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News: new MacBook Pro analysis, iFixit tears down the new MacBooks, new AirPort Express, and more!
Wed, 13th Jun 2012
FYI, this story is more than a year old

The MacBook Pro with Retina display has been given to the masses, and that means that analysts like Anand from Anandtech can now get to work. Starting off with his piece on how the new Retina display-equipped MacBook Pro handles scaling, it's revealed that there are different modes that 5-megapixel display can run. No mode is present for a 1:1, 2880x1800 mode, but there are modes outside of the "normal" pixel-doubled 1440x900 mode. Then he takes a better look at the display, and reveals that even though normal OS X can't access the display (natively, anyway) pixel-for pixel, there are some games that can be run at the native resolution. IFixit has two tear downs to show us today, starting off with their teardown of the new MacBook Air. WIth mostly proprietary components, there isn't much you can replace in the MacBook Air yourself with off-the-shelf parts; it scores a 4 out of 10 for repairability. The new MacBook Pro with Retina display, however, scores a 1: if anything goes wrong with that display, you're replacing the whole display assembly. The soldered-in RAM limits your upgrade paths later on, and disassemblig the machine yourself definitely isn't recommended as there's a high chance you'll break fragile parts in the disassembly.

There's an all-new AirPort Express that was released by Apple the same day that the WWDC Keynote happened, and the new Express looks  just like a white version of the Apple TV. There's now two ethernet ports instead of one, and it now supports simultaneous dual-band WiFI.

The latest Mac Pro update was mediocre to say the least, but there's good news for potential Mac Pro owners in the future: Tim Cook himself has said that there will be something new in 2013.