By now, anyone with an internet connection knows that Mac has “upgraded” their systems to include a new retina display for a more crisp and clean color pallet. The downfall would be something that I wasn’t able to really find online – I needed to see it in person because I can’t ever seen to find a picture of the right side of the computer.
The 15″ Macbook Pro w/ Retina display doesn’t have a DVD drive – ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The point of laptops is to be MOBILE, with MOBILE comes DISKS (ie: a DVD collection OR program disks for oh I don’t know PHOTOSHOP! considering the bulk of the Mac industry is powered by GRAPHICS DESIGNERS of all shapes and sizes) Why would they remove such an important feature? I can understand not having it on the Macbook Air, and frankly that’s just because I believe that specific model of computer to be nothing more than a paper weight. But does Apple no longer understand that people still use their DVD drives for much more than just watching movies and ripping CD’s?
I personally use the drive regularly. Why? Because the bulk of my work is stored onto DVD’s so that I can easily find it later on. I don’t want to bog my computer down with the tens of thousands of brushes and photoshop addons that I have, not to mention the 75,000 graphics book that I picked up has 7 DVD’s to contain everything I’d ever need for print work, including recent stock images and clipart, not to mention web2.0 psd’s for logos and websites alike.
I then noticed an interesting note on the product specs. 512GB Flash Storage, can’t even give someone 1TB of disk space for spending $2,800 on the base model your new damn fancy machine? Get real.
On top of all of these changes, they completely got rid of the 17″ Macbook Pro (:: head desk ::) This, my loyal readers, is the only laptop I’ve ever gone out of my way to save up for. This is the one I’ve wanted for the last 6 years, but never had the $3500 I needed to get the one that I want. And now they’ve completely removed the 17″ option from their database. The claim is that they were unable to get a retina display to work, and now for those of us who’s dreams were shattered we need to purchase a refurbished model or hope to hell that a local Best Buy, Apple Store or Microcenter has a brand new one crammed on a shelf and they didn’t realize it.
I was able to locate one on Amazon.com, but of course I don’t have the money right now so what good is that for me?
The only option for me right now is to get the 15″ non-retina laptop. I’m so used to working on larger screens that it will be disappointing to have to downgrade to a 15″, and for me that’s a HUGE downgrade when you factor in that my iMac is 27″ of beast. I’d rather drop down 10″ than 12″!
The 15″ that I built for myself is as follows:
- 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
- 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x4GB
- 1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
- SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
- MacBook Pro 15-inch Glossy Widescreen Display
- Backlit Keyboard (English) & User’s Guide (English)
This puts me at the whopping total of, wait for it, $2,549.00. Why is this upsetting? Because it’s SHIT resources on a small screen. I’m going to have to invest a few hundred more into upgrading the ram, and then I’m stuck with a small screen.
Basically, what I’m saying is: Mac, you done wrong!