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17" MBP...

M

MarkLal

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 28, 2011
116
13
A long time Mac user. Had been using a 17" MBP until now. It still works fine for me, but decided to finally move up to the retina screen. And use the old one as a secondary unit.
So, here it goes-- Initially bought the 15" Mid-2015 MBPr with the M370x for my home-office. Since I had been accustomed to the 17" screen, that felt small so returned the MBPr and got the 27" 5k iMac. That felt ginormous in my home-office, so had to return that too. Bought the 21.5" 4k iMac, that too felt too big.
So bought the 15" MBPr again and finally getting used to the smaller screen.

I just wish Apple also had 17" MBPr model to offer, would have been perfect for me. Anybody else miss the 17 incher or am I the only one?
 
give it time, you'll adapt. amazed you got to try and return both macs...only to come back to the 15". i have a friend who moved from a 17" imac to a newer 20". she freaked when we set it up. wanted to know if i could 'contain' the screen to the space of her 17" screen! but within a week, she was fine. a little time, and you'll forget the 17" (and it's weight, heat, dimmer screen/keyboard, slower cpu, etc etc).
 
fisherking said:
give it time, you'll adapt. amazed you got to try and return both macs...only to come back to the 15". i have a friend who moved from a 17" imac to a newer 20". she freaked when we set it up. wanted to know if i could 'contain' the screen to the space of her 17" screen! but within a week, she was fine. a little time, and you'll forget the 17" (and it's weight, heat, dimmer screen/keyboard, slower cpu, etc etc).
Click to expand...

I LOVED the 5k iMac, just did not want to re-pack and take it back. But the way my setup is at the moment, just seemed too uncomfortable for daily use.

The only the thing I miss about my 17" MBP is the 17 inches of screen space. Nothing else. At the end of the day it's just 2 inches, but initially seemed like a difference of 20 inches.
 
Have you played with the resolution on the 15"?

It may make it more useable for you.
 
The 15" rMBP is a better laptop in every regard. No, I certainly don't miss the 17" model.
 
austinpike said:
shhh.... you will anger those who have decreed that there is no reason anyone should want a 17" screen.
Apple doesn't make it, therefore you don't need it.

Unless they decide to make one again. Then it will be revolutionary.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...t-17-macbook-pro-with-retina-display.1832254/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/born-again-17-5k-laptop-coming.1904460/
Click to expand...

I'd love a 17" screen, but I'm also realistic and not surprised it got cut. With resolution scaling options, the 15" rMBP can do everything the old 17" could. Physical screen size alone is hardly enough to spend the R&D the 17". Nor would it sell very well being that the 15" rMBP is already expensive.

It'd be one thing if the 17" offered more options over the old 15" like a beefier GPU or dual drives. Instead it was just an over sized 15".
 
I have that one:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...5-17-late-2011-unibody-thunderbolt-specs.html

With a very nice anti-glare (matte) display (silver bezels). :) 2 SSDs and 16GB 2133 MHz RAM.

I really love it, but I am missing USB 3.0, TB 2.0 (or even TB 3.0/USB-C 3.1) and BT 4.0 and of course a higher screen resolution than 1920x1200, a PCIe-SSD would also be nice. CPU and GPU seems to be fast enough for my purposes.
And instead of the speakers left and right to the keyboard, there would be enough room for a numeric keypad.


The only alternative now is an iMac and definitely not the crippled 21.5-inch model.
 
Erdbeertorte said:
I have that one:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...5-17-late-2011-unibody-thunderbolt-specs.html

With a very nice anti-glare (matte) display (silver bezels). :) 2 SSDs and 16GB 2133 MHz RAM.

I really love it, but I am missing USB 3.0, TB 2.0 (or even TB 3.0/USB-C 3.1) and BT 4.0 and of course a higher screen resolution than 1920x1200, a PCIe-SSD would also be nice. CPU and GPU seems to be fast enough for my purposes.
And instead of the speakers left and right to the keyboard, there would be enough room for a numeric keypad.


The only alternative now is an iMac and definitely not the crippled 21.5-inch model.
Click to expand...

The 21.5 inch is not crippled and would spank that 17 inch MBP all over the place with it's performance, on the one hand you say that the CPU and GPU in that old 17 inch is fine for you and then denigrate a much more powerful machine as being crippled.
 
Samuelsan2001 said:
The 21.5 inch is not crippled
Click to expand...
I wouldn't use the term crippled but I do think apple cut many corners in the 4k iMac, including the lack of dGPU, inclusion of a 5400 rpm drive in its stock configuration and using only 24GB of flash in its 1TB fusion drive (old 1TB fusion drive had 128GB of flash storage)
 
maflynn said:
I wouldn't use the term crippled but I do think apple cut many corners in the 4k iMac, including the lack of dGPU, inclusion of a 5400 rpm drive in its stock configuration and using only 24GB of flash in its 1TB fusion drive (old 1TB fusion drive had 128GB of flash storage)
Click to expand...

The stock config should have a 24Gb fusion I agree with that and the upgrade to a 128Gb/2TB fusion should be no more than $100, but the dGPU they would use would be little better than the IRIS PRO they used so can't see why you'd want another part to go wrong that'll give you a little better gaming and not a lot else.
 
Samuelsan2001 said:
The 21.5 inch is not crippled and would spank that 17 inch MBP all over the place with it's performance, on the one hand you say that the CPU and GPU in that old 17 inch is fine for you and then denigrate a much more powerful machine as being crippled.
Click to expand...

I mainly meant the soldered RAM. I have to pay 240 Euro to upgrade from 8 to 16GB with 1867MHz and can never upgrade to more or faster RAM. I paid only 189 Euro for 32GB RAM with 2133 MHz, what I can use in the 27-inch iMac and it is even upgradable to 64GB if I need that in the future.
I want to keep it as long as possible and the fast PCIe flash storage is also only available with a maximum of 512GB. I just want it to bee future-proof. So that I can keep it as long as possible or sell it for an appropriate price if there will be a redesign and/or features I might need in one or two years.
The chipset is also not the newest generation. System bus speed ist 5 GT/s (4k) vs. 8 GT/s (5k).

Edit: Forgot the GPU is also much better too.
 
Samuelsan2001 said:
but the dGPU they would use would be little better than the IRIS PRO
Click to expand...
True, but then isn't that Apple's fault since there are many better GPUs out there? I don't follow the GPU sector that much but it seems many people are generally unhappy with Apple switching away from nvidia.
 
Erdbeertorte said:
I mainly meant the soldered RAM. I have to pay 240 Euro to upgrade from 8 to 16GB with 1867MHz and can never upgrade to more or faster RAM. I paid only 189 Euro for 32GB RAM with 2133 MHz, what I can use in the 27-inch iMac and it is even upgradable to 64GB if I need that in the future.
I want to keep it as long as possible and the fast PCIe flash storage is also only available with a maximum of 512GB. I just want it to bee future-proof. So that I can keep it as long as possible or sell it for an appropriate price if there will be a redesign and/or features I might need in one or two years.
The chipset is also not the newest generation. System bus speed ist 5 GT/s (4k) vs. 8 GT/s (5k).
Click to expand...
Generally speaking, Apple wants you to buy new computers instead of upgrading existing ones, and their decisions on designing the MBPs and iMacs show that. I guess you have to accept this as the apple way, and over provision now in the hopes it will server you later.
 
maflynn said:
True, but then isn't that Apple's fault since there are many better GPUs out there? I don't follow the GPU sector that much but it seems many people are generally unhappy with Apple switching away from nvidia.
Click to expand...

People still seem to think that apple will become a gaming computer maker as well, despite endless evidence to the contrary, year in year out. You can't legislate for idiocy and there is little more stupid than expecting something that has never happened before on every update, even when they used NVIDIA everyone just moaned they weren't the top end cards. This is about gaming apple don't cater for it, they never have, get over it.
 
Yes Apple is getting really annoying. The new iMacs should have come with TB 3.0 and USB 3.1 and DDR4 Memory. They are already outdated now.

Maybe I'll get a refurbished or used one of last years 5k iMacs. Then I'll have at least USB 3.0, TB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0 and the nice big screen. That should be enough for many years.

I think I might get a good price for my 17-inch MBP on eBay. It's the latest version with the best available CPU at that time and the matte screen seems to be rare, also it has two SSDs and much faster/more RAM in it than the original version.

Edit: I never play games. The GPU should just be fast enough to drive the big screen.
 
Why we talkin' 'bout iMacs...?

TechZeke said:
It'd be one thing if the 17" offered more options over the old 15" like a beefier GPU or dual drives. Instead it was just an over sized 15"....With resolution scaling options, the 15" rMBP can do everything the old 17" could... Nor would it sell very well being that the 15" rMBP is already expensive.
Click to expand...
Agreed that Apple could have taken better advantage of the extra volume of the 17". But I believe the bump from 15" to 17" was ~$300, which was well worth it just for the extra resolution.

Apple in that era was on the low end in terms of resolution. The fact that the standard 15" was 1440x900 was kind of insulting, and has even carried over into the retina model, in that "retina" resolution is, effectively, 1440x900. Which is silly for productivity.

Running 1920 on a 15" retina is adequate, but it is still sort of an interpolation trick and I don't necessarily consider it a replacement for the native 1920 on a 17". Now if they bumped the 15" retina to 4k(3840) so you could truly run at a pixel-doubled 1920, then I could accept the 17" as dead and buried. (though that would also set the stage nicely for a 5k 17"...)

The unibody design is quite long in the tooth at this point, it seems like they could merge the pro and air lines, the new Dell XPS 13 shows what is possible with a thinner bezel.... A 17" AirPro would be dreamy, would only need to be marginally bigger then the current 15" and could probably weigh less. For video/film or anyone who needs maximum productivity on the road it would be an easy sell.
 
MarkLal said:
A long time Mac user. Had been using a 17" MBP until now. It still works fine for me, but decided to finally move up to the retina screen. And use the old one as a secondary unit.
So, here it goes-- Initially bought the 15" Mid-2015 MBPr with the M370x for my home-office. Since I had been accustomed to the 17" screen, that felt small so returned the MBPr and got the 27" 5k iMac. That felt ginormous in my home-office, so had to return that too. Bought the 21.5" 4k iMac, that too felt too big.
So bought the 15" MBPr again and finally getting used to the smaller screen.

I just wish Apple also had 17" MBPr model to offer, would have been perfect for me. Anybody else miss the 17 incher or am I the only one?
Click to expand...

I miss it too.

I am still using my 17" and I still haven't upgraded as going down to a 15" will feel like a downgrade. With an SSD and 16gb of RAM the 17" still performs well enough but I know if I need to buy a new laptop I will have to downgrade my screen size.

There is no way round it. A 15" screen is smaller. While you can get used to something worse than you used to have it stings to buy something new that is a worse experience than what you used to own.

Hopefully they will do a retina 17" but they seem to be going in the other direction.
 
whitedragon101 said:
I miss it too.

I am still using my 17" and I still haven't upgraded as going down to a 15" will feel like a downgrade. With an SSD and 16gb of RAM the 17" still performs well enough but I know if I need to buy a new laptop I will have to downgrade my screen size.

There is no way round it. A 15" screen is smaller. While you can get used to something worse than you used to have it stings to buy something new that is a worse experience than what you used to own.

Hopefully they will do a retina 17" but they seem to be going in the other direction.
Click to expand...

No reason to not get another 17 inch laptop many other companies make them.
 
leman said:
There is not much Apple can do if the CPUs with all these things are not released yet ;)
Click to expand...

The CPUs support DDR4 and even the 12-inch rMB has USB 3.1.

Thunderbolt 3.0 is a different thing. But I think it's already supported by Desktop CPUs. The iMac is a Desktop Computer and has not to be so thin.


Samuelsan2001 said:
No reason to not get another 17 inch laptop many other companies make them.
Click to expand...

Most or even all of them don't support higher resolutions than Full HD. I searched long time for an alternative and would even change to Linux, if there is anything comparable to what a 17-inch MBP Retina could be, but I did not find any.
 
leman said:
Skylake with higher-end GPUs is not out yet, AFIAK. Thats why Apple is still using Broadwell with the iMac.
Click to expand...
the 27" iMac is skylake as it has a dGPU, otherwise you are correct. People are waiting for a better iGPU with the skylake chipset.
 
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