06/12/12 Apple announces new line up of Macbookpro laptops

Well of course right after I purchased a new 15″ macbookpro, Apple has announced a totally new lineup in their laptop brand.  Here are the main points that I can delve from the announcements.

1. New Macbook Air models that now offer up to 8GB of ram, which was a gross oversight on the recent refresh of the 11″ and 13″ models
2. Macbookpro 17″ appears to be gone, most interesting
3. Macbookpro 15″ now has a slimmer design, and you can purchase a Retina display on the 15″ machine
4. Finally USB3 (2) ports
5. No more installed Super drive on the Retina models of the 15″, I wonder how bootcamp will install?
6. No more anti-glare screen on the 15″ inch.

I like the idea of the 15″ with Retina, however as a photographer, it may be more of a problem long term as I feel that trying to calibrate a Retina display will pose a problem.  Apple claims that the new Retina will have 27% less glare than the current 15″ glossy screen.   But there are some possible issues/concerns.

1. By far my biggest concern, is how Apple bundles their brand.  For example you can’t get a 512 flash hard drive unless you purchase the faster processor option.
2. Since there is no longer a Superdrive, it appears that you can no longer install a 2nd physical hard drive.  I have taken my superdrive out of my 15″ and in it’s place added a 750GB 2nd hard drive.
3. How will you install a bootcamp partition on the new models, I am assuming that the USB ports will now have enough power to install from a USB key, as you currently install on a Macbook Air.
4. If you want to get the 500GB flash drive, you will have to pay close to 3K for a 15″ machine, which is a pretty expensive machine.
5. 7hr battery, unless Apple re-worked the current battery in the 15″ machines I really doubt you will get close to 7 hours.  My 15″ will barely get 3.5 hours with either mac OS or windows7

Cool looking machines for sure, however I feel that they once again have boxed themselves into very selective areas.  The ability not to have a 2nd physical hard drive on board to me is HUGE deal.