13" Maxed Out Retina MacBook Pro

[psychonaut]

I am looking to finally make the upgrade from my MacBook Late 2008 model.

My Current MacBook Specs:
2.4ghz / 8gb 1067MHz Ram / GeForce 9400M 256mb / Installed a 128 GB SSD drive.

I am looking at the 13" Retina MacBook Pro fully maxed with 3.0ghz i7, 16GB Ram, 1 TB Flash Storage.

My Usage is mainly daily editing in Final Cut Pro X for YouTube videos and work videos. Using transitions, voice overs, titles, etc...

I also plan to use it with applications like Screenflow, Brainshark and Camtasia.

As you can see I don't upgrade often so I would like to know if anyone has thoughts on how well this machine would perform under these circumstances? I should also mention the 15" is not an option for me - I like that it has a quad core but its a little too large to use as a daily carry around town. (I had one at my prior job and did not care for its size).

The only internal debate I have is will future spec bumps to the 13" be much better that I should wait (guessing 4-6 months) or only marginal.

Thank you for any input.

 

[emporiky]

Sounds like a reasonable update, but just keep in mind the the 13'' MBP is far from perfect yet (at least for me). I recently got the mid 2014 model and I could say that there is not much improvement over the 2012 one. There are still some occasional UI performance issues, which for me mean that Iris is not capable of handling the resolution of the retina display.
Otherwise it is a great laptop, but it just seems a bit underpowered sometimes compared to the 15''.

 

[yjchua95]

I am looking to finally make the upgrade from my MacBook Late 2008 model.

My Current MacBook Specs:
2.4ghz / 8gb 1067MHz Ram / GeForce 9400M 256mb / Installed a 128 GB SSD drive.

I am looking at the 13" Retina MacBook Pro fully maxed with 3.0ghz i7, 16GB Ram, 1 TB Flash Storage.

My Usage is mainly daily editing in Final Cut Pro X for YouTube videos and work videos. Using transitions, voice overs, titles, etc...

I also plan to use it with applications like Screenflow, Brainshark and Camtasia.

As you can see I don't upgrade often so I would like to know if anyone has thoughts on how well this machine would perform under these circumstances? I should also mention the 15" is not an option for me - I like that it has a quad core but its a little too large to use as a daily carry around town. (I had one at my prior job and did not care for its size).

The only internal debate I have is will future spec bumps to the 13" be much better that I should wait (guessing 4-6 months) or only marginal.

Thank you for any input.

The base 15" would give a better bang for your buck, solely because of the quad core i7 alone, and Iris Pro (which is heaps better than the pathetic Iris in the 13").

Size is one thing, but performance is almost double compared to the 13", because of the quad core i7 alone.

 

[emporiky]

I agree the 15'' is way more powerful, but for me mobility was also one of my main concerns. I would suggest to get the 13'', try it for a couple of weeks, and if you are not satisfied you can always return it

 

[Max Payne]

I agree with the 2 posters above. 15" is much better.

I was planning to get the 13", but we I compared it with the 15" I realized that it's not worth it.