The rumors have become reality, just like with the iPhone 5. Apple has just announced a thinner, 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, with prices start at $1699. In front of the attack of so many Windows 8 tablets, hybrids and ultrabooks, Apple hopes to keep consumers interested in their laptop range. At just 13-inch and not quite an affordable price, can the smallest MacBook Pro impress?

13-inch Retina Display MacBook Pro announced

Besides the RetinaDisplay, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is also by 20% thinner, having a slimmer chassis, maybe thanks to the lack of the optical drive. What exactly RetinaDisplay means for this new MacBook Pro? Well, how about four times more pixels than its predecessor – 2560 x 1600 ? For an “untrained eye”, the world might seem more real on this display than it is. The IPS panel has a 178-degree viewing angle, 75 percent reduced reflection and a 300 nits brightness.

On the connector side, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro has:

• 2 Thunderbolt ports
• 2 USB 3.0 ports
• 1 HDMI port
• 1 SD card slot
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• MagSafe 2 power connector

Gamers won’t be too pleased with the fact that the laptop lacks a discrete graphics card, users having to rely on the integrated graphics offered by Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor. On the hardware side, the $1699 model comes with:

• 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor
• 8GB of RAM
• 128GB SSD

This means that the current MacBook Pro will cost you $500 more than the previous version. That means, one new 13-inch MacBook Pro = and old one + one Microsoft Surface tablet. Are you ready to pay that much for it? Phill Schiller, Apple’s VP, has a different opionion, of course:

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is our most popular Mac, and today it gets completely reinvented with a new thin and light design, fast flash storage and a gorgeous Retina display,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With vivid colours, razor sharp text and more pixels than anyone else’s 15 or 17-inch notebooks, the Retina display completely changes what you expect from a notebook.