Non-Retina Macbook Pro Update?

Strings78

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Hey guys, I wanted to get your opinions on if you think the Non-Retina Macbook pro will recieve any major updates during this upcoming refresh cycle? Maybe an upgrade to the new MagSafe? Or somehow make it a little bit lighter than it is now?

Any Thoughts?
 

PhoneAddict

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Have not seen any sales figures on the MBP versus rMBP but always assumed that the dual version was a price strategy to allow for a less expensive version. Also with the recent discounting I am assuming that there will just be one MBP for the future. Seems like it would be expensive and less efficient to offer three models unless the price difference on the lower end model had a noticeable impact on market share.
 

Derrick4Real

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I don't remotely see it getting discontinued.

Tim Cook at the last earnings call said "“I don't think this is a bad market or a dead market by any means ... We're going to continue to innovate in it. We're going to continue making the best personal computers. Our strategy is not changing.” He pointed to recent Apple innovations like the Retina display in the MacBook Pro as an example of Apple’s continued investment in Mac development."

No specific mention of the future of the non retina macbook pro but they don't seem like it's hurting them or that they are looking to minimize their computer business.

Also it close to a very good price point. They'd do exceptionally well at $999 thought i don't think it will happen. but before i get ahead of my self it's still an extremely popular option that's a hell of a lot more affordable to the average computer user. Additionally it offers at a much lower cost something very valuable and that's cheaper storage. If you think of people that need media storage on the go like videographers, and photographers, graphic artist, djs, some musicians, it's a big difference between have 64GBs free and 500GBs especially if you're shooting in HD. This may be irrelevant to people that are on the bleeding edge or want everything in the cloud but that's not everyone.

Obviously i'm just brainstorming but i think they could ditch the cd drive, and lighten it up. May also allow them to add a retina display at that price. Maybe economies of scale mean they can add retina displays. I don't care about displays personally. Base CPU is due for an upgrade.
 

Richard Devine

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If they dropped the price on the MBP they'd also have to drop the price on the MBA. Things could get awfully crowded.

Like others have said, I think the none Retina will eventually die a death. Maybe not this year, but I can't see a long term place for it in the lineup.
 

Derrick4Real

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yeah they would. I always forget about the 11 inch MBAs because for me, i mean it my old ipod holds more so it's just barely feasible and small. So i forget it's there. But yeah it's $999 so they'd have to lower it. I'm sure apple thinks it's a great price and good deal so maybe not gonna happen. Me, MBAs are overpriced but they don't need me to buy them lol. Eventually they may have no laptops w/o retina but i doubt as was said above that the "model" will go away. that is that macbook pros will go away. Simply because now the cheapest mac is $999 for the air, and $1199 for the Macbook pro. The cheapest retina mac is $1499. I just don't see them ditching all devices below $1499. I don't think they want to make it so exclusive and tons of people can't afford an entry level one. Not when entry level pcs, weird windows 8 or not, come in at $599.

interesting post on Gizmodo speculating on new intel processor that's could mean monumentally longer battery life. http://gizmodo.com/now-is-a-horrible-time-to-buy-a-laptop-496028699 saying "Don't hold your breath for a MacBook Air with an Retina display any time soon, but chances are both the Pro and Air lines will get updated with Haswell goodness at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this June. You should be able to order them right when they're announced. "

It's quite speculative but it's on the subject so may be an interesting read.
 

anon(4698833)

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They wouldn't ditch all devices under $1,499, they would offer Air models between the low end and $1,499 to fill the gap. Above you quoted something from Tim Cook, but it had nothing to do with the regular, non-retina MBP line, so I'm not sure what the relevance was to the discussion, but in the scheme of things, the REAL issue for the non-retina machine is the fact that Apple is moving 100% away from HDD's, so a non-retina MBP with SSD would obviously increase the price, since the pricing of the SSD is more than the HDD's they were normally equipped with (and with less internal storage)...so let's say a 320GB SSD equipped MBP without retina display was put in their pricing gradient in between the Air and the retina model...$1,199 is where the bottom end model was new before, so I'd honestly say $1,299 would not be surprising...$200 more for the retina model is not a large enough gap and anyone would admit that.

I mean there's no set in stone info on this, but i just don't see the non-retina model MBP being around much longer...especially with the direction of their internal builds on the computers. Nobody is going to buy a non-retina model for such a small pricing difference, especially when the retina machine is more efficient in many ways.
 

Fausty82

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I mean there's no set in stone info on this, but i just don't see the non-retina model MBP being around much longer...especially with the direction of their internal builds on the computers. Nobody is going to buy a non-retina model for such a small pricing difference, especially when the retina machine is more efficient in many ways.

I see this as being Apple's direction/strategy going forward... before killing off the non-retina display models completely, I see them offering then with a modest price difference, forcing the market to drive to move to the retina models. For most people, a modest difference of say $200 between retina and non-retina will drive the consumer away from the non-retina and into the arms of the retina models... after that, the non-retina models will simply fade away...
 

Derrick4Real

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They wouldn't ditch all devices under $1,499, they would offer Air models between the low end and $1,499 to fill the gap. Above you quoted something from Tim Cook, but it had nothing to do with the regular, non-retina MBP line, so I'm not sure what the relevance was to the discussion, but in the scheme of things, the REAL issue for the non-retina machine is the fact that Apple is moving 100% away from HDD's, so a non-retina MBP with SSD would obviously increase the price, since the pricing of the SSD is more than the HDD's they were normally equipped with (and with less internal storage)...so let's say a 320GB SSD equipped MBP without retina display was put in their pricing gradient in between the Air and the retina model...$1,199 is where the bottom end model was new before, so I'd honestly say $1,299 would not be surprising...$200 more for the retina model is not a large enough gap and anyone would admit that.

I mean there's no set in stone info on this, but i just don't see the non-retina model MBP being around much longer...especially with the direction of their internal builds on the computers. Nobody is going to buy a non-retina model for such a small pricing difference, especially when the retina machine is more efficient in many ways.

Cook was responding to a question about the stagnant computer market and if they were going to stay in it. He said their strategy wouldn't change. Seems relevant to a question of they'll start axing a section of computers between $1199 and $1499 which has long been the entry level of many users.

i just think until storage and displays get big enough and cheap enough that they can do a 13 inch mpb, with ssd 500gbs at $1199 i think the non retina macbook pro line will be around. maybe that time is now maybe not. Don't know. but i think what could happen is simply adding retina to all mbps even without adding expensive solid state memory everywhere.
 

anon(4698833)

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but i think what could happen is simply adding retina to all mbps even without adding expensive solid state memory everywhere.

lol...so what you're saying is you'd have nothing but retina display MBP's right? Seems awfully similar to what you disagreed with initially. ;)

As far as putting HDD's in a retina display machine, I don't think they will because of the reliability issues vs. SSD, and from what I've read, i dont think they CAN because of the design of the internals and the heat produced by an HDD vs. SSD.
 

Fausty82

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Correct. The SSD in a retina MacBook are not the standard laptop hard drive size/shape. In the retina one it is more like a daughter-board attached to the motherboard that has the SSD chips soldered to it. This is unlike the non-retina MacBook which uses standard laptop hard drive (even if you get the SSD upgrade) size/shape. The MacBook Air also uses the daughter-board approach.

The cost of re-engineering the internals would make it cost prohibitive. SSDs are coming down in price... so it’s simply a matter of time.

For a historical reference, I paid $300 for a 20 MB hard drive back in 1984... and thought I’d died and gone to heaven. A few years later, I paid about $300 for a 500 MB drive... again thought I’d never use that much space...
 

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