Buying advice

steve1960 · Mar 18, 2015

What I have:

Early 2011 15" MBP with 1680x1050 high gloss display, 2.3Ghz i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and 480GB SSD in the optical bay. It was quite a high spec when I bought it in November 2013 then I upgraded the memory and additional SSD. Purchased used on Ebay for $900 and spent an additional $500 on the upgrades.

I have an opportunity to buy a 2013 15" rMBP with 2.0Ghz i7 processor, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $900. I could upgrade the SSD and selling the old MBP would offset some of the total cost.

Motivation for considering this. Desire for the Retina display, fear of Radeongate and its a low cost transition. 16GB of RAM is nice but do I really need it? Probably not I am not a power user.

Would you do it?

yjchua95 · Mar 18, 2015

steve1960 said:
What I have:

Early 2011 15" MBP with 1680x1050 high gloss display, 2.3Ghz i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and 480GB SSD in the optical bay. It was quite a high spec when I bought it in November 2013 then I upgraded the memory and additional SSD. Purchased used on Ebay for $900 and spent an additional $500 on the upgrades.

I have an opportunity to buy a 2013 15" rMBP with 2.0Ghz i7 processor, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $900. I could upgrade the SSD and selling the old MBP would offset some of the total cost.

Motivation for considering this. Desire for the Retina display, fear of Radeongate and its a low cost transition. 16GB of RAM is nice but do I really need it? Probably not I am not a power user.

Would you do it?

If you've to ask, you probably don't need 16GB of RAM.

steve1960 · Mar 18, 2015

So the processor difference is insignificant?

Would it still be a low cost switch if I wanted to put a 750GB to 1TB SSD in the rMBP and are they even available from a third party at that kind of size for that model? I do need the storage space.

yjchua95 · Mar 18, 2015

steve1960 said:
So the processor difference is insignificant?

Would it still be a low cost switch if I wanted to put a 750GB to 1TB SSD in the rMBP and are they even available from a third party at that kind of size for that model? I do need the storage space.

The late-2013 and later rMBPs do not have any third party upgrades available. The SSDs are of a proprietary Apple form factor with a PCIe bus.

The processor difference is very significant only if you do heavily multithreaded tasks. That said, the Iris Pro will be an upgrade from your Radeongate-prone 6750M.

I wouldn't exactly call it a low cost switch. If I were you, I'd wait for the Broadwell-H (or even Skylake-H if Apple chooses to skip Broadwell-H entirely like what Dell did to some of their laptops).

steve1960 · Mar 18, 2015

Ah yes, I was confusing it with the early 2013 rMBP thanks.

But if the RAM is enough (already been pointed out that it is), the processor difference will not be noticeable and the radeongate fears go away it could still be a decent buy if I use external storage. 256GB internal storage is enough for everything except my iTunes library which is 460GB already and still growing.

Why would that not be a low cost solution? It depends on what I get for my current MBP of course but in Singapore the used value holds up better than in the US I think.

Would still be better to have the iTunes library internal not external though.

Maybe you are right, just wait and buy something newer with the right spec. I had not mentioned this will probably be the last laptop I buy due to enforced early retirement later this year.

steve1960 · Mar 30, 2015

steve1960 said:
What I have:

Early 2011 15" MBP with 1680x1050 high gloss display, 2.3Ghz i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and 480GB SSD in the optical bay. It was quite a high spec when I bought it in November 2013 then I upgraded the memory and additional SSD. Purchased used on Ebay for $900 and spent an additional $500 on the upgrades.

I have an opportunity to buy a 2013 15" rMBP with 2.0Ghz i7 processor, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $900. I could upgrade the SSD and selling the old MBP would offset some of the total cost.

Motivation for considering this. Desire for the Retina display, fear of Radeongate and its a low cost transition. 16GB of RAM is nice but do I really need it? Probably not I am not a power user.

Would you do it?

So I did it

Actually sold my early 2011 MBP for $650 and bought the late 2013 rMBP for $730. Waiting for it to arrive by courier tomorrow. Given it really hasn't cost a lot of money I may buy a larger SSD on eBay there seem to be plenty of them around stripped out of other laptops.

Samuelsan2001 · Mar 31, 2015

Sounds like a bargain

steve1960 said:
So I did it

Actually sold my early 2011 MBP for $650 and bought the late 2013 rMBP for $730. Waiting for it to arrive by courier tomorrow. Given it really hasn't cost a lot of money I may buy a larger SSD on eBay there seem to be plenty of them around stripped out of other laptops.

Yeah thats a great deal go for the ebay SSD (the 1TB absolutely flies).

Meister · Mar 31, 2015

recently announced that they replace all macBooks effected by radeongate free of charge.

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steve1960 said:
So I did it

Actually sold my early 2011 MBP for $650 and bought the late 2013 rMBP for $730. Waiting for it to arrive by courier tomorrow. Given it really hasn't cost a lot of money I may buy a larger SSD on eBay there seem to be plenty of them around stripped out of other laptops.

Good deal. Enjoy

steve1960 · Apr 4, 2015

Got scammed on eBay :-( No contact from the seller and never received the laptop :-(

Going through the process of recovering my money from eBays buyer insurance.

So I decided to take the route one approach and just buy Apple refurbished from their web site.

Now have a late 2013 cMBP with 2.3Ghz quad core processor, 16GB Ram and it came with a 512GB SSD which i have replaced with a 1TB SSD which I bought from Korea as I have a big iTunes library.

Selling the 512GB drive to offset the cost

Very happy now

JTToft · Apr 4, 2015

Meister said:
recently announced that they replace all macBooks effected by radeongate free of charge.

- Not really. They'll perform repairs or reimburse users for already performed repairs, not replace entire machines.

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

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