Apple refreshes MacBook Pro with Retina display lineup, drops prices

See also: Yosemite usage rates double following public beta

Today sees Apple refresh its premium MacBook Pro with Retina display lineup, bumping the CPU speeds and RAM, as well as dropping the prices of the high-end models, ahead of the release of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and also in advance of the back-to-school buying frenzy.

Prior to this upgrade the base version of the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display featured a 2560-by-1600 resolution at 227 pixels per inch retina display, 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 CPU, 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3L RAM, and 128GB of PCIe-based flash storage, and it had a price tag of $1,299. For the same price this model now comes with a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 chip and 8GB of memory.

The base version of the beefier 15.4-inch with Retina display model came with a 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch display, 2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU, 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L RAM, and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage, all of which would have set you back $1,999. Following the refresh this now comes with a 2.2GHz CPU and 16GB of RAM.

16GB of RAM is now the only option for this high-end MacBook Pro.

Apple has also rejigged pricing, with the higher-priced 15.5-inch model featuring a discrete Nvidia GPU now down from $2,599 to $2,499.

The 13.3-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro with 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 still starts at $1,099.

This update to the MacBook Pro line comes ahead of the release of OS X 10.10 Yosemite, which is scheduled for release this fall, and brings a number of new features to users, including much closer integration between Mac and iOS devices. 

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