The 2012 Retina MacBook Pro - A Retrospective

[redheeler]

Now that Apple has declared the original Retina MacBook Pro to be "vintage", I though I would write up a quick retrospective on the first Mac I ever owned.

I recently noticed that many people in this thread were critical of the price at the time. Yes, it was more expensive, but I'd argue justifiable because of the Retina display and the solid state drive.

This display was a huge improvement you'd notice immediately just looking at the MacOS UI, Safari, and optimized third-party apps, and made every other laptop on the market at the time feel outdated. Even text was incredibly crisp and strained the eyes less to read, it was simply impossible to ignore what a difference this display made.

PC manufacturers soon rushed to incorporate HiDPI displays into their products, which didn't show up until two years later and had to run Windows, which didn't handle HiDPI displays nearly as well as MacOS. And in 2012, most PCs with similar specs at a cheaper price point still came with spinning hard drives, which you simply can't argue is equal to pure-SSD storage.

The 2012 Retina MacBook Pro goes down as one of the best Apple products I have ever owned. Yes, it wasn't without issues (mine had image retention out of the box, and I had to take it in to get a display replacement under warranty, after which the issue didn't come back). But it was undeniably forward-thinking and ahead of its time, and handled anything I could throw at it. Having a built-in HDMI port and SD card slot was also convenient, while I didn't really miss the lack of a built-in DVD drive or ethernet port (did get an external Blu-ray burner, though the USB enclosure had failed some years ago and the drive itself now resides in my Mac Pro 5,1).

I got mine in August 2012 doing the back-to-school season, meaning it came with OS X Mountain Lion. Looking back, this was the perfect Apple product to introduce me to the ecosystem at the perfect time. In 2013, I got my first iPhone, the iPhone 5s. In 2014, I decided I wanted a desktop but didn't want to go back to a non-Retina display, so I waited for and got the first-gen 5K iMac when it was finally released. Unlike the iPhone, the iMac did end up having a few issues, most notably image retention that reappeared several times even after the display was replaced.

Today, the price Apple is charging is just as high as the original Retina MacBook Pro was in 2012, even adjusted for inflation. And what do we get in return? A Touch Bar of questionable benefit, even according to those who use it, that no PC manufacturer has seen the need to copy. A 0.1" thinner design that comes with more port compromises than the 0.24" thinner design of the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. A keyboard that is 3-4x more likely to encounter problems than the previous models.

My 2012 Retina MacBook Pro is currently running the latest Mojave beta, as the oldest generation that Apple still supports. I don't see much to gain by moving to a newer model, though it's possible that will change when the 2018 hex-core refresh does finally come.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I will not buy another MBPro unless they redesign their keyboard. I have moved to Windows for now and unless they change the keyboard, I will stay on Windows. It gets the job done quite well.

 

[vaugha]

I've been using my rMBP 15" 2012 for 6 years now and it still works like a champ even to this day. When Apple introduced the rMBP in 2012 WWDC, I was blown away by its retina display in a Mac and its thinness. So I maxed out the 15" MBP and ordered it. However when I got the machine, I found dead pixels and had to do a replacement of the display 5 times because I found dead pixels in every single one of them. At the end of the 5th display replacement, I said screw this and I returned the maxed out MBP and bought a base model and lucky enough, it didn't have any dead pixels. So I've been using that machine for 6 years now.

The keyboard has stood the test of time and never failed me. I've NEVER experienced a single issue with this machine for 6 years whatsoever (no dead pixels, no staingate, no graphical artifacts some people experienced). It's got 192 battery cycles with 91% capacity which I think is still pretty good considering how old this machine is.

I am confident that I can get at least another 2 years out of this. I just used the machine like everyone else does regularly and it is not like I treated this thing like my firstborn. It's got minor nicks and dings along the edges of the exterior but that is about it. It just works. I only paid $2000 CAD for a base model in 2012 which is almost 40% less than today's base 15" MBP. $2000 in 2012 doesn't have the same amount of value in 2018 but even if we consider nominal 2-3% inflation into consideration, today's 15" MBP is still a very expensive machine.

The design of the 2016+ MBP is the prettiest I've ever laid my eyes on but the horrors of keyboard issues is steering me away for a 3rd gen keyboard or else. Just to confirm the keyboard issues with my own eyes, I went to an Apple store today and played with a bunch of on-display MBPs. Most of them seemed fine but I found one 15" where 'H' & 'J' keys not registering the strokes properly requiring me to press really really hard and '.' key was double registering.

I am assuming these on-display machines are usually less than a year old. Glad I didn't fork out $3500 CAD just to get a machine that will have one of the most fundamental design flaws - keyboard. I cannot believe Apple didn't see this coming. Their products are usually known for quality and reliability. From what I've heard they only hire the brightest and the smartest people on Earth. If they have done enough stress testing on these new keyboards, they would have known about it and should have addressed it before selling them to the masses. It's pretty hard to believe they didn't know.

I am expecting a redesign of MBP in 2020 as 4 years seems to be the Apple's update cycle norm for MBP since 2008. I've learned not to be an early adapter in technology over the years because first gen products will always have some sort of glaring issues. Even if they redesign the MBP in 2020, I won't buy their laptop for at least 2 years after that. There will be plenty of other people who will pay load of money to get their hands on the latest bleeding edge technology so I will let them take the hit.