For as much emphasis as Apple puts on its mobile ecosystem, the company's Mac business continues to grow. At WWDC 2012 in San Francisco on Monday, Apple unveiled its latest upgrades to the Macbook line of personal computers, bringing out new versions of the MacBook Pro and Air lines, and introducing a new subset of MacBook Pros that carry the higher resolution Retina display.
MacBook Air
The skinny MacBook Air, progenitor of the "ultrabook" class of PCs, has been updated with Intel's third generation Core processors (also known as Ivy Bridge), more RAM, and more storage options. Their prices start at $999 and go all the way up to $2199 for all of the internal upgrades.
11.6" stock configurations $999 and $1099
Height: 0.11-0.68 inch
Width: 11.8 inches
Depth: 7.56 inches
Weight: 2.38 pounds
64GB or 128GB (options go up to 512GB)
1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache
$1099 model configurable to dual-core 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 with 4MB shared L3 cache.
4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 onboard memory (Configurable to 8GB)
720p webcam
Two USB 3.0 ports (up to 5 Gbps)
Thunderbolt port (up to 10 Gbps)
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 4.0
13.3" stock configurations $1199 and $1499
Height: 0.11-0.68 inch
Width: 12.8 inches
Depth: 8.94 inches
Weight: 2.96 pounds
128GB or 256GB (optional configurations go up to 512GB)
1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache
$1499 model configurable to dual-core 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 with 4MB shared L3 cache.
4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 onboard memory (Configurable to 8GB)
720p Webcam
Two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps)
Thunderbolt port (up to 10 Gbps)
SD card slot
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 4.0
MacBook Pro
The MacBook Pro upgrade actually began late last year when Apple quietly shifted to Ivy Bridge chips and upgraded the MacBook Pro line mid-stream. Today's announcement only bumps up processor speed and other internal specs very slightly upward, including a terabyte of hard drive capacity.
13.3" stock configurations: $1199, and $1499
Height: 0.95 inch
Width: 12.78 inches
Depth: 8.94 inches
Weight: 4.5 pounds
2.5GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB L3 Cache, or 2.9 GHz dual core Intel Core i7 with 4MB L3 Cache.
4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 configurable up to 8GB
Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000
HDD configurations include 500GB, 750GB, or 1TB 5400 rpm drives
SSD configurations include 128GB, 256GB, or 512 GB
720p webcam
Gigabit Ethernet port
FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
Two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps)
Thunderbolt port (up to 10 Gbps)
Audio line in/out
SDXC card slot
Kensington lock slot
802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 4.0
Backlit keyboard
Height: 0.95 inch
Width: 14.35 inches
Depth: 9.82 inches
Weight: 5.6 pounds
2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with 6MB L3 Cache or 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 6MB L3 cache
4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 configurable up to 8GB
HDD configurations include 500GB, 750GB, or 1TB 5400 rpm drives
SSD configurations include 128GB, 256GB, or 512 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory or NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
720p webcam
Gigabit Ethernet port
FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
Two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps)
Thunderbolt port (up to 10 Gbps)
Audio line in
Audio line out
SDXC card slot
Kensington lock slot
802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 4.0
Backlit keyboard
MacBook Pro With Retina Display
This is the cutting edge of this crop of PCs. It offers the "resolutionary" (2880 x 1800) retina display with 220 pixels per inch that first launched on the iPhone two years ago, and then made its way to the third generation iPad. The Retina Display MacBook Pro with fully maxed specs will cost $3749
15" configuration only
Height: 0.71 inch
Width: 14.13 inches
Depth: 9.73 inches
Weight: 4.46 pounds
$2199 - 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 6MB shared L3 cache
$2799 - 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 6MB shared L3 cache (Can be configured with 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7)
8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory (Configurable to 16GB)
256 GB, 512 GB, 768 GB Flash-based storage
Integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000+NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching
720p webcam
Two Thunderbolt ports (up to 10 Gbps)
Two USB 3 ports (up to 5 Gbps)
HDMI port
Headphone port
SDXC card slot
802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 4.0
Backlit keyboard