The aluminum unibody case has remained pretty much unchanged for several years. In fact, my previous MacBook Pro, a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM has the identical case that this new laptop has... it is designated as Model No: A1278 if you look at the bottom of the laptop case.
What Apple threw into the mix, which made my decision of which new Apple laptop to purchase more difficult, was the addition of the Retina Display MacBook. Initially I was tormented with making the correct decision of which computer to purchase. After I weighed the differences and factored in the cost, it became clear to me that for my use, the 13" MacBook Pro was the way to go rather than an Air or Retina Display MacBook Pro. Here are my reasons...
-The Retina Display MacBook lacks an optical drive. For me, that was a critical feature as I am a Mobile DJ and still rip a lot of CD's to my computer. I did not want to have to carry around an external optical drive so having the internal optical drive on the new MacBook Pro was key.
-The Retina Display MacBook does not have an Ethernet port. Again, this won't affect all people, but for me it was an essential feature that I use all the time. I wasn't ready to give up my dedicated ethernet connectivity port.
-The Retina Display MacBook was priced out of my comfort zone. It's a phenomenal computer but I just could not justify the price.
-The Air doesn't offer the disk space that I need nor the right combination of ports.
