Apple MacBook Pros starting at $1,299 (update: non-Retina 15-inch is gone)

  If you've been waiting for the MacBook Pro with Retina display to get a big processor upgrade, today's your lucky day. Apple has just refreshed its high-end portable line with Intel's Haswell chips, delivering Iris graphics and battery life improvements much like those from the recent MacBook Air update. The 13-inch model manages nine hours of battery life, and the 15-inch unit can last for eight hours on a charge. Both computers carry faster PCI Express solid-state drives, Thunderbolt 2 ports and 802.11ac WiFi, while the 15-inch variants ship with dedicated GeForce GT 750M video. Either new Mac costs less than its predecessor, too. The 13-inch system starts at $1,299 for a model with a dual-core 2.4GHz Core i5, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD; its 15-inch counterpart starts at $1,999 with a quad-core 2GHz Core i7, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Both laptops are available today.

Update: Apple has quietly axed the non-Retina 15-inch model; you can still buy its 13-inch sibling (unchanged since its early 2013 update) at a lower $999 price.