Next up for Apple's Retina Display: 13.3-inch MacBook Pro

Now that the laptop world has been set ablaze by the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display, what's next for the pixel-packing screen technology? According to a KGI research analyst, Apple could be preparing a version for a new 13.3-inch MacBook Pro, which would launch in the fall before the holiday shopping season.

The analyst told AppleInsider that this new MacBookPro would have a resolution of 2,560x1,600 pixels, lose the optical drive and hard disk in lieu of solid state storage, and be slightly thinner than its 15-inch sibling. This is the same analyst who correctly predicted that the 2,880x1,800 MacBook Pro would be announced at last week's WWDC and that the 17-inch MacBook Pro would be dropped from the Apple roster, so there is some credibility behind the prognostication.

The KGI analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, said that Apple wanted to debut the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display at the same time as the 15-inch model, but that the yield for the new model was too low. He predicts that the smaller version would eschew the discrete graphics of the 15-inch notebook, leaning instead on the integrated HD 4000 graphics of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors.

The smaller screen size and lack of discrete graphics card would probably cut the price of the 13-inch version, possibly getting under the magic $2,000 price point. Considering that Kuo says that Apple will only have a "moderate" amount of 300,000 new 15-inch MacBook Pros available this month, a smaller, less expensive version could help juice overall sales for the new machines.

Would you be more likely to buy a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display instead of the 15-inch version available now? Let us know in the Comments section below.