So the 13" 256gb is on sale for $1200 and I just bought the new 2015 15" with amd graphics for $2300. Like many, I had been waiting for broadwell for the 15 and after two refreshes it never came. I sat on a 2010 pre retina MBP 15 and its on its last leg and I can wait no longer. Out of frustration I just bought the new 15 recently. After reading more about its specs, I have a bit of regret since it is running 2 year old hardware for both cpu and gpu.
So, I am now considering just getting an older version of 13" for a little bit more than half the cost. I am a graduate student in computer science. Though I mostly do my programming and experiments through ssh and the department clusters. However, I never had a portable laptop or computer before. I understand the specs pretty well but I am a bit skeptical about whether going with slower hardware and screen I would experience slow down during everyday use. The most demanding apps I plan to run are Firefox (a lot of tabs and windows) and video playback on the internal screen. I'll be running some intensive software (photoshop, matlab, etc) occasionally. I can forgot gaming for the smaller laptop so no boot camp and most likely light VM for Ubuntu. Ram would be not a big deal as I do plan to keep the 13 as long as I plan to keep a 15 as my main and only laptop. So I hope I can get some feedback on how this upgrade route sounds. My current laptop has a ssd and storage drive so I'll keep an external slow drive to port my data.
So, I am now considering just getting an older version of 13" for a little bit more than half the cost. I am a graduate student in computer science. Though I mostly do my programming and experiments through ssh and the department clusters. However, I never had a portable laptop or computer before. I understand the specs pretty well but I am a bit skeptical about whether going with slower hardware and screen I would experience slow down during everyday use. The most demanding apps I plan to run are Firefox (a lot of tabs and windows) and video playback on the internal screen. I'll be running some intensive software (photoshop, matlab, etc) occasionally. I can forgot gaming for the smaller laptop so no boot camp and most likely light VM for Ubuntu. Ram would be not a big deal as I do plan to keep the 13 as long as I plan to keep a 15 as my main and only laptop. So I hope I can get some feedback on how this upgrade route sounds. My current laptop has a ssd and storage drive so I'll keep an external slow drive to port my data.