Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro in 2015

TehMiik · March 19, 2015

My review of the Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro and how I like it in 2015

So I was looking for a new laptop for going to college. Being a huge tech geek I was looking for a Windows system instead of an Apple system because I thought at first that that would be a greater option. My venture for a proper laptop experience had been a long one. I hadn't really found anything that was great and I was only willing to spend around £300 as that was honestly all I had at that point. I have had a good desktop machine for about 3 years now and I wouldn't replace it with anything! I wanted something that I could do most of my work on but I didn't need to game or video edit on. I started to look at higher end laptops around the £500 mark and then the £550 and then the £600 etc. Then I came across the MacBooks. Now, being who I am I discarded the idea of buying a MacBook at first because I thought you didn't really get a lot for your money. I started to look into the i5 and i7 versions of the late 2011 and early 2012 models and they seemed alright but not that great in terms of specs compared to something like a Lenovo Thinkpad or an Asus laptop where you could get a nice i7, 8GB 1TB HDD config for around £600.

Then I raised a cap for the price on eBay to £700. I saw a lot more MacBooks at that point and the MacBook Air was becoming prominent. Searching deeper through the piles and piles of unwanted thin and light laptops I came across the 13" Retina MacBook Pro. Now, there were some rotters on there I'll tell you that much for free but, there were 2 that really stood out to me which was an 8GB 128GB SSD config or a 4GB 256GB config. I didn't even know that that second configuration was even sold as I couldn't find anymore with that spec. All I can say is that I am using one of them to write this review and it's amazing. I payed £699.99 including next day postage from Hoxton Macs of London and the packaging was amazing for a 2 and a half year old product. It felt brand new put it that way.

So, I booted the system up for the first time and was greeted by the friendly screen that pops up when you initially power on a brand new machine for the first time (NOTE: THIS IS A 2.5 YEAR OLD LAPTOP AND IT DID THIS!). The process was very time efficient and even managed to pick up my dying BT router! After finishing this process I was taken to the desktop where I could start using my new MacBook. First thing I did was change the scaling to the smallest so I could have the most screen real estate. Coming from 2x Asus 1080p monitors I was going to ask for the most screen real estate that I could. Now, I know that you can download a program to make the screen the full resolution of 2560x1600 but the real estate at 1680x1050 is good enough and not so much that I have to squint to look at the screen baring in mind that this is a 13" display and I was used to 15.6" displays on the Windows laptops that I had previously owned.

I then proceeded to download the applications that I use on the daily such as Photoshop and Skype. At this point I realised just how much stuff I use the browser for and I that I hadn't downloaded many programs at all! So, I design a lot and I wanted something I could use Photoshop for when creating my pieces and not at the monster of a computer under my desk. I loaded it for the first time and it was so quick that I was actually shocked at how quick it was. And I am used to 6GB/s SSDs so It's not like I was comparing it to a traditional hard drive. after that I used it online for a bit and downloaded both of the TouchGrind games from the Mac App store which are great. My first time using the Apple Trackpad meant that I could play those games and I'm learning but still not great!

Overall then, sitting here at 10pm on a Wednesday evening writing this review on the laptop that I am reviewing is a really nice experience. Being able to type in the dark due to a backlit keyboard and having a super crisp display for text on the screen is something I reckon most reviewers need in a computer! Of course, there are a lot of laptops that can do this, however this is the best experience for this use case that I have ever had. Best experience I have had with a laptop or even with a piece of technology in a very long time and hope that I don't get frustrated with it. (Note my iMac has nearly got hit a few times due to speed issues with the 5400RPM HDD)

9.5/10