Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro With Retina Display (Early-2015) review
A Broadwell upgrade provides impressive battery life for Apple’s business laptop.
Its performance won’t break any records, but the improved battery life provided by Intel’s new Broadwell processor is genuinely impressive.
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Outstanding battery life; high-quality Retina display; attractive, lightweight design
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Very limited upgradeability; no performance improvement over Haswell models
Pricing Options
The starting price for the 13in MacBook Pro remains at 833 (ex. VAT), but the 2.6GHz Haswell chip used in last year's model has been updated to a new dual-core Broadwell i5-5257U processor running at 2.7GHz (up to 3.1GHz with Turbo Boost). The integrated Iris 5100 graphics steps up to the newer Iris 6100.
That's not a bad price compared to similar high-end Windows laptops, such as Dell's Precision range. However, the MacBook Pro's limited upgradability means that you're forced to pay high prices for Apple's own upgrades when you purchase the machine. As mentioned, upgrading to 16GB of memory costs a hefty 160. Storage upgrades are equally expensive, costing 200 to upgrade the SSD to 256GB, or 400 for 512GB. The latter option offers a minor consolation in the form of a small processor speed bump to 2.9GHz, but the top-of-the-range model with a 3.1GHz processor will add a further 250 to the price, for a grand total of 1441 (ex. VAT).
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