OWC Shares Mid-2014 Retina MacBook Pro Unboxing, SSD Tests

Here is the 512GB SSD with Encryption turned on.

The Mercurian said:

But.......they just got cheaper by a couple of hundred !?! I think you are confused.

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I paid $1500 for my 15" MBP a few years ago. Tell me how paying over 2K is cheaper? I know the components have been upgraded but the quality is relatively the same.

Dayadan said:

So I'm guessing that is the new Mid 2014 Retina with a 2.6ghz processor right?
If that's the cause I wonder how much of a performance hit filevault takes.

This is a BlackMagic Test of the late 2013 13" Retina I picked up a few weeks ago.

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That last x not being checked off would drive me crazy.

Pretty much dashes my hopes of Apple making a laptop for me..

I pretty much knew this already, but this looks like it seals the deal. Apple will produce a computer with a joke of a cpu, totally inadequate memory, an absurdly small amount of file storage, not upgradeable and not repairable, BUT they draw the line at a display that isn't magnificent. Or at least I've been told it's magnificent, because I wear glasses and can't see any difference.

I can't afford $3,000+ to put a usable (to me) computer under that pretty screen...

The ability to trade off the performance of various subsystems to lower the price to something that a particular user can afford ended with the Ivy Bridge. At least if the particular user is a software developer who needs to run and test big cpu-intensive programs.

I guess I'm the only programmer left who wants to buy an Apple laptop, or at least the only programmer without a trust fund to waste on completely unneeded pretty things.

*sigh*

cathyf123 said:

I guess I'm the only programmer left who wants to buy an Apple laptop, or at least the only programmer without a trust fund to waste on completely unneeded pretty things.

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Using an expensive Apple notebook as a development platform is a poor choice when compared to buying a Mac Mini with a third party keyboard, mouse, and display. Maybe two displays for seeing more source code at the same time.

Does anyone really do serious development when traveling or in other situations when a notebook is necessary? Having a big display, a full size keyboard, and not having to worry about the battery charge are all good reasons to design, develop, and test with a desktop. Coding in a coffee shop may impress some onlookers, but it will annoy the waitstaff. That expensive notebook is also much more prone to damage and theft than the desktop sitting at home or at work.

Thermonuclear said:

Using an expensive Apple notebook as a development platform is a poor choice when compared to buying a Mac Mini with a third party keyboard, mouse, and display. Maybe two displays for seeing more source code at the same time.

Does anyone really do serious development when traveling or in other situations when a notebook is necessary? Having a big display, a full size keyboard, and not having to worry about the battery charge are all good reasons to design, develop, and test with a desktop. Coding in a coffee shop may impress some onlookers, but it will annoy the waitstaff. That expensive notebook is also much more prone to damage and theft than the desktop sitting at home or at work.

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nonsense. sometimes we develop at home, sometimes we develop in a plane, sometimes we develop at a coffee shop. we use different machines depending on location. as for a coffee shop, only an insecure neurotic would think about the waitstaff or impressing onlookers when doing work and engaging the business by purchasing their products.

wow how did I miss new a mbp release?

b_scott said:

wow how did I miss new a mbp release?

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Because it's an extremely small refresh, nothing special at all.

cathyf123 said:

I pretty much knew this already, but this looks like it seals the deal. Apple will produce a computer with a joke of a cpu, totally inadequate memory, an absurdly small amount of file storage, not upgradeable and not repairable, BUT they draw the line at a display that isn't magnificent. Or at least I've been told it's magnificent, because I wear glasses and can't see any difference.

I can't afford $3,000+ to put a usable (to me) computer under that pretty screen...

The ability to trade off the performance of various subsystems to lower the price to something that a particular user can afford ended with the Ivy Bridge. At least if the particular user is a software developer who needs to run and test big cpu-intensive programs.

I guess I'm the only programmer left who wants to buy an Apple laptop, or at least the only programmer without a trust fund to waste on completely unneeded pretty things.

*sigh*

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What laptop, exactly, are you talking about? Because it seems like you are either A) confused or B) know very little about the laptop market.

Just because you have poor vision doesn't make the Retina display useless for everyone else. It's a gorgeous display. And it's a very thin system with tight power and thermal constraints, so it's not like Apple could throw in dual SLI titans or a 12 core Xeon...try finding a cheaper laptop, with equal build quality (ie. not plastic), with a retina display, and equal specs at the same price range. I wish you the best of luck with that.

It seems like you're one of those people who think Apple shouldn't care about making it thin and throw in max specs instead. But I'm certain that if they had done that, you would post on here shrieking "but it's so thick!" You can criticize the machine, but there comes a point where it becomes more of a matter of opinion than anything else.

I am a programmer myself and I have found the retina MacBook Pro to be an invaluable computer, it is still screaming fast after 2 years.

Thermonuclear said:

Using an expensive Apple notebook as a development platform is a poor choice when compared to buying a Mac Mini with a third party keyboard, mouse, and display. Maybe two displays for seeing more source code at the same time.

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A colleague from our corporate offices visited here with just this setup. (His predecessor had a 2005 17-inch PowerPC laptop and he wanted to replace the hard drive with flash in 2010. So he agreed to put the computer on a SEVEN YEAR depreciation -- from 2010! -- to get his flash. Then got himself fired a few months later -- this was not the only example of the guy's obnoxiously arrogant incompetence -- leaving his successor with an ancient creaky laptop that can't be replaced until 2017.) He put his backpack on the desk, pulled out the mini which was wrapped in a thick towel, and asked for a keyboard, mouse and monitor. We all agreed that this was about the most pathetic dorkiest thing we've ever seen outside of a windoze shop...

AxoNeuron said:

What laptop, exactly, are you talking about? Because it seems like you are either A) confused or B) know very little about the laptop market.

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In 2012, there was a 15-inch MBP without retina line and a 15-inch with retina line, with low-performance, mid-performance, and high-performance options on each line. So I could get the highest performance computer (8GB ram, 1TB disk, 2.7 gHZ quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge) without a retina for about the same price as a mid-performance computer with the retina. Sure, I'm happy to take a retina if it's free, but it's far from free. In 2012 the latest and greatest top-of-the-line computer underneath a retina display was $3,400, while the latest-and-greatest without the retina was $2,600. The non-upgradability is a huge issue for me, too -- every MBP that I've bought (starting with the original in 2006) I have doubled the memory within the first year for about $100, while buying it initially with that amount of memory would have cost $500-$700 more.

I don't blame Apple for abandoning the product, because they didn't sell that many of the non-retinas. (MacMall liquidated the 2.7 gHz i7 Ivy Bridge MBPs for $2,000 last year.) What I blame them for is losing all of the geek customers...

Edited to add:

I also am intimately familiar with apple laptops, having bought my first one in 1995... With the 2012 product line, I bought six 13-inch MBAs for reporters and three 13-inch MBPs for photographers. They were the same price. The reason that we went with the MBPs for the photographers is that they consume huge amounts of disk space and we couldn't afford the storage they needed in an MBA. A year later when it came time to buy four laptops for sports reporters there was absolutely no question that we were going for the MBPs. Now matter how much I scold them and threaten beatings, our reporters abuse the MBAs in terrifying ways. I keep waiting for one of them to stick a finger through a screen in the middle of a rant. And it's a wonder that they can see their displays at all, with the coating of grime that they put on them in just a few days.

So it isn't just the programmer market that is being abandoned. If Apple doesn't come up with laptops with adequate specs that we can afford, then we are well and truly screwed.

Late Spring MacbookPro Win 8.1 Boot Camped.

Señor said:

Because it's an extremely small refresh, nothing special at all.

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I hope it doesn't take another year for a refresh. I am on a mid 2010 MBP and I'd like to upgrade soon.

SSD for Macbook

I have Macbook Pro 2012, I am looking to buy a SSD. I just want to know is there any SSD that I can buy which can work in both macbook pro and air. As I my next laptop will be the air. if this is possible then I can simply switch the hard drive and save money in the future

Thanks

sam47 said:

I have Macbook Pro 2012, I am looking to buy a SSD. I just want to know is there any SSD that I can buy which can work in both macbook pro and air. As I my next laptop will be the air. if this is possible then I can simply switch the hard drive and save money in the future

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As far as I understand, you cannot get into either the Pro/Retina or the Air to get anything (disk or memory) in or out. (That was what I was whining about; that Apple no longer sells a machine that can be upgraded or even serviced.) The ways that Apple locks you out include non-standard screws, and glued-together and/or soldered-together cases and components. They even lock themselves out -- when you send in a machine for "repair" they send you a used trade-in machine and throw yours away because they can't get into them either.

It looks like the SSD can be swapped in both the pro and air, there are videos online showing how to do it. In the case of the air the main issue is that third parties don't seem to be making SSD upgrades in that form factor yet.

The notion that even Apple can't repair anything and just throws every machine with a problem away is ridiculous. Most electronics companies often swap for a replacement machine just because turn around time is quicker. But they still repair the machines traded in unless something is truly unfixable.

milo said:

It looks like the SSD can be swapped in both the pro and air, there are videos online showing how to do it. In the case of the air the main issue is that third parties don't seem to be making SSD upgrades in that form factor yet.

The notion that even Apple can't repair anything and just throws every machine with a problem away is ridiculous. Most electronics companies often swap for a replacement machine just because turn around time is quicker. But they still repair the machines traded in unless something is truly unfixable.

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That's good to know... When the MBP/R first came out, OWC tore it down to investigate fixing them. They estimated that it would cost $1,000 to $2,000 in labor to do something like replace a bad video chip. And it's the same story for a MBA or iPad -- where a brand new machine will cost way less. This is what environmentalists have been screaming about, because it means that stuff gets thrown away rather than repaired, and can't even be scavenged for parts in an economical way.

cathyf123 said:

That's good to know... When the MBP/R first came out, OWC tore it down to investigate fixing them. They estimated that it would cost $1,000 to $2,000 in labor to do something like replace a bad video chip. And it's the same story for a MBA or iPad -- where a brand new machine will cost way less. This is what environmentalists have been screaming about, because it means that stuff gets thrown away rather than repaired, and can't even be scavenged for parts in an economical way.

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On a laptop it's extremely common for video chips to be soldered onto the motherboard. Or nowadays, on many machines there isn't even a video chip, it's built into the CPU. But things like hard drive/SSD are totally different, there's plenty that can be repaired but other components are hard if not impossible to repair if they're integrated into a larger part.

The environmentalists can scream all they want, and it is unfortunate that electronic devices aren't as repairable as they used to be. But it's a trade off, devices are increasingly assembled by automation and are cheaper and much more compact. Inability to repair is not remotely unique to mac laptops, there are parts that can fail in any computer, laptop or desktop, or any other electronic device that can't be repaired, at least not cheaper than replacing the whole thing. The situation is worse in mobile devices since soldering more parts in instead of letting them be modular saves space. But there are virtually no electronic devices any more that have all parts repairable, and it has been that way for at least a couple decades.