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Thinking about buying myself a Mac with retina...
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Vengance_01
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They are solid laptops. Now the question is, are you going to run windows or OSX. If its windows, I would not recommend it unless its via VM in OSX. Also watch Apples refurbished store. Same as new, but a good discount.
Dan
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they cant be upgraded at all. everything is soldered in. So get the specs you want/need. Gone are the days up putting more RAM + SSD's
voklskier4452
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I got mine from the refurb store and it was well worth it. I got the base model and I don't keep much media on my laptop so a 256gb drive is completely fine for me. I run a 50gb windows 8 partition with the programs for my C programming class and solidworks. I do some light modeling and the retina 15" handles it like a boss.
I recently noticed a cluster of dead/stuck pixels on my screen and I brought it to my local apple retailer and they replaced the entire screen with no questions. Overall even with the imperfect original screen I am 100% happy with my purchase.
PS the HDMI out is a very welcome addition and I use it all the time to put netflix and other streaming services on my TV.
I recently noticed a cluster of dead/stuck pixels on my screen and I brought it to my local apple retailer and they replaced the entire screen with no questions. Overall even with the imperfect original screen I am 100% happy with my purchase.
PS the HDMI out is a very welcome addition and I use it all the time to put netflix and other streaming services on my TV.
@Vengance_01 - I don't think I'll go refurb because I don't want to have someone's previous headache. I would run either OSX or maybe Ubuntu. I don't think I would run Windows on it directly or dual boot. I would probably spring for a copy of VMware or just use VirtualBox.
@pliskin679 - On my personal gear I typically don't upgrade after the initial purchase so this shouldn't be a problem for me. But thanks for the heads up! Good to know.
@blurp - Thanks for this, I had no idea they were so close to a refresh! I can absolutely wait a couple weeks to place my order. One question I'd have is how quickly
the new units become available for purchase once they're announced in the past and how reliable were the early production runs? I realize early adoption is a crap shoot, just rambling out loud.
@voklskier4452 - thank you for the input!
@pliskin679 - On my personal gear I typically don't upgrade after the initial purchase so this shouldn't be a problem for me. But thanks for the heads up! Good to know.
@blurp - Thanks for this, I had no idea they were so close to a refresh! I can absolutely wait a couple weeks to place my order. One question I'd have is how quickly
the new units become available for purchase once they're announced in the past and how reliable were the early production runs? I realize early adoption is a crap shoot, just rambling out loud.
@voklskier4452 - thank you for the input!
UnknownSouljer
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I'd wait until the refresh, but I should also note, that buying a refurb from Apple is like buying a new rig. It comes with the same 1 year Apple care warranty and can also be upgraded to 3 years like any other machine.
Looking at them side by side, you'd never know that one machine was a refurb and the other wasn't. My last two machines were refurbs from Apple, and as long as I can continue to do it, I will. I've saved over $1k between two machines. If "new" is worth that to you, then go for it. Especially considering the only way to jump on a refresh is buying new, that makes sense. But I'm okay with waiting and getting the deal.
Right now it sounds like your timeframe for buying is short, so you have a lot more to consider.
Looking at them side by side, you'd never know that one machine was a refurb and the other wasn't. My last two machines were refurbs from Apple, and as long as I can continue to do it, I will. I've saved over $1k between two machines. If "new" is worth that to you, then go for it. Especially considering the only way to jump on a refresh is buying new, that makes sense. But I'm okay with waiting and getting the deal.
Right now it sounds like your timeframe for buying is short, so you have a lot more to consider.
False, the Macbook Pros have user upgradable hard drives and RAM. The Macbook Air and Macbook Pro with retina display have the RAM as part of the PCB because they are so thin.
They also have SSDs that can be replaced: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Retina_2012
UnknownSouljer
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While technically true, it is prohibitively expensive and a lot of work to get into. Considering that moving up to the 480GB drive is $500~ most may as well upgrade their machine right out of the gate and save themselves the trouble.
next-Jin
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He said Retina and I would be hard pressed to even attemp that after dropping that much cash.
OP I would wait, my wife got hers about 2 months ago now and I love the thing. As a hardcore PC fan for years who got into phas change and water cooling with crossfire rigs and buying Clevo laptops, Dell Studio laptops, and Lenovo business laptops Apple laptops put those to shame.
There is nothing and will never be anything that comes close.
They should be coming out in another 2 months or so, it's close and it's Haswell. It's going to be a large jump for laptops.
Tyler-Durden
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This... or wait for the refresh, then look at retina refurbs. That's your best shot at getting the best price. Buy an extended warranty, too. My 2011 MBP had some kind of short and it basically fried itself. I took it to an Apple store and walked out with a new 15" retina. They exchanged it right there because of the warranty. I plan to sell it and get a Haswell retina whenever they're available.
Hmm... maybe I should wait until later this year to buy? The whole laptop market could see a decent refresh. http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/20/samsung-3200-x-1800-notebook-panel/
Zinn
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Apple is probably going to release 2nd generation Retina Macbooks within the next 3 months.
Windows runs fine natively, using Bootcamp, why would you run it in a VM?
Zumino Zufeilon
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Cause the scaling doesn't work very well yet for a Retina display in anything other then native resolution.
Because restarting is a PITA and invariably there will be something on the osx partition that I'll need and then that becomes a PITA. I've been using Parallels for years now and there's no way I'd go back to Bootcamp.
edit: Unless you meant using Windows exclusively, then yeah bootcamp it is.
Zinn
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The only thing that sucks about Parallels is the lack of gaming performance.
But gaming on a Macbook makes for a cheap and effective vasectomy alternative, so maybe it's for the best.
But gaming on a Macbook makes for a cheap and effective vasectomy alternative, so maybe it's for the best.
The retnia display is beautiful, our apple rep tells us its probably coming to the iMac next. If you're going Apple, not gaming and price is no issue then then the retnia macbook is what you want. Definitely wait until after June's announcements though...
UnknownSouljer
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Nope, you are correct. With Haswell being such a small change (no design changes), I wonder if they will stealth update the MBP in the Apple store. They have done incremental updates like that in the past. I was considering purchasing a MBPr or the new air, but now I am worried about grabbing the MBPr and then they get a stealth update or a more vocal update in the Fall.
I debated waiting for the Haswell refresh, but ended up just ordering a refurbished base model from the Apple store.
I needed the laptop by the beginning of August, and figured that for the price of a new 13 inch I could just get the 'old' 15 inch one now if I went refurbished. While prices may drop, I don't expect they will do much besides swap the 2.4GHz model in place of the 2.3GHz. Improved integrated graphics don't really matter to me as I'm just using this as a word processing appliance in law school. Besides, the GT 650M is always there.
I ended up getting one with the Samsung SSD (yay) and the Samsung screen (yay yay!) so I'm satisfied. The battery has all of one charge cycle count on it. I was a little hesitant to buy refurbished, but combined with Apple Care, I'd definitely do it again.
It is far nicer than any display I have ever owned; it completely blows away the U3011 I use on my desktop. I'm really hoping this screen will reduce eyestrain after hours of reading and typing.
I needed the laptop by the beginning of August, and figured that for the price of a new 13 inch I could just get the 'old' 15 inch one now if I went refurbished. While prices may drop, I don't expect they will do much besides swap the 2.4GHz model in place of the 2.3GHz. Improved integrated graphics don't really matter to me as I'm just using this as a word processing appliance in law school. Besides, the GT 650M is always there.
I ended up getting one with the Samsung SSD (yay) and the Samsung screen (yay yay!) so I'm satisfied. The battery has all of one charge cycle count on it. I was a little hesitant to buy refurbished, but combined with Apple Care, I'd definitely do it again.
It is far nicer than any display I have ever owned; it completely blows away the U3011 I use on my desktop. I'm really hoping this screen will reduce eyestrain after hours of reading and typing.
Glad you like it!
One of the things very underrated on the MBs is that track pad and the movement shortcuts. There just aren't many like it on the planet...
On a 1440p Windows machine atm and I have to say OS X scales better for my aging eyes with the increase in resolution too.
I'm debating making the jump to MBPr15 from my MBA and ditching my gaming desktop since I caught the console virus (couches are comfy) ... have you tried running any games? I know they have a 650m, but it's only 1GB so I was wondering how it handles anything 3D? (really just want some Sims 3, Civ V, and WoW).
I was really hoping for them to put Iris in the MBPr13, but without any update announcements, I'm leaning towards getting a refurb 15 rather than waiting/hoping they update the 13.
The only game I installed on the laptop so far is Diablo 3. I did it more of of curiosity than anything else. I wasn't impressed, at all, by the gaming performance of this computer. I understand that you can run games at 1440x900 and they still look ok, but the truth is that a GT 650M isn't anything to get excited about.
At native resolution the Retina Macbook has more pixels to push than my U3011 (2880x1800 vs 2560x1600) and I still find my desktop GTX 780 to struggle with the lighter load. A lowly GT 650M just doesn't stand a chance. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, there is a performance penalty to be had when running games on OSX as compared to Windows. I haven't played WoW in years, but like any game, I'm sure reduced settings would make it run fine.
I would personally benefit more from a stronger integrated GPU and no dedicated card. The rumors that the next Retina 15 model may ditch dedicated cards for Iris Pro actually appeal somewhat to me. I believe the current Geekbench results I saw floating around today show the thirteen inch model to already include Intel 5100 graphics, so a fifteen inch with the 5200 integrated doesn't sound impossible. If that + Haswell cores resulted in a few more hours of battery life, I might be convinced to return this Ivy Retina and wait for the update.
I personally qualify for education pricing, so if the Haswell refreshes did launch before the middle of August, I would not have saved all the much by going for the current model. If there is a BTS sale, that's just salt on the wound.
Well boo.
On my 1440p desktop, I suppose my disappointment with that setup is very few games have textures in place to make such a resolution shine. Part of me feels running at a lower resolution wouldn't bother me all that much as a result ... but it may just be grass is greener situation (mobility of a laptop vs. pure power of a desktop). Also, as a bit of an aesthetics conscious nerd ... my desktop is an eyesore haha. Maybe if I made it look all clean and shiny cable wise.
I just love OS X for day-to-day stuff and would kill to be able to play some light games decently but I swear Apple has a secret hatred towards such heathen thoughts.
A MBP13r with 5100 would be perfect in my book ... I just wouldn't want to wait until August and it not come (some have said it may be later
).wonderfield
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The Mac gaming situation is getting a little better, but I'd still argue that Apple isn't really fostering it as significantly as they could (and perhaps should) be. Things on the GPU front are actually pretty reasonable, but the problem is more on the software side at this point.
Things may change for the better at some point, and come as a pleasant surprise, but I don't have that expectation.
Things may change for the better at some point, and come as a pleasant surprise, but I don't have that expectation.
Diablo III runs reasonably well for me considering the screen and the size of the rMBP. I hear that running it in Windows yields significantly better performance results.
OS X Mavericks has already increased battery life substantially so I wouldn't be surprised if Haswell + Mavericks brings a 3+ hour increase in battery life.
I'm not sure how much you paid for your refurb but they were about $600 dollars less expensive than full retail when I bought mine. Education pricing was $100 less last time I checked and BTS is even less exciting now that it's a $100 App Store credit.
I don't think the sting will be as severe as you are thinking when it finally drops although your feelings of second guessing not having the latest and greatest resonate with me. If you had $400 to $500 extra bucks to not worry about then I would have advised you to wait but since you were talking about refurb this was/is the perfect time to buy. Refreshes are almost never as significant as the rumors make them out to be.
(I just pulled my charger cable since I'm at 100% and I have 9:40 minutes battery life)
It was about $400 dollars cheaper to go for the refurbished 2.3GHz versus the current 2.4GHz base model ($1599 vs. $1999). There's no way 100MHz is worth $400 bucks, that is true.
What I'm pondering is whether we'll see a $100 dollar price cut on the new models, much like the recently released Air. Assuming the education discount holds, that would put the new model at $1899. Of course, now that I think about that, I realize it's not very likely they'll leave a $200 dollar education discount on the Retina once a new model is released.
I suppose I had it built up in my head that I could order the new one with an education discount, BTS promo, and pick it up in Oregon to avoid sales tax.
No matter what, it still is the best laptop I've ever had the pleasure of using. So far!
I see where you're coming from.
I don't think there will be a price drop on the retinas this year because they had one in the beginning. The non-education price is $2199 and I'd be really surprised to see a $300 dollar education discount after the refresh. I don't remember it ever being that high. Last I checked it was $50 dollars on the Air and $100 on MacBooks. I don't remember what it was for the Retinas.
It's tough to gauge how much Haswell is worth.
I don't think there will be a price drop on the retinas this year because they had one in the beginning. The non-education price is $2199 and I'd be really surprised to see a $300 dollar education discount after the refresh. I don't remember it ever being that high. Last I checked it was $50 dollars on the Air and $100 on MacBooks. I don't remember what it was for the Retinas.
It's tough to gauge how much Haswell is worth.
Zumino Zufeilon
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I wouldn't expect a price drop on the Retina's at all, without the unlikely (in my opinion) elimination of the MacBook Pro's. Maybe, just maybe, a reduction in price of the 13" MBPr and an elimination of the 13" MBP, but I still think there is enough of a Niche' for the 15" MBP that can't be easily filled by a MBPr.
Example, I don't want a 15 MBPr. The effective native resolution is lower (it's a snazzy 1440x900 screen, where my MBP has a 1680x1050 screen), and the graphics card has to work a lot harder to push the resolution out.
I would love to see the MBP share the form-factor of the MBPr, but without the Retina screen (gimme the high res option pls), but I don't see that happening either.
Granted, my MBP is still going strong, and I'm not looking to upgrade/replace anytime soon, so I get to watch what happens over the next couple of years.
Example, I don't want a 15 MBPr. The effective native resolution is lower (it's a snazzy 1440x900 screen, where my MBP has a 1680x1050 screen), and the graphics card has to work a lot harder to push the resolution out.
I would love to see the MBP share the form-factor of the MBPr, but without the Retina screen (gimme the high res option pls), but I don't see that happening either.
Granted, my MBP is still going strong, and I'm not looking to upgrade/replace anytime soon, so I get to watch what happens over the next couple of years.
It's true that the effective desktop resolution is 1440 x 900 at the 'best' setting, but it is scalable to 1680 x 1050 or 1920 x 1200 with minimal quality loss. Also, applications can independently be programmed to run in 1:1 mapping, even if the rest of the operating system isn't. It's pretty nifty, but obviously not perfect.
Anyways, I've decided just to deal with what I've bought (already put Office 2011 on it, etc.) so no point wasting an activation by changing machines.
To satisfy my Haswell-lust I ordered a 4770K and motherboard off the Newegg deal today. It will give me an excuse to finally sell off my old Lynnfield gear and move my Sandy Bridge setup to my HTPC.
Zumino Zufeilon
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True, the scaling with the Retina screens is pretty good, but it's still nowhere near as good as either the native resolution, or the 4:1 mapping of the "effective" resolution.
It's enough to bother me, I've played with the Retina screens on various scaled resolutions.
Personally, if I was buying a new laptop, I would be getting a MBA and a Thunderbolt display.
Beware dead/stuck pixels. Apple doesn't consider one or a few enough to replace the panel and it generally ends up in the refurb stores. I've sent back my share of refurbs at this point as most had issues with dead/stuck pixels. The worst being an ACD with 6 stuck pixels.
The new MBA is no joke ... I'm glad they went with an HD 5000 instead of a 4600. Now if only they'd announce a MBP13r with a 5200 I could make up my mind!
My experience has been that Apple will release a 2nd gen Haswell MBP roughly 6 months after releasing the first. If you can holdout for that one, it is usually the best. I bought within the first two months of my 2011 MBP and I was burned on the SATA ports. One is Sata 2 the second is sata 3. (They weren't advertised to be SATA3 but I still wanted that feature that was later standardized) Not to mention there was major freezing and wake/sleep issues for the first 6-months to a year.
I will never buy another Apple computer that hasn't been seasoned for a year. (Refurbs are a genius idea, full warranty, well seasoned). It takes that long to have a 100% machine between software and hardware. Buying bleeding edge isn't worth the reliability issues. Ask the MBPr owners with laggy gui issues and whatever else goes on with a bleeding edge machine. And for what? Unless you render 24/7 who cares.
All that being said I love my Early 2011 17'' MBP. 2.3GHZ i7 Sandy Bridge is roughly only 20% less performance than Haswell. Who cares? Software is the limiting factor when you have a Quad anymore.
Also, buy Applecare, its cheap, their service is awesome. I also had a screen replaced because it had a small area that was slightly lighter than the rest. "700$" value, under warranty.
I will never buy another Apple computer that hasn't been seasoned for a year. (Refurbs are a genius idea, full warranty, well seasoned). It takes that long to have a 100% machine between software and hardware. Buying bleeding edge isn't worth the reliability issues. Ask the MBPr owners with laggy gui issues and whatever else goes on with a bleeding edge machine. And for what? Unless you render 24/7 who cares.
All that being said I love my Early 2011 17'' MBP. 2.3GHZ i7 Sandy Bridge is roughly only 20% less performance than Haswell. Who cares? Software is the limiting factor when you have a Quad anymore.
Also, buy Applecare, its cheap, their service is awesome. I also had a screen replaced because it had a small area that was slightly lighter than the rest. "700$" value, under warranty.
Applecare is essential for any Macbook. I had problems with wifi on my 2010 13'' MBP and took to the Apple Geniuses (under Applecare). They ended up replacing the casing, the display, and the logic board. I saved over $1500 in repairs and it was all covered! Now that's true customer service, somethings thats hard to say with all these companies and all the red tape.