Give me one reason why should I go for an MBP 15 retina

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maverick786us

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I am pretty much imperssed with the 15 inch MBP retina. After using iPads, I don't find Apple OS any way suprior or inferior to Windows, but different. Yes the GUI in Mac good (maybe because after working on Windows, I find it different, therefore excited) and the number of applications available in the store are amazing.

But over my existing HP Envy 15, how will an MBP 15 be helpful to me in terms of.

1) Productivity
2) Entertainment
3) Education (I always carry my laptop in my MBA classes and use OneNote. The only challange in laptop is making block diagrams) and
4) And other daily life activities

Things that I admire about MBP is the design, retina display and the amazing GUI. The retina display will definately make it feel better compared to my HP Envy laptop and the fact, that Mac doesn't have virus.

My colleagues, who are iOS developers always tempt me to buy an MBP, they gave me several examples, to show the life will become much easier by switching to Mac. I am an IT professional, so it won't take more than a day or 2 for me to get used to Mac. But will it overall help me, that I will consider a WOW factor?
 
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I'm a huge fan of Macs and have owned MBPs since 2008. My retina 13 died recently (bad logic board, out of warranty) and I'm still deciding what laptop to buy next. I'm giving a serious look at the Dell XPS 13 and M3800, right now. I may end up with another retina MBP, but want to see what the competition offers before making any purchase decisions.

As for going with an MBP retina 15, don't expect it to change your life in wonderful and miraculous ways. Also, don't be lulled into believing Macs are virus-free. It will blow away your Envy, to be sure.

It would be pretty cool to run OS X, Windows, and Linux on the same machine. That's definitely an advantage of going with an MBP. And, no laptop holds resale value like an MBP.
 
Tyler-Durden said:
I'm a huge fan of Macs and have owned MBPs since 2008. My retina 13 died recently (bad logic board, out of warranty) and I'm still deciding what laptop to buy next. I'm giving a serious look at the Dell XPS 13 and M3800, right now. I may end up with another retina MBP, but want to see what the competition offers before making any purchase decisions.

As for going with an MBP retina 15, don't expect it to change your life in wonderful and miraculous ways. Also, don't be lulled into believing Macs are virus-free. It will blow away your Envy, to be sure.

It would be pretty cool to run OS X, Windows, and Linux on the same machine. That's definitely an advantage of going with an MBP. And, no laptop holds resale value like an MBP.
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I literally forgot to mention in my original thread. That my aim of purchasing an MBP is not to switch the platform. I will always use Windows for the desktop, specially while gaming. I just want to experiment and want to see, how it affects the productivity.
 
This may sound silly, but after I got a Mac, I was able to focus more on school. It just has a different feel to me compared to when I'm on my gaming PC. Probably coincidental since my gaming PC crapped out when I got my Mac, but I feel like I did a lot more school things compared to PC.

I didn't get a MBP though. I got a Mac Mini. I got it to develop some apps and it eventually turned into my education machine. I tried to game on it, but luckily for my grades, it wasn't able to perform as well as I wanted.

So now when I'm on my Mac, I primarily do art, programming, and school assignments. Then switch over to my PC when I want to game.
 
Honestly you haven't listed really any reasons why you would NEED a mac, sure if you have money to spend and want to then go ahead. But nothing you have said would make a mac a better choice than a windows pc or a windows pc better than a mac.

Macs get malware and viruses, don't be fooled into thinking they don't, its at a lower rate than windows but they do get them. Just last week I had to remove some form of malware from my friends mac that kept injecting ads and pop ups in any browser he used. If you are stupid you can get anything infected.

Retina is nice but there are some downsides, if your software doesn't support the retina resolution its going to look like crap. Also the retina display can make some images look soft since they are scaled, it's mostly noticeable for me when browsing the internet and there are low res pictures that are scaled.

If your current laptop sucks then go ahead and get one since you seem to want one. I'm a big fan of buying what you want because when you settle you usually end up not liking the thing you settled for and still wanting what you wanted.

My biggest complaint is only 2 usb ports. I really wish they added a second one. I use my mac for school, though I'm going to sell it once I'm done with school just because I don't really have a need for a laptop after school is over, i'll just be left with my windows computer. The main reason I went with a mac for school is that I worked for apple and got a sick discount (almost half off). I bet mope tries to refute this entire post and say that I am just mac bashing .

At the end of all this if you can afford it then do it because it's what you want. Treat yo self.
 
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munkle said:
Honestly you haven't listed really any reasons why you would NEED a mac, sure if you have money to spend and want to then go ahead. But nothing you have said would make a mac a better choice than a windows pc or a windows pc better than a mac.

Macs get malware and viruses, don't be fooled into thinking they don't, its at a lower rate than windows but they do get them. Just last week I had to remove some form of malware from my friends mac that kept injecting ads and pop ups in any browser he used. If you are stupid you can get anything infected.

Retina is nice but there are some downsides, if your software doesn't support the retina resolution its going to look like crap. Also the retina display can make some images look soft since they are scaled, it's mostly noticeable for me when browsing the internet and there are low res pictures that are scaled.

If your current laptop sucks then go ahead and get one since you seem to want one. I'm a big fan of buying what you want because when you settle you usually end up not liking the thing you settled for and still wanting what you wanted.

Actually I myself am confused, that what all possibilities can be explored with MAC, thats why I posted this thread

My biggest complaint is only 2 usb ports. I really wish they added a second one. I use my mac for school, though I'm going to sell it once I'm done with school just because I don't really have a need for a laptop after school is over, i'll just be left with my windows computer. The main reason I went with a mac for school is that I worked for apple and got a sick discount (almost half off). I bet mope tries to refute this entire post and say that I am just mac bashing .

At the end of all this if you can afford it then do it because it's what you want. Treat yo self.
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My current laptop is just fine, despite having top notch specs (4th generation Core i7 Quod core processor, 8GB RAM, nVidia GTX 730 and full HD Screen). Once the price of 1TB SSD goes down, then I can replace the HDD, thus giving it brand new look and feel

Although with Windows laptops there are always bloatwares, which always suck, makes the laptop slow and create issue while working on, and I've seen that we don't come across these issues with an MBP.

I use my laptop not for gaming, but other day to day purpose, like

1) Browsing internet
2) For taking notes in my MBA classes
3) Other office works using Word, Excel etc
4) Watching videos on youtube
5) When I travel, I watch movies in the laptop.

Being an IT professional, my colleagues who are doing iPhone programming, simply said that an iMac will make my life easier with the above mentioned tasks.

He gave me an example that in Windows if I have to capture and record the tasks that I am doing and save it in some video file, I have to download some 3rd party application, and that application isn't that much handy. However, in case of Mac, it has an inbuilt utility and not only the whole screen, I can also capture some portion of the screen or application, and record it. That was just one example, they said that in other ways Mac can make the lives easier.
 
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maverick786us said:
My current laptop is just fine, despite having top notch specs (4th generation Core i7 Quod core processor, 8GB RAM, nVidia GTX 730 and full HD Screen). Once the price of 1TB SSD goes down, then I can replace the HDD, thus giving it brand new look and feel

Although with Windows laptops there are always bloatwares, which always suck, makes the laptop slow and create issue while working on, and I've seen that we don't come across these issues with an MBP.

I use my laptop not for gaming, but other day to day purpose, like

1) Browsing internet
2) For taking notes in my MBA classes
3) Other office works using Word, Excel etc
4) Watching videos on youtube
5) When I travel, I watch movies in the laptop.

Being an IT professional, my colleagues who are doing iPhone programming, simply said that an iMac will make my life easier with the above mentioned tasks.

He gave me an example that in Windows if I have to capture and record the tasks that I am doing and save it in some video file, I have to download some 3rd party application, and that application isn't that much handy. However, in case of Mac, it has an inbuilt utility and not only the whole screen, I can also capture some portion of the screen or application, and record it. That was just one example, they said that in other ways Mac can make the lives easier.
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For your use case, you need neither a MBR nor the Envy. The fact that you use a high power laptop for tasks easily served by something half the cost or less indicates this is a luxury purchase for you. Therefore you will have to rationalize your own subjective criteria for going with the Mac or staying with the HP. I don't think people here will be able to help you.
 
maverick786us said:
Although with Windows laptops there are always bloatwares, which always suck, makes the laptop slow and create issue while working on, and I've seen that we don't come across these issues with an MBP.
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Don't know what bloat you are talking about that is always there, if you reformat there is no bloat.
I use my laptop not for gaming, but other day to day purpose, like

1) Browsing internet
2) For taking notes in my MBA classes
3) Other office works using Word, Excel etc
4) Watching videos on youtube
5) When I travel, I watch movies in the laptop.
Click to expand...
Office for mac sucks, it works but I have had issues with it not displaying or formatting files from office for windows correctly. If you watch dvd/blurays then you're only left with the old macbook pro to buy. 1,2,4, and possibly 5 are going to be exactly the same on either platform. (EDIT: old mac can't do blurays, meant to say if you want that then go for windows pc)
Being an IT professional, my colleagues who are doing iPhone programming, simply said that an iMac will make my life easier with the above mentioned tasks.

He gave me an example that in Windows if I have to capture and record the tasks that I am doing and save it in some video file, I have to download some 3rd party application, and that application isn't that much handy. However, in case of Mac, it has an inbuilt utility and not only the whole screen, I can also capture some portion of the screen or application, and record it. That was just one example, they said that in other ways Mac can make the lives easier.
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There are things easier on a mac than windows, and things easier on windows than mac, this isn't a real answer you are getting on why you should get a mac. You need to look at what software you use and see if it is actually easier on mac. You mentioned office, office isn't that great on a mac, you should look at stuff like that as well because you may end up switching and find what ever it is that you actually use is poorly supported on osx. It goes both ways, github is trash on windows, and wonderful on osx.
 
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To me, the only reason to buy a MBP over any other notebook is for OSX. If I was in the market for a new computer and I only planned on using Windows, I definitely wouldn't go with an Apple product.

Like what munkle said, it all depends on the software you are going to be using. If you want to use OSX software, then buy a MBP. If you plan on using Windows, then go with a different notebook.

Just my 2 cents...
 
maverick786us said:
I am pretty much imperssed with the 15 inch MBP retina. After using iPads, I don't find Apple OS any way suprior or inferior to Windows, but different. Yes the GUI in Mac good (maybe because after working on Windows, I find it different, therefore excited) and the number of applications available in the store are amazing.

But over my existing HP Envy 15, how will an MBP 15 be helpful to me in terms of.

1) Productivity
2) Entertainment
3) Education (I always carry my laptop in my MBA classes and use OneNote. The only challange in laptop is making block diagrams) and
4) And other daily life activities

Things that I admire about MBP is the design, retina display and the amazing GUI. The retina display will definately make it feel better compared to my HP Envy laptop and the fact, that Mac doesn't have virus.

My colleagues, who are iOS developers always tempt me to buy an MBP, they gave me several examples, to show the life will become much easier by switching to Mac. I am an IT professional, so it won't take more than a day or 2 for me to get used to Mac. But will it overall help me, that I will consider a WOW factor?
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The best advice I've ever received concerning switching:
Do you like Windows? If yes, stay with Windows. If no, then switch.

I have a 2011 MBP 15. There are some things in OS X that I will never accept as "good". I will start with the Finder. It is no where near as flexible as Windows Explorer/File Explorer. The Finder alone may drive you to hate your Mac. I've used OS X off and on since 10.0 back when it was a laggy turd. The Finder is still the most buggy app I've used on OS X.
 
I run two rMBP 13" laptops now and love them. I am mostly a windows user too. I run Fusion with Windows 8 90% of the day on my main machine and really get the best of both worlds.

The MBP hardware is great. The screen is also fantastic and works differently than a windows laptop with the same res (OSX is better about scaling). With fusion, windows is quick and seamless.

OSX is ok, still not my favorite for pure productivity but has some great features for day to day tasks.

I like the 13" over the 15" since the 13 gives better battery life and still very good performance. I also use a 27" monitor as an external that more than makes up for the 13" screen when at my desk.
 
Buy a used one first, and decide if you like it. I just sold mine, I came to the realization that I didn't like my content spread across three OSs, let alone two. I'm sticking with Windows.
 
KENNYB said:
The best advice I've ever received concerning switching:
Do you like Windows? If yes, stay with Windows. If no, then switch.

I have a 2011 MBP 15. There are some things in OS X that I will never accept as "good". I will start with the Finder. It is no where near as flexible as Windows Explorer/File Explorer. The Finder alone may drive you to hate your Mac. I've used OS X off and on since 10.0 back when it was a laggy turd. The Finder is still the most buggy app I've used on OS X.
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Thanks for providing the openions.

I do like Windows. Although I somehow dislike Windows 8, but I think Windows 10 will be very exciting. I am not looking for a switch. I want to try something different. I will keep my HP Envy, which my wife uses these days. I want something different, exciting with which i don't get fed up for atleast an year.

I have another query?MBP retina 15 offers almost 3-4 times more resolution than a full HD screen. I mostly watch movies that have a display resolution of full HD 1080P and sometimes 720P. Nothing lower than that. So how does it feel to watch movies in an MBP? I won't use MBP primarily for watching movies. But while travelling, watching movies is a good passtime.

green91 said:
If you only want 1 reason: the best trackpad in the industry.
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What is so grat about the tackpad? Is it the percision or does it have the number of features, that no other laptop offers?
 
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maverick786us said:
What is so grat about the tackpad? Is it the percision or does it have the number of features, that no other laptop offers? I have another query?
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It's not that it is so great, its that windows trackpads blow chunks so hard. The apple trackpad works, and works all of the time. For what ever reason, and this isn't really windows fault since they don't make the drivers or trackpad, but the trackpad drivers that makers put out just suck. The apple trackpad isn't so good if you use it bootcamp, so its not really the trackpad but the software support.

I have issues with windows trackpads taking multiple times to two finger scroll, multiple times to zoom, or they are slow at responding to those, or they accidentally click when I'm typing, its stuff like that. Most windows trackpads now days have the same features as apple's its just that they suck. Apple does one thing well and they make it work pretty much all of the time.
 
munkle said:
It's not that it is so great, its that windows trackpads blow chunks so hard. The apple trackpad works, and works all of the time. For what ever reason, and this isn't really windows fault since they don't make the drivers or trackpad, but the trackpad drivers that makers put out just suck. The apple trackpad isn't so good if you use it bootcamp, so its not really the trackpad but the software support.

I have issues with windows trackpads taking multiple times to two finger scroll, multiple times to zoom, or they are slow at responding to those, or they accidentally click when I'm typing, its stuff like that. Most windows trackpads now days have the same features as apple's its just that they suck. Apple does one thing well and they make it work pretty much all of the time.
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Now I got the point. I know the kind of issues that I face in my Envy laptop where accidental clock and problem of percision while pointing and clicking specially while browsing.
 
I suggest you go to any apple store, and feel the difference yourself. For me, the screen of MBPr is significantly better.
 
harsaphes said:
Because I just bought one. There's your one answer.
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To add to this great reason, you'll be a babe magnet. Women will flock to you, children will flee (you want this), and the skies will open up and rain havoc on your enemies.

On a serious note, it's just an all around great system. The build quality is unrivaled, the screen is fantastic, and the performance is great. It's a steep buy-in for sure, but I believe it's worth it, especially for AppleCare. They usually just hand you a new system if the issue isn't resolved the first time around (pending seriousness of course).
 
OSX overall feels simple. Yet advanced. Its a very refined product and IMO Apple quality trumps everyone else.
 
I'd have to agree on the Macbook's better tack pad. Something nobody else mentioned was nagging issues with dropping wifi connections, heat build up, and inflated battery run time predictions posted by Windows laptop manufactures. I just bought an expensive laptop from a well known Windows OS laptop company. Sent it back after a week due to the issues mentioned above. How is it that after all the design iterations that the other laptop manufactures still can't get a track pad to work right or a wifi card that stays connected? I never have issues like this with my Apple equipment.
 
Cred at Starbucks. Rumor is only apple can connect to the wifi.
 
I'll probably get a lot of flack for this but If money wasn't an object I would buy a macbook pro and run windows on it. Build quality is just leaps and bounds better than almost anything out there. I handle dozens of computers a day and very few machines come close to feeling as quality as a MBP. The ones that do get close are usually twice the size and 1/2 the battery life. Some people will argue so and so machine feels just as solid, but I get to see these machines a year or two after daily use. Broken plastic, sloppy hinges, finish worn off track pads, dirt crammed into little cosmetic features that don't even need to be there, etc.

If you're a poor college student then keep trucking on with the envy, if you have cash burning a hole in your pocket the MBP is a nice machine.
 
I just got a Dell Precision M3800. It's the closest thing to a 15" MBP I've ever seen. Everything seems superbly well put together and the 4K touch screen is amazing. I've only had it for a couple of days, so still need to put it through the paces before deciding whether to keep it or get another retina MBP. This is the first non-MBP laptop I've bought since 2008. I'm very impressed... so far.

EDIT: Ended up returning it and getting the 2015 Retina 13". The Dell M3800 was nice, but was more laptop than I really need.
 
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In my opinion the retina models are a bad choice. Although the resolution is of course amazing, they are very pricy and hard to upgrade.
 
I had a MBP and I've tried Windows on it. I'm not going to get into whether or not OSX is good, plenty of people like it, IMO it is nowhere as usable as Windows, Finder is a joke compared to Explorer, Dock is a joke compared to taskbar, the fancy looking apps are no more functional.

The #1 deal breaker for me was the keyboard - absolutely atrocious. There's no Del, no PgUp/Dn, Home/End in OSX are useless.

I did get used to the thin feel, screen and just overall polish of the thing but in the end I wasn't very comfortable and at the end of the day I wasn't more productive.
 
This latest generation MBP looks intresting, specially that pressure sensitve touchpad. I think I will buy the 15 inch version of that MBP, once released.
 
I like the Retina display, but that wasn't a killer feature for me.

The trackpad is superior to any other laptop I've ever used (for general use I prefer it to a mouse even, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that for gaming or some specific tasks, like graphics). I don't think a trackpad alone is worth the Apple premium, but it's one nice thing that I don't think any other laptop can take away from it.

The keyboard is solid - no spring to it, the keys feel good. That's not unique to Macbooks, but a lot of other laptops the keyboards are pretty sub-par.

Battery life is good, temperature/heat is good, speed is ok, hardware selection is a bit slim, but it's an Apple - there are better models out there in all regards for certain.

You can find a laptop that will do any one particular thing (except maybe the trackpad) better than a Macbook, but you'd be hard pressed to find one laptop that does everything better than a Macbook.

I find in general a generic PC laptop gets about 3 good years of life at work, then it's ready to go to pasture. Macbooks seem to make it out to around 5 years on average. That's a sample point of about 100 users, and our company has went 90/10% (PC/Mac) to about 45/55 in the past 10 years in laptops - about half of those Macbook users today are running Windows primarily (either Bootcamp or virtualized).

I wasn't terrribly excited about them until I typed on a Unibody model, and it made a considerable difference.

I don't particularly care about OS X versus Windows myself (although I do like having a native Unix shell, having done a good bit of work in Linux). Standard productivity apps are available for OS X and Windows for the most part, and those that aren't can always be run via VM or Bootcamp, so the OS is more or less a moot point (except that it's difficult to run OS X on non-Apple hardware).

If you have the opportunity, go dork around on one (Apple Store, Best Buy sometimes has one out, a coworker/friend/etc) - for a piece of hardware I use daily for hours for 3+ years at a go it wasn't hard for me to justify the price premium of a MBPr, but not everyone sees it that way.
 
As I see it, the OP is already 60% there to convincing himself to plop his money on a Macbook Pro.

The most fundamental question you should ask yourself is whether your budget can afford one. If most of your income goes to rent and other liabilities, you should stop yourself there. If that is covered, you should ask yourself are setting aside enough for investments for your future retirement. If that is covered, you should ask yourself seriously if you want to be paying that premium for a laptop.

On the plaform / OS side of thing, I didn't feel any difference largely because I run my Windows stuff - related to my job - in a VM.

If you still need games, Steam is supported but many games are not supported. Frankly, I would recommend maintaining a separate machine for PC gaming.
 
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I have a MBPr because at the time I picked it up, it had the most overall new features including a display that had a resolution tighter than 1080. It really bothers me how the majority of Windows based laptops on the market _still_ have 1366x768 or some such nonsense resolution. I don't want great big icons or text, my eyes are good. Give me as much density on the screen as possible.

I'm in agreement with MrCrispy in that Finder is gawd awful. Apple has done a lot to try and 'hide' the guts of the filesystem from the end user and in some cases I've seen people reduced to tears because they couldn't find all of their photos to back them up before sending their computer off for warranty work and now they've lost all their cat pictures.

It makes me sad that Windows Explorer is following in that trend. On both platforms you can turn off some of that obfuscation but it seems like you have to work harder at it on OSX. Since using OSX on this unit, I've noticed my file management organization has gone in the toilet (on this unit). The "right way" to organize files is not by applying tags to things and letting the OS discover them. I suppose it's great for teenage girls since their accustomed to throwing all their clothes on their bedroom floor then being ecstatic when they re-find an outfit 8 months later that they'd forgotten about.

Office is pretty terrible on Mac too. Software selection overall is pretty lame. The Windows OS has had businesses influencing app development for a long time and as such, there are a lot more "tools" to get a particular job done. The Mac just stumbles through like a toy or a cheap knock off of a real tool.
 
To add to the "quality" stuff - I'm using a MB from late 2008 (aluminium 13 inch) with 10.10.2 that I got in May 2009. I had to upgrade from 2 to 4 GB of ram, for Yosemite. But it still runs well. Not amazing, but well. I want to replace it, but can't seem to justify doing so at the moment. I wonder how well a seven or eight year old laptop from [insert manufacturer] is holding up right now? (...that isn't running Linux)
 
Grathrax said:
To add to the "quality" stuff - I'm using a MB from late 2008 (aluminium 13 inch) with 10.10.2 that I got in May 2009. I had to upgrade from 2 to 4 GB of ram, for Yosemite. But it still runs well. Not amazing, but well. I want to replace it, but can't seem to justify doing so at the moment. I wonder how well a seven or eight year old laptop from [insert manufacturer] is holding up right now? (...that isn't running Linux)
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I was using a 2007 Acer I'd bought for $599 new that shipped with Vista on it up until around six months ago. It came with 4GB RAM and I upgraded the disk to an SSD when the crucials first became all the rage. It ran Windows 7 fine. I retired it after I set up a VM with the one or two apps it was kept around for.
 
How long a laptop lasts is mostly to do with how well you take care of it. e.g. I bought my dad a Dell Inspiron, their cheap line, 5 years ago and it still works just fine, its used 4-5hrs daily.

Anyway, the best argument for a MacBook I can think of is they hold their resale value very well.
 
Grathrax said:
To add to the "quality" stuff - I'm using a MB from late 2008 (aluminium 13 inch) with 10.10.2 that I got in May 2009. I had to upgrade from 2 to 4 GB of ram, for Yosemite. But it still runs well. Not amazing, but well. I want to replace it, but can't seem to justify doing so at the moment. I wonder how well a seven or eight year old laptop from [insert manufacturer] is holding up right now? (...that isn't running Linux)
Click to expand...

Parents' old Inspiron from 2007 is still running just fine. We upgraded it to Windows 7 and upgraded it to 2 GB of RAM and called it a day. Not a spectacular machine, but runs nice and smooth.

OP - one reason? Because it's boss. Beautiful engineering and quality parts under the hood.
 
Has anyone tried his hands on this new MBP15 retina with forced touch? I saw a video in youtube, while comparing the clicking, i felt, that implementation of forced touch made the click bit uncomfortable, compared to its predecessor. But that what I felt, what is your opinion?
 
I've been using mine for a year now and can honestly say it's the best piece of technology I've ever used. I can't live w/o my MBPr and there's nothing that has come close to the joy this piece of technology has provided me.
 
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