waiting a LONG time (i.e. don't ever count on it). I was shocked and dismayed to find that the 13" MacBook *PRO* only sports Intel integrated graphics with no option to add discrete graphics. It seriously cooled me on the 13 MBP since I expect anything with the Pro designation to actually sport pro features. I imagine they did it for space and power reasons primarily. If they were willing to do it for the MBP, then they aren't ever going to do it with the air where every square millimeter and milliwatt *really* counts.

Quote

But, the price drop is nice. I still think their price for upgrading the ssd's are a little high. Now-a-days you can buy an SSD for less than $1 a gb, but apple is still charging more than $1 for the upgrade

So don't buy it from Apple. The hard drive is about the only thing you can upgrade with third party options. And as was pointed out by bastion, the $ per gigabyte shoots up dramatically with higher capacity drives for a whole host of reasons. SSD is NOT spinning disk. And compare other vendors like Dell for similar machines that use the same form factor SSD (i.e. their ultrabooks) - they charge more than Apple.

I'd like to get the machine for a dollar; not that it's going to happen

[robco]

It's nice to see the 13" rMPB pricing come back down to earth. Getting a slight speed bump is nice. It's also nice to see that upgrading to a more reasonable amount of storage is less expensive.

I too am waiting for the Haswell version. It should bring better battery life, a slight CPU bump, and of course, significantly faster GPU performance. The current scuttlebutt is that Intel should be releasing in early June. Though this move by Apple makes me a bit skeptical. If they're bumping specs now, they may not plan on updating the line again for a while.

Now if Apple could just get the storage upgrade pricing under control for the iPad line...

[icerabbit]

flarestorm99, on 13 February 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:

But, the price drop is nice. I still think their price for upgrading the ssd's are a little high. Now-a-days you can buy an SSD for less than $1 a gb, but apple is still charging more than $1 for the upgrade (looking at the 256gb 13 inch, to upgrade it to 512gb costs $300, when I think it should only be $200-225)

Just my opinion.

Not all SSD are created equal. Just look at the difference in prices between similar size SSD. Who knows which grade chips with which speed and life expectancy they use.

We also know Apple gets a great deal on these things in bulk, better than we get retail, but regardless the price still curves up as the storage capacity increases, not down. So, they're going to charge according to whatever their cost & logic is.

[hexor]

Quote

I still think their price for upgrading the ssd's are a little high. Now-a-days you can buy an SSD for less than $1 a gb, but apple is still charging more than $1 for the upgrade.

There are big differences between SSDs you may not be accounting for. Cheaper ones are slower and have shorter life span. Apple actually uses one of the best if not the best SSD controller and flash memory available.

[DH1986]

I really want a new laptop. It would kinda suck if I bought one of the rmb's and they gave better upgrades to the other ones in June. Haswell is suppose to really boost battery life.

[HailCaesar]

This is a great deal, if Apple drops their prices on computers and laptops, you can expect a flood of new owners.

[leicaman]

Woo hoo! Education price for the maxed out MacBook Pro with Retina display is $600 less than what it was before. I think I can handle $3179 for a Retina MacBook Pro with 2.7 GHz i7, 764 gig SSD and 16 gigs of RAM. Wait, what about a new Mac Pro! Doh! I have to wait.

[bastion]

DH1986, on 13 February 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

I really want a new laptop. It would kinda suck if I bought one of the rmb's and they gave better upgrades to the other ones in June. Haswell is suppose to really boost battery life.

Such has been the risk of buying computers for more than 20 years now. New models come out so rapidly (barring, apparently, the Mac Pro) that you're always at risk of having your new machine outclassed 4 months later.