Today marks the 10th anniversary of Apple announcing the first MacBook Pro model with a higher-resolution Retina display.
Introduced at WWDC 2012, the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro introduced a much thinner design compared to the previous model, as Apple removed the built-in Ethernet port, FireWire port, and CD / DVD drive. The laptop was still equipped with two Thunderbolt ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, an SD card slot, MagSafe 2, and a headphone jack.
“The Retina Display MacBook Pro outperforms performance and portability like no other laptop,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a news release announcing the new MacBook Pro. “With a great Retina display, a whole flash architecture and a radically slim, lightweight design, the new MacBook Pro is the most advanced Mac we’ve ever built.”
At the time, Apple said that the MacBook Pro with a Retina display featured the world’s highest-resolution laptop screen at 220 pixels per inch. It was also the first MacBook Pro with flash storage, which allowed for a thinner, lighter design. The laptop ran on Intel’s third-generation quad-core Core i7 processors and was equipped with Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics, up to 16GB of RAM and an SSD of up to 768GB.
The price of the first Retina MacBook Pro started at $ 2,199 in the United States. In October 2012, Apple announced a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Retina display, which started at a lower price of $ 1,699. Both notebooks are now on Apple’s obsolete product list.