please convince me not to buy a macbook (update: MISSION FAILED)

[sze5003]

You failed!

Should have bought the newer model with PCIe storage.

He said 15 inch retina but it's refurbished so that is the newest one. Unless they have another one?

 

[CZroe]

This is a brag thread now. Shame on you, Brian.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

He said 15 inch retina but it's refurbished so that is the newest one. Unless they have another one?

They've had a couple refreshes. The 650m models were two refreshes ago, Anandtech did an extensive review on them.

They added the PCI-E storage, Iris Pro graphics, and the optional 750m when they refreshed to Haswell in late 2013. (That's the machine I have.) Then there was another refresh this summer that bumped clock speed and minimum RAM on the base model.

Congratulation Brian.

One of us, one of us, gooble gobble, gooble gobble, one of us.

 

[Rakehellion]

He said 15 inch retina but it's refurbished so that is the newest one. Unless they have another one?

No, the older one uses SATA.

 

[sze5003]

No, the older one uses SATA.

Ah ok I didn't know that. Does that mean the ssd can be changed?

I'm going to buy one this December or January whenever my bonus comes in.

Any reason why you went with 15 inch over 13? I feel like 13 is great for around the house and portability.
I did have a 15 inch 2011 model a few years ago and it was nice but felt a bit too big to use on my lap.

 

[mnewsham]

Ah ok I didn't know that. Does that mean the ssd can be changed?

I'm going to buy one this December or January whenever my bonus comes in.

Any reason why you went with 15 inch over 13? I feel like 13 is great for around the house and portability.
I did have a 15 inch 2011 model a few years ago and it was nice but felt a bit too big to use on my lap.

main reason I would go for the 15" over the 13" is the resolution bump on the 15". (2560x1600 vs. 2880x1800) I am used to multimonitor desktop setup though, so the more screen real estate I can get the better.

 

[sze5003]

No idea, but if you ever need an Ortronics rack mounted 24port Cat5 patch panel, LMK, I have one I don't want anymore.

Glendor...
monrocm@texaco.com

I would mainly use it around the house for development or other work and surfing, email, forums. I like the easy dev features of the Mac compared to Windows and setting everything up.

 

[destrekor]

Ah ok I didn't know that. Does that mean the ssd can be changed?

I'm going to buy one this December or January whenever my bonus comes in.

Any reason why you went with 15 inch over 13? I feel like 13 is great for around the house and portability.
I did have a 15 inch 2011 model a few years ago and it was nice but felt a bit too big to use on my lap.

I feel 15" is the sweetspot for the hardware because that's also where all the quad-core chips are at. The MBPr 13" models are all dual-core. Current models also have Iris Pro vs Iris, and have 16GB RAM standard as opposed to 8GB. Plus, usability can go up quite a bit with the extra screen size and display real estate.
This, of course, assumes any kind of productivity is being done on the machine. If it's for note-taking and facebook browsing, like most of the MacBook's I saw on campus, then all of the extra bells and whistles are moot.
If you utilize the capabilities, the 15" may be almost necessary. The 13" is a strong laptop - the 15" is truly a desktop replacement machine, provided you don't need top of the line gaming or GPU rendering. Then again, a Thunderbolt-linked external GPU is only a purchase away. :awe:

 

[destrekor]

No idea, but if you ever need an Ortronics rack mounted 24port Cat5 patch panel, LMK, I have one I don't want anymore.

Glendor...
monrocm@texaco.com

I would mainly use it around the house for development or other work and surfing, email, forums. I like the easy dev features of the Mac compared to Windows and setting everything up.

WTH happened here? :biggrin:
forum bug-out on a quote?

 

[mnewsham]

Thunderbolt-linked external GPU is only a purchase away.

Have any products actually made it to market? Or are you referring to a DIY approach?

 

[sze5003]

WTH happened here? :biggrin:
forum bug-out on a quote?

Yea looks like the post or thread id's got mixed up.

I have my desktop for games. Before I make a choice ill have to go see the 15 inch retina in person. I already know what the 13 is like since I use my sister's when I visit my mother.

The new 15 is so expensive though !

 

[Kadarin]

Congrats on the purchase... I have an early 2013 Retina MBP, and still love it (typing on it now).

 

[destrekor]

I would mainly use it around the house for development or other work and surfing, email, forums. I like the easy dev features of the Mac compared to Windows and setting everything up.

Have any products actually made it to market? Or are you referring to a DIY approach?

Well, if by DIY you mean entire enclosures, then those are on the market. Their is the entirely DIY approach as well, but that typically looks rather unappealing with wires everywhere.

Sadly, it seems the only boxes on the market are still kind of ridiculous - Sonnet makes a few, but I think the only one that can actually house a proper dual-slot GPU is this one, at about $1000. You still have to supply a PSU, which means it is no longer an elegant solution, and is quite simply priced out of the market for anyone except professionals who need rendering support, or gamers with an absurd amount of disposable income. A top-end GPU, PLUS an enclosure that costs more than most top-end GPUs, if not twice the price, AND a PSU (a pittance at that point ). You're looking at $1700 to use a GTX 980 over thunderbolt.

I reckon the cost of the external enclosures will come down significantly once the main-stays in PC hardware get into the business. They've been teasing it for so long, but nothing has hit the market yet.
I think the Silverstone/Asus XG2 has the best chances to appear in the market, but who knows. I'd expect that to cost around $500 if we're lucky, though I'd love to be surprised.

The other issue: any card would be effectively limited to 4x PCIe 2.0 - that said, most cards won't lose THAT much capability, not yet at least.

 

[JEDI]

they are super overpriced and i know its stupid to buy one, but dang it, i want one. 15" macbook pro looks sweet.

first world problems amirite?

you're asking in a forum owned by an Apple employee about MacBooks?
it's like asking the Klan on their opinion on minorities

 

[brianmanahan]

You failed!

Should have bought the newer model with PCIe storage.

but then it would have cost 1$k more - too rich for my blood!

 

[brianmanahan]

If I remember right, you don't really spend money. Frivolous expenditures are what money's for, as long as you don't make a habit of it. IOW, enjoy your new machine. Debian should install on it ok ;^)

yeah i save like %50 of my income for retirement, so i figured i will let myself do this once to give it a try.

plus i can sort of legitimize it in my head as a machine for learning to program in obj C and swift, thus increasing my employment opportunities (at least in theory)

and no debian 4 me, always been an ubuntu n00b :awe:

 

[brianmanahan]

This is a brag thread now. Shame on you, Brian.

im so srry

wait, actually YOU should be sorry because your crisis intervention skills failed on me

 

[brianmanahan]

The new 15 is so expensive though !

yeah the new 15" was just too much for me at like 2.5$k, but i could handle a couple gens back at 1$k less than that.

 

[desura]

I honestly don't see the point of retina on a laptop.

For a while I wanted to get one of the alu macbooks and replace the hard drive with a hybrid ssd/disc drive.

 

[sze5003]

I honestly don't see the point of retina on a laptop.

For a while I wanted to get one of the alu macbooks and replace the hard drive with a hybrid ssd/disc drive.

I was going to do the same. But played around with a retina 13 inch and the screen is much nicer. Very crisp.

 

[Ichinisan]

Enjoying the MacBook?

 

[brianmanahan]

Enjoying the MacBook?

yep! i didn't think the the macbook touchpad was going to be that big of a deal... until i tried to use a lenovo thinkpad one in windows after using the macbook for a while. wow, the macbook touchpad is SO much better. maybe newer windows laptops have better gesture support though.

i have started working on some programming projects and really like the ability to switch between multiple spaces with a gesture. browser on space 1, eclipse on space 2, console on space 3. similar to ubuntu's workspaces, but easier to switch between.

the OS differences and keyboard shortcut changes take some getting used to, and im still not there yet.

and i did manage to get civ 4 running on there as well :awe: