primoz, I hope you realize that there are two new MacBook pro models that still have an Ethernet Port! The 13" and 15" models that use the old chassis still have all of the features of the old but have the new processors, USB 3, etc and retain all of the old connectivity options.

The Ethernet adapter for Thunderbolt is also tiny - takes up less space and weight then the new models have shaved off of them

Don't get me wrong guys. First of all, I'm not in the market for buying new laptop at the moment. I just got new late 2011 MBP last November, so hopefully I'm fine for another 3 or 4 years. So this particular model doesn't really concern me.
But there's more in this... Once I will be shopping for new laptop, I would like to have those things included, since otherwise, at least with today's technology, this is pretty useless for my work. Sure you might say, why bother now, wait 3, 4 years and bother then. Agreed, but if you look this different, Apple might get idea everything is cool, and everyone are happy with this what they did, so noone will consider changing this. Sure it's long shot, but maybe someone from Apple is avid landscape shooter and he reads this forum, and he might see not everyone just nod their head and applaud. So they might start thinking, that removing this was not so great idea, and maybe they might change it. As I said, I know it's long shot, but if everyone are quiet and everyone just nod their heads and applaud, even though they know this decision suck, there's not even slightest chance they will change anything.
Otherwise, E.J. I know there's separate line, but "old" chassis doesn't have retina display as far as I managed to understand. And I think (until I see it myself, I won't say I know this), this is some helluva upgrade. In my mind, as I wrote before already, this is one of biggest upgrades in Apple line after their switch to Intel processors. Until now, their line updates were minor, a bit more processor power, a bit more ram, but that's it. This update is huge in my mind. We will see how these displays will really be, but I expect them to be pretty darn good. So if I would buy new MBP now, I would want to have this display

I think in 4 years the old Ethernet adapter will be in the midst of becoming a dinosaur anyways It is a very unreliable, prone to failure with it's little plastic tab connector which is very much living on borrowed time. Sure it will probably be with us for another 10 years but, like audio CD's, it's days are very much numbered.

You're projecting your conclusion that Apple's design decisions suck on everyone else despite a few contributors in this thread pointing out already multiple times that they are okay with such decisions. So, you may actually be in the minority - albeit a loud one.

Anyway, if you think you want and can influence Apple's product decisions email Tim Cook. He apparently continues Steve Jobs' tradition to read and reply to some user emails.

Joerg

Interesting article here....

5 Reasons I Hate My New Macbook Pro:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/15/5-reasons-i-hate-my-new-macbook-pro-a-geek-s-critique.html

Wow what a whiny article! If you don't like this form-factor (I do) then get the traditional case MBP. :

Sounds like the same complaints rehashed as were originally vented on the MacBook Air which has been a big success. This new MBP is basically a 15" MBA. And the proprietary flash drive which is necessary for the thin form factor is replaceable on the MBA with an OWC upgrade and I'm sure they will have one for this. )

It seems everytime any company moves things forward you get this huge negativity from the stick in the muds

A more objective and supportive article IMO:

http://www.chron.com/default/article/Newly-unveiled-MacBook-Pro-gets-a-test-drive-3638441.php

Joe Smith

I went to an Apple Store and compared the new retina display MBP with a regular 15'' MBP and the retina display is quite disappointing in regard to images. Due to upscaling, all images here at 800 pixels lose quite a bit of sharpness and details. It might be possible to circumvent this problem on personal websites with higher resolution images. Contrast and blacks look great and so does text on websites, but for image viewing it is less than ideal. PS was not installed but I would not be surprised if the same problem existed there, which would probably lead to very oversharpened images unless an external monitor is used. I wish they would use the new chassis for laptops with lower resolutions, too.

Axel, you simply need to reconfigure the video resolution option on the MBP to 1920x1200 in the video preferences to circumvent that issue. In the Apple store they would be set to Auto but due to the auto scaling it should visually look approximately equal to the old MBP when the new MBP is set to Auto.

I tried out all scaling levels since they did not lock the laptops on display. 1920x1200 (they don't use actual numbers in the display setting anymore) is the highest setting possible but images that are 800 pixels on the long side are too small for me to say anything meaningful about them on a 15'' display or process them at this level. I will most likely cancel my order, too bad, I was really looking forward to the new technology.

I'm used to looking at 750 pixel or 800 pixel images on a 2560x1600 display so that doesn't bother me

Yeah, but that is probably 27 or 30''. The equivalent of 1920x would be something like 3800x on your monitor.

Looks like Axel had the same idea as me. I went to the Apple store this afternoon as well to check out the new Retina MBP (RMBP?). At first nothing struck me as odd when looking at images posted to NSN on the RMBP. But then I compared it to the MBP right next to it. And there is no doubt - as Axel already stated - that the images look sharper on the MBP compared to the RMBP.

Now, I wouldn't call the RMBP display "not sharp". It's just not as sharp as the MBP. In fact, if it wasn't for Alex' posting I may have hesitated to post my observation as I was wondering if it was a fluke. So, I am not sure if it's really such a big deal. Especially given that people posting here and on other sites use a multitude of different monitors with different resolutions and apparent sharpness and sharpness rarely appears to be an issue. But of course it remains to be seen if images optimized on a RMBP will be perceived to be as oversharpened when viewed on non-Retina displays.

And I agree with Axel that changing the resolution of the RMBP to 1920x1200 makes the images too small on a 15in display.

Note, another readily apparent difference between the RMBP and the MBP is screen brightness. At max. brightness setting of the former it is about as bright as when the latter is 3-4 clicks dimmed from max. brightness. Still bright enough though.

It is a slick machine and websites and the UI surely look better on the RMBP - though more obvious if you compare them right next to each other. We'll have to see if the "sharpness" issue is a problem.

Hope that was helpful. Best, Joerg

This sounds like the same issue as has been noted on the 'new' iPad - because of the way the scaling is handled, text (and any interface elements that have been designed for the new resolution) looks great, but images look worse because the pixel-doubling shows up more than you'd expect. Since four dots actually take up the same physical space as one dot on a 'normal' screen (actually, it's 12=3 due to the RGB structure of each pixel), you'd expect the doubling to be invisible, but that doesn't seem to be the case - with everything else so sharp, images now look a bit fuzzy.

The big question is, how will the internet, as a whole, react? There are definite costs to quadrupling the size of every image on a page, and that's before you get into the issues involved in photographers posting 1600-pixel images that are trivially easy to download and use without attribution.

For the creative side of things, the Retina probably will be a big plus (when software catches up, at least) - it definitely helps to not have photos and video constantly scaled down for display (or have fewer circumstances where it is necessary). It will be a bigger benefit the smaller the screen - a Retina display on an 11" MacBook Air will be fantastic. Honestly, given typical working distances, I'm not even sure that a 27" Retina display is strictly necessary, or that we don't already have one. The RMBP is 220ppi, the 27" iMac is 110ppi - since the iMac viewing distances are probably around twice those of a laptop, a case could be made that we're already there (or at least in the neighborhood).

I took a brief look at the Retina MacBook Pro at my local Apple Store today (stopped in to grab the new AirPort Express), and the main impression that I got was how BIG it is; once you've used an 11" MacBook Air, your conception of normal recalibrates. The previous "Aircraft Carrier" MacBook Pro (the 17") is now impossibly large, and the 15" MBP now feels as large as I'd ever want a laptop to be.

Given the cost and size of the Retina MBP, and the discontinuation of the 17" model, I think the real target for this machine is video pros. The ability to get a full 1080P video on-screen without scaling is a big deal in that market, and the Retina screen allows Apple to do that in a smaller form factor than previously possible. That market is used to assets not fitting on the internal drives - big, high end RAID enclosures are a fact of life for them, and they are (I would imagine) the biggest users of Thunderbolt peripherals. Photographers have developed methods for fitting their data needs inside a laptop case by buying the largest hard drive available and/or pairing drives by removing the optical drive. With no option to do that on the Retina MBP, along with the scaling issues for photos at typical web sizes, it seems to me that a 15" MBP with the high-res screen, an SSD boot drive, and large hard drive for photos remains the more practical option.

Oh I think when the Photoshop version that is pixel for pixel on the Retina display comes out, this will be a quite capable screen even for image editing.

I don't quite get that comment. How would a Retina version of Photoshop help with how images look in Safari on a RMBP?

Thanks, Joerg

I was responding to Rick's comment that the real target for this computer is videographers. I was trying to say that once the retina version of PS is out, it will also be an excellent still photo tool.

Thanks EJ. Joerg

Well, I did mention that part earlier in my post - that's what I was referencing (if a bit obliquely) with "For the creative side of things, the Retina probably will be a big plus (when software catches up, at least)".

But, as Axel and Joerg noted, there are still issues down the line, when we get to the problems associated with 800 pixel images on screens that don't display them particularly well. For the initial work on high-res images, all those pixels are going to be beneficial, but how do you deal with the problems of trying to produce a good 800 pixel version for web display? At 'actual pixels' level, it will be too small on the Retina screen, but pixel-doubled (or even scaled to an effective 1920x1200), you aren't seeing it as viewers with non-Retina screens will.

It will be interesting to see how different software handles this particular issue - my biggest question is whether the Retina MBP has the ability to show any element at 'actual pixels', or is it always scaled? If everything is always scaled, certain tasks (like photo editing) become less attractive - I would love to have the interface of Photoshop scaled, but have the image itself at 100% zoom be real, actual pixels, but I'm not sure if that is how it will work. After all, there is no 'actual pixels' setting on the Retina MBP - the finest setting only gets you 1920x1200 equivalent.

My main point is that, while there are some benefits for photographers in the Retina MBP, from a market perspective it is really replacing the 17" MacBook Pro in every way that matters: price, screen real estate, and target users. There might be a few photographers who use the current 17" for the screen real estate, but I imagine those numbers are dwarfed by the number of videographers/editors who use it for the ability to see 1080p video unscaled. From what I've seen so far, I think the Retina MBP makes more sense as a video editor's workstation than a photographer's, because there is no downside for video - scaled video hides some of the issues noted with scaled photos. I'm sure some photographers will buy them and use them (and Apple won't mind that one bit), but (based on what I've seen thus far), the cost/benefit equation is better for video pros, who now have a smaller-than-17" machine that can show 1080p video.