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2014 13" MacBook Pro base model questions

J

j.benj

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 13, 2012
86
0
Hi all,

I currently have a 2012 non-retina MBP I bought a couple years back to do audio podcasting stuff and it's been great, the 1280x800 resolution worked fine for my needs. Over the last 5-6 months my needs have changed a lot and i've been doing a lot of graphics and coding on top of the podcasting and the limited screen real estate has started to grate on me. I have a little bit of money I can spend on a new MBP and the black friday sale ($1149) price for the 13" retina base model is just about swingable for me.

I've been looking around online for some examples of people running the highest supported scaled resolutions as well as the unsupported native resolution via a 3rd party utility but I haven't been able to find much on the performance of the base model at those resolutions. Is anyone here running the highest supported rez or anything higher that can let me know how the performance is?

My primary uses are going to be Pixelmator, Hype, Affinity Designer and Garageband/Audacity. No video editing, or maybe occasionally iMovie to do basic stuff.

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any feedback you guys can offer :)
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
j.benj said:
Hi all,

I currently have a 2012 non-retina MBP I bought a couple years back to do audio podcasting stuff and it's been great, the 1280x800 resolution worked fine for my needs. Over the last 5-6 months my needs have changed a lot and i've been doing a lot of graphics and coding on top of the podcasting and the limited screen real estate has started to grate on me. I have a little bit of money I can spend on a new MBP and the black friday sale ($1149) price for the 13" retina base model is just about swingable for me.

I've been looking around online for some examples of people running the highest supported scaled resolutions as well as the unsupported native resolution via a 3rd party utility but I haven't been able to find much on the performance of the base model at those resolutions. Is anyone here running the highest supported rez or anything higher that can let me know how the performance is?

My primary uses are going to be Pixelmator, Hype, Affinity Designer and Garageband/Audacity. No video editing, or maybe occasionally iMovie to do basic stuff.

Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any feedback you guys can offer :)
Click to expand...

Save up a bit more and go for the 15". The extra 2", plus Iris Pro and the quad core makes a big difference.
 
Z

Zerka

macrumors member
Oct 31, 2014
74
0
San Jose,CA
yjchua95 said:
Save up a bit more and go for the 15". The extra 2", plus Iris Pro and the quad core makes a big difference.
Click to expand...

I'd second this. If you're doing some high-performance tasks I'm not sure the base 13" will cut it. I've used it before and I just can't vouch for it. If you're doing programming or graphic design (FWIW I do quite a bit as well) you'll want the 15". Of course you can always run the 13" at a higher resolution, but for me it causes eye strain, especially when you get to those long, tedious lines of code. If your budget and time allows, go for the base 15". If you're in a tight spot and your need a new laptop soon, I'd say try out another Windows PC for the same price as the 13", but the specs of the base 15". My 15" Lenovo Y500 cost me around $1200 and came equipped with i7 2.4 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD+50 GB SSD, and dual (SLI) graphics, nVidia 750m's. The only downside was the battery, which I'm lucky to get 2.5 hours on now.
 
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