Apple WWDC: MacBook Pro slims down for retina display

Apple has unveiled a slimline, retina display-equipped MacBook Pro laptop that will augment, rather than update, its existing family of MacBook Pro devices.

The company announced the new 15-inch MacBook Pro on Monday, during a keynote address at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco.

"Featuring a precision engineered aluminium unibody design and an all flash storage architecture, the all new MacBook Pro is the lightest MacBook Pro ever and nearly as thin as a MacBook Air," Apple said in a statement.

The MacBook Air is 17mm at its thickest, whereas the new MacBook Pro is just over 18mm. It weighs 2.02kg.

In addition to the 2,880x1,800 pixel 15-inch retina display, the key specs of the new range-topping device include a Intel Core i7 quad-core (Ivy Bridge) processor configurable up to 2.7GHz, solid-state drives (SSDs) in capacities from 256GB up to 768GB, and 8GB of RAM, configurable up to 16GB.

The new MacBook Pro also comes with discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics, Facetime HD camera, two USB 3.0 ports and two Thunderbolt ports. Unusually for Apple, it has a standard HDMI port as an additional option for connecting to an external display.

Pricing for the device starts at £1,800, and it is available immediately. The company said that although the device will ship with the OS X Lion operating system, customers who buy one will get an update to Mountain Lion when it is released in July.

Maxing out the processor, storage and RAM specs takes the total price to £3,050. The company said core OS X apps such as iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, Aperture and Final Cut Pro X take advantage of the new retina display.

Apple also used the WWDC event to discontinue the 17-inch MacBook Pro and to announce minor updates to the existing 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros. It also made small upgrades to the MacBook Air.

Key improvements to the laptops include an update to Ivy Bridge, rather than Sandy Bridge Intel processors, increased maximum RAM configurations and the inclusion of USB 3.0 ports.

Additionally, the 15-inch Pro model has a graphics chip update and now comes with the Nvidia GeForce GT650M.

All the new MacBook models are available immediately, Apple said.