Macbook Pro 15" Retina Worth It?

[Smartazz]

Hi all, I'm looking to replace my 5 year old Dell Studio laptop and I'm looking into a Mac. It'd be for strictly professional and educational purposes. I currently work for a marketing company and I'm getting my Masters soon and a lot of the programs I need to work with for it will be OSX exclusives. I'm looking into the top end Macbook Pro 15" Retina which is close to $3000 with taxes. The specs are:

2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
16GB 1600MHz memory
512GB flash storage
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
Built-in battery (7 hours)

It's supposedly an amazing notebook, but is the price tag too steep for it? Would I be better off checking out the 13" retinas? Thanks in advance.

Update: I got my 15" Retina a few weeks ago. I love it so far. The screen is amazing, but I still prefer my 27" 1440p monitor so I'm using a thunderbolt to DVI adapter for it. My desktop is definitely faster, but most of the time I'm using my laptop since I now prefer OSX. Def worth the money for me, but that's because I'm going to be using it a lot for work and needed a laptop I could live with.

[Kaido]

First question: are you going to be working off the laptop mostly, or will you be using an external monitor? If it's your main screen, I'd go for the 15". If you're going to use it with a large monitor, the 13" might save you some green. However, the 13" is more portable and still has a great resolution. How are your eyes? Would a 13" work for you?

[JAG87]

Personally, I would never spend $3000 on a laptop. I bought a 13" and a thunderbolt display and still have money left over.

But like Kaido said, if you must always work on the laptop, maybe the 15" is the right machine, but you are sacrificing portability. If you have a semi-stationary location, I would get the 13" + thunderbolt for less money.

Also consider if you really need the 512GB SSD. You are throwing away a ton of money in that upgrade, if all your apps fit in 256GB - 25%, use an external USB3 drive for media storage (photos, audio and video).

[Smartazz]

My biggest concern is that the 13" Pro's lack of a quad core will be a problem. 512GB SSD is expensive, but 256 isn't enough for a workstation.

[Ice_Dragon]

It will be worth it when the next model comes out. Rev. A products from Apple always seem to have growing pains with the exception being the unibody MacBook Pro.

So in short, yes though hold off.

[crab0]

If you can wait for Haswell version then do so but if you need it you need it, its a fantastic machine and I wouldn't go for the 13 inch model because of the dramatic drop in performance.

[TuxDave]

In case you don't have enough replies in this thread, you can scan this:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2276889

I really had some dejavu when I saw this thread. Then I saw that this was actually a new thread and not a necro'd one.

[Printer Bandit]

is wifi still broken on the rMBP?

[TheStu]

Originally Posted by Printer Bandit

is wifi still broken on the rMBP?

Broken how? I was using my friend's rMBP the other night, everything was fine. Streaming stuff from his desktop for a couple hours, no drops.

[Printer Bandit]

Originally Posted by TheStu

Broken how? I was using my friend's rMBP the other night, everything was fine. Streaming stuff from his desktop for a couple hours, no drops.

i'm getting drops every ~10 minutes on my 802.11n D-Link router and with OS X 10.8.3.

[TheStu]

Originally Posted by Printer Bandit

i'm getting drops every ~10 minutes on my 802.11n D-Link router and with OS X 10.8.3.

Well, my friend has an Airport Extreme, so it isn't a perfect comparison. But he has used his rMBP at my place for gaming for quite a few hours, connecting to my verizon router (FIOS), and again, no issues.

Have you googled that router to see if it is an issue with only that one?

How close are you to the router?

[Tegeril]

Never had wifi issues with the rMBP but I also have an Airport Extreme.

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Originally Posted by Tegeril

Never had wifi issues with the rMBP but I also have an Airport Extreme.

Me either. Same with my iMac. No problems.

[Printer Bandit]

i think the wifi issue might be due to the dual 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.

is it possible to have the wifi router only use 2.4GHz?


no luck even after going through this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread...rt=75&tstart=0

[KeithP]

Just checked the Apple's refurbs, there is a 15 rMBP with a 512SSD for $2119. It only has 8GB of RAM and a slightly slower processor but it would make things a bit cheaper for you.

-KeithP

[Tegeril]

Now that is a good deal.

[Atty]

I just purchased a 15'' Retina (2.7/512/16GB) today and I am loving it so far. It is so much more solid feeling than my old Macbook Pro. I love that I can airplay mirror with it too. Performance wise, I haven't had a real chance to test its limits yet but it is ridiculously fast. I can't explain how much more quickly Safari launches even with multiple webpages open. Its immediate. This thing is awesome.

[Kadarin]

I've yet to have a wifi drop on mine.

[Tegeril]

Originally Posted by Atty

I just purchased a 15'' Retina (2.7/512/16GB) today and I am loving it so far. It is so much more solid feeling than my old Macbook Pro. I love that I can airplay mirror with it too. Performance wise, I haven't had a real chance to test its limits yet but it is ridiculously fast. I can't explain how much more quickly Safari launches even with multiple webpages open. Its immediate. This thing is awesome.

The SSD makes a world of difference on top of the amazing display. I no longer have any computers without a high quality SSD as the OS drive at this point because it's become intolerable with mechanical

[Printer Bandit]

the wifi issue might be fixed:

switched to only 802.11g and disabled auto scan on my router.

[TheStu]

Originally Posted by Printer Bandit

the wifi issue might be fixed:

switched to only 802.11g and disabled auto scan on my router.

Boo, G only? Your router doesn't have 5GHz or N?

[bearxor]

This is a bit off topic now, but I'm starting to find that, these days, I'm better off with G than N.

I have a N66 and had it set to N on 2.4 and 5, 40mhz. I've never really been happy with the performance and this weekend I was standing 2ft from the router trying to download a dog whistle app and it took, not exaggerating, 7 minutes to download. It was like 12MB. I finally had enough.

When I first moved in to the house, there was only like 3 or 4 wifi networks other than mine. Now theres about 18 i can see from in my house. I spent all morning trying different frequencies and modes and finally found that I could get abou 10Mbps over G on 2.4 with a consistent connection (won't drop) and 43Mbps on 5ghz N 20mhz mode. Trying to go any faster than that on either one would drop my connection speeds down in to the 1-2Mbps range and make them fluctuate too much.

So yes, if anyone is having issues, I'd really recommend just trying G again. Depends on how populated your area is though, I suppose.

[Cali3350]

In Manhatten at a apartment complex its crazy how many networks are around. My Macbook Air 2011 drops connection every ~15 minutes or gets crazy slow for a while before coming back up. Nothing seems to fix it.

[z0mb13]

I just got the 13 inch RMBP and currently loving it so far
I dont do much gaming and video/graphics editing, but I do lots of excel modeling and powerpoint presentations, and this machine is more than enough for it.

I just love how u can prop this baby up ur lap and do work in your bed. The 15 inch one is just too big and heavy for that.

Also after the $200 reduction ($1500 for base model with 8gb ram), IMO this thing is a very good deal. The screen is really something to behold.

[Syrome]

I have no no issues with my 15in Early 2013 Retina. I would check with your Router and see whats causing it. I also have an Airport Extreme and that is by far the best router out there in my opinion.