Resolved Will this meet my needs? (2015 rMB)

Michael Goff · Apr 17, 2015

I'm going to start off with the obvious statement that this isn't a slight against my SP3, just the fact that I'm thinking about starting to type more things and the keyboard cover is ... not as good for prolonged use. Also, I use it on my lap in bed a lot.

My needs:
> Good word processing ability with a good keyboard
> Nice screen
> Fast browsing
> Portable is nice, since I'm likely going to be porting this thing around the house and maybe to family's houses if I go see them

I don't need a lot of power or a lot of ports. I loved the touchpad on the MBA when I had one.

Is this a good fit for me or is it overpriced for my needs? The only concerns I have are:

> Speed of the Core M
> Cost (Or "Is this worth it?)
> Screen (or how good is a 12" screen to use for prolonged periods)

Thanks in advance.

close2reality · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
I'm going to start off with the obvious statement that this isn't a slight against my SP3, just the fact that I'm thinking about starting to type more things and the keyboard cover is ... not as good for prolonged use. Also, I use it on my lap in bed a lot.

My needs:
> Good word processing ability with a good keyboard
> Nice screen
> Fast browsing
> Portable is nice, since I'm likely going to be porting this thing around the house and maybe to family's houses if I go see them

I don't need a lot of power or a lot of ports. I loved the touchpad on the MBA when I had one.

Is this a good fit for me or is it overpriced for my needs? The only concerns I have are:

> Speed
> Cost
> Screen size

Thanks in advance.

you just described a tablet with a keyboard. so yes.

OrdinaryAvgGuy · Apr 17, 2015

close2reality said:
you just described a tablet with a keyboard. so yes.

I don't consider the word processing experience on a tablet excellent, or even good.

Michael Goff · Apr 17, 2015

close2reality said:
you just described a tablet with a keyboard. so yes.

I've tried a tablet with a keyboard, though. Then again, I was the one pushing for Apple to have made this with ARM instead... so *shrug*.

My question was more based around the keyboard, the speed of browsing (40 or so tabs), and the amount of stuff on the screen.

----------

OrdinaryAvgGuy said:
I don't consider the word processing experience on a tablet excellent, or even good.

That's one of my problems. I can't get used to tablet keyboards, not even the Type Cover. Well, not for longer periods anyway.

mattopotamus · Apr 17, 2015

yes, this is the device for you. You literally described what it is made for. I like the old keyboard feel better. The sound on the new keyboard is very satisfying though

cfedu · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
Is this a good fit for me or is it overpriced for my needs? The only concerns I have are:

> Speed
> Cost
> Screen size

Thanks in advance.

If those are your concerns then this is not for you.

If your needs are:

Portability
screen quality
Keyboard
trackpad

I would say this is a great product.

close2reality · Apr 17, 2015

cfedu said:
If those are your concerns then this is not for you.

If your needs are:

Portability
screen quality
Keyboard
trackpad

I would say this is a great product.

....marry me.

Michael Goff · Apr 17, 2015

cfedu said:
If those are your concerns then this is not for you.

If your needs are:

Portability
screen quality
Keyboard
trackpad

I would say this is a great product.

When I say "concerns", I meant relative to this device. I'm concerned about the Core M's speeds, as I read it's essentially a 2011 MBA. I'm also concerned about the cost to what it does ratio, and the screen size in terms of what a 12" MB actually means for typing. Maybe my first post wasn't clear about that.\

Edit: For the record, what would you suggest if not this?

close2reality · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
When I say "concerns", I meant relative to this device. I'm concerned about the Core M's speeds, as I read it's essentially a 2011 MBA. I'm also concerned about the cost to what it does ratio, and the screen size in terms of what a 12" MB actually means for typing. Maybe my first post wasn't clear about that.

So pretty much your thinking rationally...which 90% of this board does not.

So to answer your question, the cost to "does" ratio is horrible.

The Core M is not a very powerful processor, they had to use it to be fanless. It's the nature of the beast right now if you want something that is fanless.

Michael Goff · Apr 17, 2015

close2reality said:
So pretty much your thinking rationally...which 90% of this board does not.

So to answer your question, the cost to "does" ratio is horrible.

The Core M is not a very powerful processor, they had to use it to be fanless. It's the nature of the beast right now if you want something that is fanless.

What would you suggest, then? I miss OS X, and I don't see the SP 3 running it well any time soon.

close2reality · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
What would you suggest, then? I miss OS X, and I don't see the SP 3 running it well any time soon.

For $100 less you can get the MBP 13" baseline, they just raised the processor speeds for the baseline models and has the new trackpad.

If you are trying to stay within the budget of that kind of money, and want the most bang for your buck then I would advise you to go with the baseline 13" rMBP.

Im just not at all a believer of the new rMB's. Maybe in a few years.

Nor do I think the dimensions and weight of the rMB are practical......their not. Not on a 12" real estate and a Core M anyway.

When Apple figures out how to put a respectable processor inside of that thing, with a larger screen....then it should be delivered. It's way overpriced for what it is at this point and time.

----------

Wait....if your not going to tax it anymore than your Surface than yes get the rMB if you don't mind spending the money for the extra design.

I only just saw you had a Surface......but if your looking for an upgrade from a surface I would as I said stick to the rMBP's.

fatefulwhisper · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
My question was more based around the keyboard, the speed of browsing (40 or so tabs), and the amount of stuff on the screen.

Note: I have the 1.2GHz/512 MacBook

The keyboard is more of a subjective thing rather than objective; you'd have to try it at the store to know if you like or hate it. Personally, I love it.

I tried opening 40 tabs (on Google Chrome, not Safari); went into Google News and just opened up every link on their first page; half of the tabs were running videos (like CNN, etc.), and the CPU shot up to 30%, but frame rate stayed at a steady 60fps the whole time, esp while watching streaming videos on one of the tabs. I think Safari would handle it better than Chrome, but I prefer Chrome; I don't like using Safari.

Not sure about having a lot of "stuff" on the screen, but I had about 10 apps open if that helps any? Probably need to be more specific on what apps you run day to day.

Overall, it performs as well, if not better than my 2013 MBA 11". It did not feel like a netbook to me at all, and I've used netbooks before. This is not anywhere close to one, and I wouldn't dare push it so hard (esp loading 40 tabs...) on a netbook.

Michael Goff · Apr 17, 2015

close2reality said:
For $100 less you can get the MBP 13" baseline, they just raised the processor speeds for the baseline models and has the new trackpad.

If you are trying to stay within the budget of that kind of money, and want the most bang for your buck then I would advise you to go with the baseline 13" rMBP.

Im just not at all a believer of the new rMB's. Maybe in a few years.

Nor do I think the dimensions and weight of the rMB are practical......their not. Not on a 12" real estate and a Core M anyway.

When Apple figures out how to put a respectable processor inside of that thing, with a larger screen....then it should be delivered. It's way overpriced for what it is at this point and time.

I had thought about getting the rMBP at one point, but then I read that it has UI lag and thought again. I always overthink these things.

----------

close2reality said:
Wait....if your not going to tax it anymore than your Surface than yes get the rMB if you don't mind spending the money for the extra design.

I only just saw you had a Surface......but if your looking for an upgrade from a surface I would as I said stick to the rMBP's.

Yeah, my SP 3 is powerful enough to meet my needs. I have a desktop computer for heavy lifting. My only problem is that I threw Windows 10 on it and it sometimes lags and has some bugs you'd expect from a beta OS. Oh, and the keyboard... but I said that.

fatefulwhisper said:
Note: I have the 1.2GHz/512 MacBook

The keyboard is more of a subjective thing rather than objective; you'd have to try it at the store to know if you like or hate it. Personally, I love it.

I tried opening 40 tabs (on Google Chrome, not Safari); went into Google News and just opened up every link on their first page; half of the tabs were running videos (like CNN, etc.), and the CPU shot up to 30%, but frame rate stayed at a steady 60fps the whole time, esp while watching streaming videos on one of the tabs. I think Safari would handle it better than Chrome, but I prefer Chrome; I don't like using Safari.

Not sure about having a lot of "stuff" on the screen, but I had about 10 apps open if that helps any? Probably need to be more specific on what apps you run day to day.

Overall, it performs as well, if not better than my 2013 MBA 11". It did not feel like a netbook to me at all, and I've used netbooks before. This is not anywhere close to one, and I wouldn't dare push it so hard (esp loading 40 tabs...) on a netbook.

I meant screen real estate. I wear glasses, my eyes aren't perfect. I need to be able to actually look at the text, maybe some good pictures, and so forth. The MBA was good, aside from the screen quality, but I'm iffy on the single inch with the same resolution. I don't mean stuff as in many apps but stuff as in being able to look at a lot of things without causing undue stress on my eyes.

Thanks for the input.

This is not an easy decision.

close2reality · Apr 17, 2015

The sole fact real estate and running windows 10 is important for you....I would say it's time to drop the surface and buy a rMBP.

You will be a lot happier running a VM or BootCamp on a rMBP, and appreciate the extra real estate, and having the retina.

If there is any UI lag on a 13" baseline rMBP I guarantee it's the lesser of two evils compared to the rMB.

fatefulwhisper · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
I meant screen real estate. I wear glasses, my eyes aren't perfect. I need to be able to actually look at the text, maybe some good pictures, and so forth. The MBA was good, aside from the screen quality, but I'm iffy on the single inch with the same resolution. I don't mean stuff as in many apps but stuff as in being able to look at a lot of things without causing undue stress on my eyes.

Thanks for the input.

This is not an easy decision.

Ahh gotcha. I also have bad eyes as well (eyes are -8 & -8.5, so thick glasses) I now own both the MBA 11" (which I will be selling) and the rMB 12", and I can tell you that comparing the two screens up close, I've been missing out on using a retina screen for so long. The 12" retina's screen is much richer & sharper than the 11". I also kind of feel it's subjective, so you'd have to goto the store to see it for yourself to really make a decision. I saw it at the store first and I was impressed. I've seen the retina screens on the 13" and 15" before, just never liked the size of them (again, this is just personal preference).

That being said, it's not the perfect machine, and if you need a bigger screen, I would recommend 13 or 15" too. I'm simply just saying that the 12" screen looks much sharper/better than the 11" one I had. And I've owned the 11" for 2 years now. The pictures are definitely more vivid, colors are deeper, small text is so much easier to read. I'm seeing details I never saw on the 11" MBA. Overall, I love it. But I guess that's a given, since the quality of the MBA TN screens are crap.

cairene2011 · Apr 17, 2015

I don't know anything about the rMB, but I come from one of the 2011 MBAs you mentioned. I used my (1.8 GHz i7 4GB) MBA up until January of this year as my only machine, for iMovie editing, huge aperture library and long (40+ Pages) word documents, Minecraft and Sims 3 (on reasonable, power saving settings) and it didn't even stutter.

So if the rMB is truly like the 2011 MBA, then I don't think you need to be worried about the speed.

newellj · Apr 17, 2015

close2reality said:
you just described a tablet with a keyboard. so yes.

Apparently there are people so clueless that they don't understand the difference between a mobile OS and a desktop OS.

Michael Goff · Apr 17, 2015

close2reality said:
The sole fact real estate and running windows 10 is important for you....I would say it's time to drop the surface and buy a rMBP.

You will be a lot happier running a VM or BootCamp on a rMBP, and appreciate the extra real estate, and having the retina.

If there is any UI lag on a 13" baseline rMBP I guarantee it's the lesser of two evils compared to the rMB.

Actually, running OS X is most important. I was simply stating that the Surface's problems mainly come from running a beta OS. I'm going to be moving all my portable computing to Apple whenever possible. Windows 10 will still be my gaming OS, though.

But I'm likely going to be going with the rMBP. You do make an excellent case. How's the screen compare between the two?

fatefulwhisper said:
Ahh gotcha. I also have bad eyes as well (eyes are -8 & -8.5, so thick glasses) I now own both the MBA 11" (which I will be selling) and the rMB 12", and I can tell you that comparing the two screens up close, I've been missing out on using a retina screen for so long. The 12" retina's screen is much richer & sharper than the 11". I also kind of feel it's subjective, so you'd have to goto the store to see it for yourself to really make a decision. I saw it at the store first and I was impressed. I've seen the retina screens on the 13" and 15" before, just never liked the size of them (again, this is just personal preference).

That being said, it's not the perfect machine, and if you need a bigger screen, I would recommend 13 or 15" too. I'm simply just saying that the 12" screen looks much sharper/better than the 11" one I had. And I've owned the 11" for 2 years now. The pictures are definitely more vivid, colors are deeper, small text is so much easier to read. I'm seeing details I never saw on the 11" MBA. Overall, I love it. But I guess that's a given, since the quality of the MBA TN screens are crap.

How would you say the screen of the rMB and the rMBP compare?

fatefulwhisper · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
How would you say the screen of the rMB and the rMBP compare?

The screen on the rMBP is just bigger (obviously). You can look up the resolution specs on Apple's site if you require a specific resolution to meet your needs. The best screen I ever saw was the iMac 5K retina. That one blew me away.

But in terms of picture quality and ease on the eyes, they are the same or equal (to me). I would rate the retina screen as very comfortable on the eyes, and picture quality is excellent. Again, my eyes are not the best, so I can only give you my personal opinion; again, you'd have to look at the screen at the store. Pictures don't do it justice.

Also, I want to note that I'm a software developer, so I look at text ALL day, everyday; so the quality of the screen is very important since I like looking at small text (so I can see more code crammed in the screen).

newellj · Apr 17, 2015

fatefulwhisper said:
The screen on the rMBP is just bigger (obviously). You can look up the resolution specs on Apple's site if you require a specific resolution to meet your needs. The best screen I ever saw was the iMac 5K retina. That one blew me away.

But in terms of picture quality and ease on the eyes, they are the same or equal (to me). I would rate the retina screen as very comfortable on the eyes, and picture quality is excellent. Again, my eyes are not the best, so I can only give you my personal opinion; again, you'd have to look at the screen at the store. Pictures don't do it justice.

Also, I want to note that I'm a software developer, so I look at text ALL day, everyday; so the quality of the screen is very important since I like looking at small text (so I can see more code crammed in the screen).

The DPI is within one - I think 226 and 227, IIRC. Anandtech's review of the display puts it ahead of any of the other Apple laptop retina displays.

My work often requires having two documents open side by side. That is a little easier on the 13" rMBP, but not a whole lot.

As a TLDR for the OP, your stated needs seem to line up very well with the rMB if portability is a factor in your decision. The 13" rMBP isn't exactly a boat anchor but it's noticeably heavier without being noticeably more useful - for me and my mobil computing needs. I have two desktops for when I need really heavy hauling.

johngwheeler · Apr 17, 2015

Michael Goff said:
I've tried a tablet with a keyboard, though. Then again, I was the one pushing for Apple to have made this with ARM instead... so *shrug*.

My question was more based around the keyboard, the speed of browsing (40 or so tabs), and the amount of stuff on the screen.

----------

That's one of my problems. I can't get used to tablet keyboards, not even the Type Cover. Well, not for longer periods anyway.

This. I have an iPad 2 with a Logitech keyboard (the best I could find), and whilst its ok-ish for typing, it's too small for anything more than writing a couple of pages without getting a bit frustrated.

Also, regarding browsing, one of my biggest gripes with my iPad (admittedly now quite only with only 512GB memory) is that browser tabs constantly have to reload. A full Mac OS X computer with 8GB RAM will a lot better in this respect.

where is it · Apr 21, 2016

Michael Goff said:
I'm going to start off with the obvious statement that this isn't a slight against my SP3, just the fact that I'm thinking about starting to type more things and the keyboard cover is ... not as good for prolonged use. Also, I use it on my lap in bed a lot.

My needs:
> Good word processing ability with a good keyboard
> Nice screen
> Fast browsing
> Portable is nice, since I'm likely going to be porting this thing around the house and maybe to family's houses if I go see them

I don't need a lot of power or a lot of ports. I loved the touchpad on the MBA when I had one.

Is this a good fit for me or is it overpriced for my needs? The only concerns I have are:

> Speed of the Core M
> Cost (Or "Is this worth it?)
> Screen (or how good is a 12" screen to use for prolonged periods)

Thanks in advance.

To be fair, what you have described is the usage of every laptop created since the 1990's... Some were better than others mind you.

So yes, if you would like a mobile computer with a keyboard strapped on and a screen attached, all included in one fixed (albeit large) price then press the buy button now! Before they are all gone.

Resolved Will this meet my needs? (2015 rMB)

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