Analysts: 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina coming later this year
Some Apple analysts have come out and said they expect Apple to have a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina later this year, in time for the holiday shopping season.
Two analysts with NPD DisplaySearch said their research indicates 13-inch MacBook Pros with Retina could be headed to the market by the fourth quarter of this year.
Richard Shim and Jeff Lin, in a blog post, said their research shows 13.3-inch displays with 2,560 by 1,600 resolutions are being prepared for production in the third quarter of this year.
Lin and Shim said in the post that the production volume for those screens is expected to be “roughly twice” the amount of the 15-inch Retina Pros that just launched.
But they aren’t the only analysts beginning to talk about 13-inch MacBook Pros with Retina.
Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI also said Apple is going to pick up the production of its second Retina-enabled computer in September, which would allow the company to get the product on to store shelves by early October.
Kuo gave more detail than Shim and Lin and said that just like its 15-inch counterpart, a 13-inch Retina Pro would drop its optical disc and have all its storage space on flash drives.
The resolution for a 13-inch Retina MacBook, Kuo said, would be 2,560 by 1,600 pixels -- the same resolutions Shim and Lin gave -- and the computer will actually be thinner than the 15-inch Retina and come in at just 18 millimeters.
Just like all the other MacBooks that were just announced by Apple, Kuo said the 13-inch Retina would come with Ivy Bridge processors. Kuo didn’t comment on USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt ports, but since all the new MacBooks now come with both, a new 13-inch Retina likely would as well.
Of course, you can’t take everything an analyst says as truth, but Kuo has had a great track record as of late.
As AppleInsider, which Kuo shares his thoughts with, notes, Kuo predicted that Apple would retire the 17-inch MacBook Pro line and also that Apple would sell the 15-inch Retina alongside the non-Retina 15-inch.
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