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kingtj

macrumors 68030
Oct 23, 2003
2,606
749
Brunswick, MD
re: 17" vs 15" Retina

If you're still happier with your 17" MB Pro than anything new from Apple, then great! Nothing wrong with using the tool that works best for you, or getting your money's worth out of the purchase for that matter.

I'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong. I'm just sharing my own experience, where I was surprised to discover the new Retina 15" met my needs a lot better than I initially thought it would, vs. the 17" MBP I carried around before it.

Certainly, Apple has taken things away (like the optical drive), which seems to be a deal-breaker for some people. But that's just the nature of things. Optical media is slowly on the way out - even though there are people making a good living putting data on optical discs for clients, as we speak.

As I work in I.T. (computer support), I still run into situations where a CDR or DVDR is my best option.... Happens a lot when I need to make a special boot disc for a machine, and getting a USB stick to boot and work properly becomes a struggle. Still, these situations don't warrant carrying around a bulkier laptop with an internal optical drive. I just attach an external USB one, as needed.

You mention the dual SSD's in RAID 0 config, which I assume may be one of your big motivations to stick with the 17". (Remove the optical drive and cram a second SSD in the machine to do RAID? I didn't read the entire thread to see if you already discussed that earlier ....) A side by side comparison with the new Retina 15" disk performance would be interesting, and I don't know if anyone's done that one or not? The new Retina 15" uses PCIe for the SSD though, which has a better maximum throughput rate than the SATA connection used in the 17" MB Pro. Whether or not the proprietary SSD utilizes enough that bandwidth to outperform a dual SATA SSD RAID 0 configuration is another question.

I'm pretty sure Apple did their homework before cancelling the 17" model of the notebooks, concluding (as I did) that most of the time, it's not really necessary for people.

Maybe as the cost of building Retina displays drops, they'll re introduce a 17" to the lineup? Otherwise, yeah - you might be one of the "edge case" users they're not going to cater to anymore.


Well, the Retinas are not a viable replacement for me, based on the list I posted previously. I A/B'd the machines, side by side. For me, there's still no comparison. The Retina takes stuff away from the 17 that I still use. Until the criteria I prefer is offered by the Retinas, I'm hanging with the larger.

And I guess you had to be there in the Apple Store with me. A lot of people were impressed with the 17's screen, particularly since I had it next to a 15" Retina. That says something.

Now, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'd like to see someone A/B a maxed out Retina 15 and a top-of-the-line 17" with 2 SSDs in RAID 0. Until then, I can't really know how much faster a Retina is, and everything is pure conjecture.

Portability is not a concern for me; 1-inch thick (thin?) and 6.6lbs is both light and sexy in my book still for such a large screened device.

So, this debate is moot, really. It's like trying to convince a Note 3 lover to downsize to an iPhone 4s, or vice-versa. For some, bigger is better. For others, not so much.

Apple has sided with the latter, unfortunately, instead of catering to both, like they used to.

Oh well. Can't support a company that doesn't build stuff I want... :mad:
 
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diane143

macrumors 6502a
Oct 25, 2008
718
66
The Macbook Air is configurable to 512GB of flash storage and the Macbook Pro is configurable to 1TB. If you need more than that from a portable you might want to look into some cloud services.

The SSD upgrades and cloud storage are more expensive than just having the drive internally though....
 
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