My review of Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina display (late 2013 model ME294LL/A, Intel Haswell processor)

Yesterday, I finally decided to take the plunge and replace my old laptop, a 13-inch MacBook Aluminum (late 2008 model).  With TWO battery replacements, TWO memory upgrades, and TWO storage upgrades, I feel that it has served me extremely well for the last 5 years.  But even with 8GB RAM and 120GB SSD today, it still felt sluggish, and its battery was showing its age.  With new MacBooks out having much longer battery life, it was finally time for a new MacBook!

Brand new!

As a side note, my old MacBook experienced a very unfortunate fall early this year (Thomas!!).  But even with a pretty significant dent on one corner, its display held together, and it continues to hum along today.  My wife's MacBook also suffered a similar fate recently (again, Thomas!!), and it also continues to work without issues.  I think it is a great testament to MacBook's quality and engineering, and I didn't hesitate to buy another.

Specification

After much consideration, I decided to pick up a MacBook Pro with the following spec (ME294LL/A):

• 2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-4850HQ processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.5 GHz) with 6 MB shared L3 cache.
• Geekbench score: 11956 (vs. my old MacBook at 2036!)
• 15.4-inch, LED backlit IPS panel with 2880 by 1800 resolution (Retina display)
• 512 GB Solid State Drive
• 16 GB of 1600 MHz DDR3L onboard memory
• 8 hour battery
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics, plus NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching
• Two Thunderbolt 2 ports, Two USB 3.0 ports, One HDMI port, One SDXC card slot
• 802.11ac Wi‑Fi wireless networking
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Weight: 4.46 pounds (2.02 kg)

Significant New Features

There are a number of significant upgrades in my new MacBook Pro that are worthy of some description:

1. Battery Life!

One of the primary reason I have been holding out for a new laptop was that I wanted a real boost in the battery life.  For those who aren't aware, Intel recently released the Haswell family of Core i3/i5/i7 processors, which are SIGNIFICANTLY more power efficient than its predecessors.  The CPU used in this particular MacBook is the Intel Core i7-4850HQ Processor with 4 cores and Hyper-threading enabled.  While Apple claims "8 Hours of web browsing", my experience so far exceeds that figure.

While I haven't executed an exhaustive battery test on my new MacBook Pro, I am going to guess that I will be able to get ~10 hours of use reliably.  There were reports of 9+ hours of use from a similarly equipped Ivy Bridge MacBook Pro, when Apple claimed only 7 hours.  Stay tuned for more updates in near future.

2. Insanely Fast Storage!

Current generation of SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) MLC Solid State Drives (SSDs) usually top out around ~550 MB/sec.  But when hooked up via PCI-Express bus instead, those SSDs can perform at significantly higher level.  Apple did the right thing with the new MacBook Pro (and Air) and decided to use the PCIe SSD interface instead, and the result is quite awesome!  Blackmagic Disk Speed Test reports Read: 729.6 MB/sec, and Write: 709.2 MB/sec!!

With that much of storage bandwidth, and not-surprisingly, EVERYTHING I do on my new MacBook Pro seems "instantaneous".  Everything loads so quickly and effortlessly, I feel I am able to get a lot more stuff done.

Performance

• Windows Experience Index score, on Boot Camp Win 7 64-bit
• Processor: 7.7
• Memory: 7.9
• Graphics: 7.2
• Gaming graphics: 7.2
• Primary hard disk: 7.9
• Tomb Raider (2013) benchmark, on Boot Camp Win 7 64-bit
• All with Motion Blur and Screen Effects ON; made no discernible difference when turned OFF.
• At 2880 by 1800 
• Ultimate - Min: 4.5 fps, Max: 8.4 fps, Ave: 6.1 fps
• High - Min: 12.5 fps, Max: 19.6 fps, Ave: 16.4 fps
• Normal - Min: 15.6 fps, Max: 23.3 fps, Ave: 19.4 fps
• Low - Min: 19.6 fps, Max: 30.2 fps, Ave: 23.8 fps
• At 1920 by 1080 
• Ultimate - Min: 8.9 fps, Max: 16.5 fps, Ave: 12.2 fps
• High - Min: 27.2 fps, Max: 42.8 fps, Ave: 34.7 fps
• Normal - Min: 31.1 fps, Max: 48.6 fps, Ave: 41.6 fps
• Low - Min: 30.0 fps, Max: 62.1 fps, Ave: 52.6 fps
• At 1280 by 720
• Ultimate - Min: 13.2 fps, Max: 30.0 fps, Ave: 19.4 fps
• High - Min: 40.9 fps, Max: 62.1 fps, Ave: 53.3 fps
• Normal - Min: 41.5 fps, Max: 62.0 fps, Ave: 59.4 fps
• Low - Min: 56.3 fps, Max: 62.3 fps, Ave: 59.9 fps

Conclusion

Overall I am completely blown away by my new MacBook Pro, especially when compared to my old MacBook.  It is completely worth it!  I am very impressed with its new Intel Haswell CPU, as well as its NVIDIA GT 750M GPU performance for occasional gaming.

Next week, I will update and share my experience on other aspects of my new MacBook Pro - please let me know if you have any questions or areas that you want me to write up on.  Thanks.

Roy


Disclosure: While I am not paid by anyone to write this review, I may be compensated if you purchase products through links on my blog.