New Apple notebook said to have retina display, thinner design

Apple is expected to refresh its MacBook Pro line soon with a new ultra-thin design and retina display. It's easy to assume the new MacBook Pro would take cues from Apple's featherweight MacBook Air, but a 9to5mac.com report claims that is not to be.

While the new case is said to be much thinner in no small part to the omission of an optical drive, it lacks the Air's airfoil taper. It is expected to have USB 3 along with Thunderbolt connectivity.

Are all of us ready for life without an internal optical drive? I can't recall the last time I used mine. Every time I look at it I see visions of an SSD. If not, there are external options.

A prototype may have been caught in the wild. A GeekBench reference to a MacBookPro9,1 has appeared bearing a 2.7GHz Ivy Bridge quad-core processor,  8GB of RAM, and a build of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion.