Geekbench 2 results for the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro are starting to arrive in the Geekbench Browser. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro uses the same processor as the 13-inch MacBook Pro so the performance of the Retina model should be the same as the standard model. Let's see if that's the case:

Performance of the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is within 0.5% of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Let's see how the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro compares to the rest of Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lineup:

Unsurprisingly the 15-inch MacBook Pros are still the fastest laptops in Apple's lineup by a large margin thanks to their quad-core processors. The 15-inch MacBook Pros are also the heaviest and most expensive laptops in Apple's lineup. What if you're looking for a smaller, lighter laptop? How does the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro compare?

The 13-inch MacBook Air is 0.6 pounds lighter and $500 cheaper than the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. However, the low-end 13-inch Retina is 10% faster than the low-end 13-inch Air and the high-end 13-inch Retina is 13% faster than the high-end 13-inch Air. The 13-inch Pro also comes with twice the RAM and the superior Retina display.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is $500 cheaper than the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The 13-inch MacBook Pro also comes with an optical drive, an ethernet port, and a FireWire port. However, the 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with a slower hard drive and doesn't have the nicer Retina display.

So which 13-inch MacBook model would I recommend? If you can afford it, I think the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is the way to go. It's just as fast as the 13-inch MacBook Pro but it's lighter and has a much nicer display. If you're on a budget, the 13-inch MacBook Air, while slower, is also a great laptop.

What about the 13-inch MacBook Pro? Unless you need the 13-inch MacBook Pro's built-in optical drive or built-in ports I really can't recommend purchasing it. I think you'll be much more satisfied with the 13-inch MacBook Air's portability or the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro's display.