Apple Introduces 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Apple has released a new 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display, an upgrade to Apple's most popular notebook. The new Retina model, like it's 15" brethren, strips out the optical drive to limit thickness and weight, while adding a new 2,560 x 1,600 pixel display. The new MacBook Pro is 20% thinner than its full-size brother and weighs 3.57 pounds.

The new MacBook Pro packs more than 4 million pixels into its 13-inch Retina display, nearly twice the number of pixels in an HD television. At 227 pixels per inch, the Retina display’s pixel density is so high the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels at a normal viewing distance, so images look sharp and text looks like it does on the printed page. With four times the pixels of the current 13-inch MacBook Pro, you can view and edit video in pixel-accurate 1080p and see a new level of detail in high resolution images. The 13-inch Retina display uses IPS technology for a 178-degree wide viewing angle, and has 75 percent less reflection and 28 percent higher contrast than the current generation.

Internally, the updated MacBook Pro will offer flash storage, Intel dual-core Ivy Bridge processors, and Intel HD Graphics 4000. It can be configured with up to 768 GB of flash storage. The 13-inch retina display MacBook Pro will start at $1,699 with a 128 GB flash drive and 8 GB of RAM. It begins shipping today.

The full-size MacBook Pro with optical drive remains available.