Is the Macbook pro 13 the only 13 inch with a mobile CPU?

Hey guys, I have been looking into buying a macbook pro retina 13, first time I'm seriously considering a Mac. Either the Macbooks have become more competitive, or det Windows offerings have become worse (and a lot more expensive). Probably both.

Is the Macbook pro 13 really the only only pc of this formfactor, with a mobile CPU, and not a low-voltage? My Acer 3820tg was a beast that even had a dedicated graphics card.
I know the Clevo w230st fits, but it's not all that portable, even though the screen size matches.

 

The current Haswell rMBP 13 has a low-voltage CPU. The older Ivy Bridge models are full voltage.

 

Well that's disappointing, mobiletechreview said that it was a mobile CPU. Can anybody else confirm?
Edit: nevermind, I believe you. To think the review talked a lot about the extra processing power, not trusting them again.

Well, then I guess I'm doubly interested in suggestions, if I've overlooked a powerful 13 inch somewhere.

 

Aside from the Clevo and Ivy Bridge rMBP, I'm not aware of any 13-inch machines with full-voltage CPUs. That Acer you had was notorious for overheating. That was the main reason I didn't consider one of those machines myself, even though the specs were good. Low-voltage Haswells are pretty good performers, and the rMBP has Intel Iris graphics while other systems have slower HD4xxx GPUs. So you'll have to get the bulkier system or move up to a 15-inch model if you want something with more power.

 

Any word on the new broadwell processors and igpu or dedicated gpu? Like how many more months? The 13'' pro retina seems like a solid for me

 

A little bit bigger, but there are a few 14"-ers I know of that have full-voltage CPUs. Thinkpad T440p comes to mind, for example. However, if you're only doing simple tasks on the laptop (internet, office, hobby editing, that sort of thing), you'd be just fine with a ULV. Even a Sandy ULV would be fine performance-wise, let alone the newer ones.

 

In fact I had fallen in love with the t440p earlier in my search, but reading the owners lounge on this site made me change my mind. People talk about build quality issues and needing repairs from the get-go. A user calls it a disaster. Also, they too are plagued by LG screens.

 

Broadwell is not slated for release until Q4 '14 so it will likely be at least 10-12 months from now until any Macs with those CPUs are available.


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Those CPUs with have an upgraded iGPU right? Better then the HD 5100 AKA Iris Pro?

 

IIRC you can pretty easily opt up to a non U CPU on them. However, the U is already pretty speedy and with the Iris (not Iris Pro, you need a 15 for that) graphics and PCIe SSD you may not need a non U processor.

 

As I see that people still post here, I just wanted to say, that I ended up ordering a macbook pro 13, with 2.4ghz/16gbram/256gbsdd. In the end I realized that what I truly want isn't on the market at the moment, and the Macbook had the fewest issues/compromises. The faster clock speed of the low-voltage processor convinced me too.

And if I don't like it, or something better for my needs comes along in the next year, the Macbook will be a lot easier to sell.

It's more money than I would have liked to pay, but then again, it seems that the ultrabook market has made the prices rise all around. The Macbook actually seemed fairly sensible compared to the ux301, t440s or u904.

 

@Delta,

You got the 13'' MBPr right?

How much liking the notebook so far?
How's the wifi? Heard lots of issues with that

 

Yep, got the 13 inch. Apparently they send it from Shanghai when you customize the order with 16 gb ram, so I'll have it late next week. I'll post my impressions in a couple of weeks, hadn't heard about wifi issues. Seems a lot of computers have it at the moment, I would have went with a yoga 2 pro if it had stable wifi.

 

I've been reading a lot about wifi issues on this model in particular, can anyone chime in?

Here's a link on their forums about it - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5535320?start=495&tstart=0

 

No WiFi problems for me, only problem I got is that my router isn't a 802.11ac router, only 802.11n so I do not get full speeds.. When there are WiFi problems it's often people who cannot configure networks properly and go with default settings. Sometimes some products will have trouble with already unstable networks that are configured poorly. A network needs to be configured quite specific to your location depending on which channels and frequencies are being used by neighbours and so on, but also things like how far from router you will be and the structure of the inner walls will matter.