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 Apple's MacBook Pro laptops have long come with free bonus software in the form of the iLife creativity suite (iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand). Effective with the new models announced in late October 2013, the list of freebies has expanded with Cupertino's word processing, spreadsheet, and presentations apps. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote aren't as powerful as Microsoft Office, but they're easier to use, particularly for graphically rich documents, and the bundle saves the buyer $60.

The latest 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display offers another free bonus as well: Intel's fourth-generation Core processing. Compared to last year's model, the new "Haswell" CPU architecture teams with under-the-hood improvements in Mac OS X to deliver two hours more battery life—almost nine hours unplugged—in our tests.

And the new MacBook Pro saves the buyer $200: The base model reviewed here, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of solid-state storage, is $1,999, down from $2,199 last year. Nit-pickers will note that its quad-core Core i7 chip's clock speed is 300MHz slower, which didn't hurt its performance in our tests, and that it trades last year's Nvidia GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics for Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics, which did, but only within the margin of error.

You'll also find faster PCIe-based storage, next-gen 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and theoretically much faster Thunderbolt 2 ports. The speedier ports and newer wireless chips won't be beneficial to most users, at least not right away. But it's hard to fault Apple for adding some minor tweaks and improved longevity to what was already the best all-around laptop to ever land on our test bench. True, even with the couple of C-notes in savings, the Pro's starting price is high by 2013 standards. The notebook's 2,880x1,800 Retina Display has been eclipsed by a few higher-resolution screens on premium Windows notebooks, too. But Apple's IPS LCD is still the best laptop screen we've seen in terms of overall quality—just as the MacBook Pro is still the best laptop we've seen ditto.

   

The family resemblance to the MacBook Air is unmistakable.

Design

While the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display is a bit thinner and lighter than last year's version, the 15-inch Retina Pro is externally unchanged—a sleek silver aluminum unibody measuring 0.71 by 14.13 by 9.73 inches. That's only a whisker thicker than the MacBook Air, though the Pro doesn't taper to a wedge point in front.

The unibody chassis is familiar by now. But it's also attractive and functional, giving the exterior an overall feeling of solidness and rigidity that you generally won't find in Windows laptops unless you step up to ruggedized options like Panasonic's Toughbooks or business machines like HP's EliteBooks (both of which are generally thicker and heavier than the MacBook Pro).

Apple has kept the laptop's weight—4.46 pounds—the same as well. That isn't exactly light these days, but it's not heavy for a 15-inch laptop that gets a full day of battery life, either. Sure, there are plenty of much lighter 13-inch ultrabooks, as well as the three-pound MacBook Air. But those devices are much less powerful in the processor department.

Source: http://www.computershopper.com