13" or 15" rmbp

[bonbmdxman]

Hey guys,

I purchased a 15" rmbp a couple weeks ago from Best Buy. I was trying to decide between the 13" and 15" at the time of purchase. I decided to go with the 15" since it was only $200 more (for the configuration I was considering). Ever since Apple dropped the price of the 13" last week, I have been trying to determine if I should return my 15" for a 13" (I'm still within the return window until the end of next week). I did the math, and I could get the same 13" I was originally looking at for $500 less than I paid for my 15". My normal uses are safari, mail, itunes, MS office, windows 7 vm, and some casual iPhoto/imovie work. I've been monitoring how my 15" uses the 2 graphics chips, and the dedicated card only kicks in when I am using iphoto or imovie - otherwise the 15" is always running on the Intel HD 4000 chip. I don't do anything that over-taxes the CPU, so I'm not overly concerned about noticing a big difference going from a quad-core to the dual-core. The main thing I'm considering is the reduction in screen size from 15" to 13". Any advice/guidance you guys are able to provide would be greatly appreciated!

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Hey guys,

I purchased a 15" rmbp a couple weeks ago from Best Buy. I was trying to decide between the 13" and 15" at the time of purchase. I decided to go with the 15" since it was only $200 more (for the configuration I was considering). Ever since Apple dropped the price of the 13" last week, I have been trying to determine if I should return my 15" for a 13" (I'm still within the return window until the end of next week). I did the math, and I could get the same 13" I was originally looking at for $500 less than I paid for my 15". My normal uses are safari, mail, itunes, MS office, windows 7 vm, and some casual iPhoto/imovie work. I've been monitoring how my 15" uses the 2 graphics chips, and the dedicated card only kicks in when I am using iphoto or imovie - otherwise the 15" is always running on the Intel HD 4000 chip. I don't do anything that over-taxes the CPU, so I'm not overly concerned about noticing a big difference going from a quad-core to the dual-core. The main thing I'm considering is the reduction in screen size from 15" to 13". Any advice/guidance you guys are able to provide would be greatly appreciated!

If your usage is light, then the extra performance of the 15" is wasted.

 

[Nismo73]

In the past month I've gone from the 27" Imac, to a 15 rMBP (the latest one 2.7 i7 model) and now finally to my 13" retina that I got yesterday (3.0 i7 / 512gb).

My main use is mail, surfin, some photo and video editing, playing iTunes, very light gaming...iMac and 15 retina were really overkill at this point in my life.

The 13" I received is absolutely flawless, barely hear it by putting my ear up to the keyboard (the 15 I can hear it at normal sitting distance), I type easier on the 13" (used to 13" Air at work), watching some Youtube it doesn't heat up like the 15" as early, still has a decent amount of screen real estate by maximizing windows in ML, everyday use of it is just as fluid if not more than the 15.

With the price drop, a "new" model, lower priced increased storage option - going with the 13" was really the best choice for me. I'm not worried about waiting for Haswell since my needs aren't that demanding of it even though it's essentially my desktop replacement.

Using my new 13 rMBP the past day, I now know this computer was built for me and will enjoy using it from this point and on...

Here's my Cinebench scores: (13" rMBP early 2013 3.0 i7 / 8gb / 512 gb)
OpenGL = 20.55
CPU = 3.42