Pros & Cons
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- 13+ hours of battery life in our tests.
- Brilliant Retina display with higher-than-1080p resolution.
- Two Thunderbolt 2 ports.
- HDMI port.
- Comes with iLife and iWork software suites.
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- Only upgradeable at time of order.
- Base 128GB Flash Storage capacity is small.
- Glossy screen.
- Ethernet requires adapter
Apple MacBook Pro 13-Inch Retina (2014) Specs
| Graphics Processor | Intel Iris Graphics |
| Native Display Resolution | 2560 x 1600 |
| Operating System | Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks |
| Optical Drive | external |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-4278U |
| Processor Speed | 2.6 |
| RAM (as Tested) | 8 |
| Screen Size | 13.3 |
| Tested Battery Life (Hours:Minutes) | 13:41 |
| Weight | 3.38 |
| Wireless Networking | 802.11ac (2.4+5.0 GHz Dual-band) |
The Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch, Retina Display (2014) ($1,299, as tested) is the newest base model in the line, with a 2,560-by-1,600-resolution screen, speedy Intel processor, and excellent connectivity, particularly with its pair of 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 ports. It lasted more than 13 hours on our battery rundown test while topping our performance benchmark tests. These improvements help the latest 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro replace the previous version as our Editors' Choice for high-end ultraportable laptops.
Design and Features
Design-wise, if you've seen one 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, you've seen them all. This year's iteration has the same, familiar all-aluminum exterior and glossy glass covering the 13.3-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) screen. It still measures 0.71 by 12.35 by 8.62 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.38 pounds.
View All The high-contrast keys are visible in both bright light and in a totally darkened room, thanks to efficient backlighting. The keyboard feel is very good, with convex keys and solid springs to help ensure that any typos are your own fault. The glass-covered trackpad supports one-, two- and three-finger multitouch gestures, and you can connect most Bluetooth keyboards, mice, and external trackpads to the system in seconds.
The Retina Display has a 2,560-by-1,600 resolution, which translates into a 16:10 aspect ratio. In comparison, the Acer Aspire S7-392-5410's 1,920-by-1,080-resolution display and the Toshiba Kirabook 13 i7s Touch's 2,560-by-1,440-resolution screen both have a 16:9 aspect ratio. The extra pixels can give photo, video, or spreadsheet editors the ability to clearly display images that would overwhelm a screen with a lower resolution. Note that your experience may vary, as apps that haven't been updated for the Retina Display may show blockier text and images. In any case, OS X automatically scales items on the screen by default to make some windows show up in approximately 1,280 by 800, which is a good thing. If it were displaying at true 1-to-1 pixel all the time, then icons, menu items, and text would look tiny.
