My first thoughts on my first week with a new Retina MacBook Pro

Creative COW by Gary Adcock

As one of the early adopters of Thunderbolt, I ordered my new Retina MacBook Pro from my friends at Tekserve (NYC) the day after they were announced. With the Retina {Retina-MacBookPro is too much of a mouthful) Apple finally has added a second TB port to the laptop line, something the iMac has had from the beginning and added a HDMI output that allows me to use a Projector or monitor with my laptop and not take up my TB connection.

First off, who here on the Cow does not like a new toy, and opening a new laptop ( or any other new gadget) has always been a point of joy for me. Opening the Retina was no different, but it was. This is the first laptop I have had that ships sans disks, not an issue when the realization that there is no longer any DVD drive in the computer.

Apple tells me that the Retina is a little more than one pound lighter that my first gen TB model, when honestly, it feels like more, I swear it seems to weigh 1/2 what my previous laptop weights and it is considerably thinner, with the entire laptop not even as thick as the bottom half of my 18month old 1st Gen Thunderbolt MacbookPro

The entire Retina MBP on the right is noticeably thinner than just the bottom half of my 1st Gen TB version

OK lets remember a couple of things about this 15in Laptop, the size if beguiling, not having the same screen limitations of the previous 15" models the Retina display supports a stunning 2880 by 1800 px screen resolution. Even though Apple has made it a tad difficult to figure what your actual screen rez is, let me say that the high rez screen requirements of color grading applications like DaVinci Resolve and Autodesk Smoke both work flawlessly on the new machine. read more...