2017 13" MacBook Pro TB 256GB HDD a good buy?

[Appurushido]

Apple - MacBook Pro® - 13" Display - Intel Core i5 - 8 GB Memory - 256GB Flash Storage (Latest Model) - Space Gray

$1799.99
- 150.00 Apple Sale
- 125.00 Student Discount
+ 106.00 @ 7%ish tax
________________________
$1631.73 Total Price


Going to be upgrading from a 2015 11" MacBook Air that I gave my niece for college. Although I loved the portability and size of the 11", I travel a lot for work, and having the extra power and upgraded screen quality helps. This a good price for the entry level TB @ 13"?

I use a lot of MS Office (ppt, .doc, .xls) small video/picture editing, we browsing and and light movie watching like Netflix/iTunes etc. Would these basic specs suffice? I'm assuming 16GB ram is overkill. Space is no problem because I use cloud heavy storage and large capacity portable flash drives.

Thanks for the input.

 

[hieubui]

I've had one with the exact specs. Never regret!

Why do you guys so worry about the machine being slow? IT's the latest CPU, 8GB of RAM is a lot and the iris 650 GPU is faster than a dGPU in my 5 years old PC, which still run some 3D games pretty great.

 

[AndrewR23]

I thought at BB you couldn't combine the student deal on top of the sale price. I was denied a few days ago.

 

[maerz001]

A MacBook would also work for these tasks

 

[teerexx52]

I picked one up yesterday. Great buy in my opinion

 

[lambertjohn]

Apple - MacBook Pro® - 13" Display - Intel Core i5 - 8 GB Memory - 256GB Flash Storage (Latest Model) - Space Gray

$1799.99
- 150.00 Apple Sale
- 125.00 Student Discount
+ 106.00 @ 7%ish tax
________________________
$1631.73 Total Price


Going to be upgrading from a 2015 11" MacBook Air that I gave my niece for college. Although I loved the portability and size of the 11", I travel a lot for work, and having the extra power and upgraded screen quality helps. This a good price for the entry level TB @ 13"?

I use a lot of MS Office (ppt, .doc, .xls) small video/picture editing, we browsing and and light movie watching like Netflix/iTunes etc. Would these basic specs suffice? I'm assuming 16GB ram is overkill. Space is no problem because I use cloud heavy storage and large capacity portable flash drives.

Thanks for the input.

Get the nTB 13" instead and upgrade the RAM. Having more RAM will provide a better all-around operating experience than that useless TB. My personal opinion, of course.

 

[joefoong79]

You will be fine with 8gb ram which what you expected to do. Me same spec always use 2 monitor, 10 tabs safari, iTunes, always streaming movie online and always plays 3D game together on 2 monitor that hook. Istats always stat still had 1 gb ram free.

Apple - MacBook Pro® - 13" Display - Intel Core i5 - 8 GB Memory - 256GB Flash Storage (Latest Model) - Space Gray

$1799.99
- 150.00 Apple Sale
- 125.00 Student Discount
+ 106.00 @ 7%ish tax
________________________
$1631.73 Total Price


Going to be upgrading from a 2015 11" MacBook Air that I gave my niece for college. Although I loved the portability and size of the 11", I travel a lot for work, and having the extra power and upgraded screen quality helps. This a good price for the entry level TB @ 13"?

I use a lot of MS Office (ppt, .doc, .xls) small video/picture editing, we browsing and and light movie watching like Netflix/iTunes etc. Would these basic specs suffice? I'm assuming 16GB ram is overkill. Space is no problem because I use cloud heavy storage and large capacity portable flash drives.

Thanks for the input.

[doublepost=1501675726][/doublepost]Forget to mention also running parallel desktop together.

 

[KGB7]

Get the nTB 13" instead and upgrade the RAM. Having more RAM will provide a better all-around operating experience than that useless TB. My personal opinion, of course.

Do you know what happens when you run out of ram?

 

[maerz001]

Do you know what happens when you run out of ram?

Meltdown

 

[KGB7]

Meltdown

That is an acceptable answer.

 

[lobo1978]

Assuming MacBook Air 11" was cutting your workflow without much problem I recommend nTB MacBook Pro 13" base CPU + 512 GB - resale value will be much higher in future comparing to 256GB. Appetite for disc storage is growing much much faster than RAM (4K, hi res photos etc.).

Forget about RAM upgrade- it is not future proof as Apple will never require 16GB in future OS. Honestly, I highly doubt your workflow requires more than 4GB. Unless you are running more than one VM simultaneously - more than 8 GB is overkill for regular user in base 2-core machine (i5 or i7 - no much difference).
Why?

Assume you bought 16gb version - now think about performance of a 2 core CPU driving simultaneously 2 VM each with 4 GB of RAM... You can assign max one virtual core per VM to be left with one physical core and 8 GB for host OS... Hook your laptop to single 4K monitor and you will be not satisfied with end result.

Bottom line: CPU capacity is a limiter for actual usage where excessive volume of RAM could be consumed. Your actual workflow limit RAM usage way below 8GB.

I base my experience on actual usage of machines from 8GB to 32GB of RAM. Do not chase specs blindly - this is not Windows machine. Mind that 98% people* claiming they need 32GB of RAM are just specs collectors.

* Anybody wanting to start heated debate about need for +16Gb of RAM - if you do need it - Chill - you are in latter 2% of users

 

[KGB7]

Assuming MacBook Air 11" was cutting your workflow without much problem I recommend nTB MacBook Pro 13" base CPU + 512 GB - resale value will be much higher in future comparing to 256GB. Appetite for disc storage is growing much much faster than RAM (4K, hi res photos etc.).

Forget about RAM upgrade- it is not future proof as Apple will never require 16GB in future OS. Honestly, I highly doubt your workflow requires more than 4GB. Unless you are running more than one VM simultaneously - more than 8 GB is overkill for regular user in base 2-core machine (i5 or i7 - no much difference).
Why?

Assume you bought 16gb version - now think about performance of a 2 core CPU driving simultaneously 2 VM each with 4 GB of RAM... You can assign max one virtual core per VM to be left with one physical core and 8 GB for host OS... Hook your laptop to single 4K monitor and you will be not satisfied with end result.

Bottom line: CPU capacity is a limiter for actual usage where excessive volume of RAM could be consumed. Your actual workflow limit RAM usage way below 8GB.

I base my experience on actual usage of machines from 8GB to 32GB of RAM. Do not chase specs blindly - this is not Windows machine. Mind that 98% people* claiming they need 32GB of RAM are just specs collectors.

* Anybody wanting to start heated debate about need for +16Gb of RAM - if you do need it - Chill - you are in latter 2% of users

Give this guy a cookie and a juice box, for dropping some knowledge up in here.

 

[lobo1978]

Hi hi, thank you (?)

 

[Appurushido]

I've had one with the exact specs. Never regret!

Why do you guys so worry about the machine being slow? IT's the latest CPU, 8GB of RAM is a lot and the iris 650 GPU is faster than a dGPU in my 5 years old PC, which still run some 3D games pretty great.

I never mentioned anything about any machine being slow. The only thing I was asking was for MB TB owners who bought it at full price vs the price I would be paying for was a good buy. My MacBook Air was a base model and I loved it. With the new MB I would be able to run final cut pro without hiccups now and have an easier time with excel spreadsheets with the larger real estate, yet keeping the small form factor when traveling. Whipping out anything larger than a 13" especially through TSA is not travel friendly.

I thought at BB you couldn't combine the student deal on top of the sale price. I was denied a few days ago.

You can. It might just be your BestBuy, maybe a new employee who doesn't know, or a stingy manager wanting to get the most out of their store's sales or whatever the case. Try purchase it online and do an in store pickup or I suggest trying again at a different BB if you have a few near you. This link shows the sale price and the "Students Save $125" banner on the top of it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-m...test-model-space-gray/5721601.p?skuId=5721601
[doublepost=1501695091][/doublepost]

Get the nTB 13" instead and upgrade the RAM. Having more RAM will provide a better all-around operating experience than that useless TB. My personal opinion, of course.

That was a consideration, but the nTB 13" is not on sale, and BB doesn't sell a nTB 13" version with 16GB ram, only 15" Even if I buy the $1499 256GB nTB, with tax it will run be the same cost as the TB version, so it's pretty much a no brainier to get the TB version if you are in the market for one. A base model TB with tax runs just under $2K, but with the current sale price, with tax, is about $1600.

 

[ZapNZs]

It's about a good price as you get if it is what you want - most specifically, the touchbar. To me, the nTB with 16 GB RAM and a 512 SSD at only $100 more is a better value than the TB with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 SSD.

 

[joefoong79]

I never mentioned anything about any machine being slow. The only thing I was asking was for MB TB owners who bought it at full price vs the price I would be paying for was a good buy. My MacBook Air was a base model and I loved it. With the new MB I would be able to run final cut pro without hiccups now and have an easier time with excel spreadsheets with the larger real estate, yet keeping the small form factor when traveling. Whipping out anything larger than a 13" especially through TSA is not travel friendly.



You can. It might just be your BestBuy, maybe a new employee who doesn't know, or a stingy manager wanting to get the most out of their store's sales or whatever the case. Try purchase it online and do an in store pickup or I suggest trying again at a different BB if you have a few near you. This link shows the sale price and the "Students Save $125" banner on the top of it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-m...test-model-space-gray/5721601.p?skuId=5721601
[doublepost=1501695091][/doublepost]

That was a consideration, but the nTB 13" is not on sale, and BB doesn't sell a nTB 13" version with 16GB ram, only 15" Even if I buy the $1499 256GB nTB, with tax it will run be the same cost as the TB version, so it's pretty much a no brainier to get the TB version if you are in the market for one. A base model TB with tax runs just under $2K, but with the current sale price, with tax, is about $1600.

Just go get that on BB with touch bar. Forget about all that Ntb. If you get ntb why not just get 2015 mbp? Cheaper and better battery life.

 

[Appurushido]

It's about a good price as you get if it is what you want - most specifically, the touchbar. To me, the nTB with 16 GB RAM and a 512 SSD at only $100 more is a better value than the TB with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 SSD.

I thought about it but the price difference was just too great. a nTB (base $1299 not on sale) tops of at $1899 with 16GB ram (+$200) and 512GB HDD (+$400). HDD space is not a problem for me, and was only considering 16GB for furture proofing (software, editing etc) Total cost with tax would be around $2065 vs the $1605 I would be paying for base model TB. And besides, BB doesn't even sell a nTB in that configuration.

 

[theitsage]

Last week the nTB was on sale, $100 off + $125 student discount. Best Buy seems to rotate the MacBook Pro models it puts on sale.

 

[Jamalogo10]

It's about a good price as you get if it is what you want - most specifically, the touchbar. To me, the nTB with 16 GB RAM and a 512 SSD at only $100 more is a better value than the TB with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 SSD.

+1 ... this cannot be stressed enough.

More RAM, double the storage and better speeds, with a significantly better battery life is a way better option
than the slightly better graphics card, 2 ports and touch bar.

I actually believe the first iteration TB macs will hurt the computers value in the future. It can't be dimmed, it's not that high of resolution, and its far more likely to encounter problems down the road then the function keys.

I will say the fingerprint scanner is pretty amazing. So weigh your options appropriately. I'd go with the nTB...
and I did.

 

[Appurushido]

Last week the nTB was on sale, $100 off + $125 student discount. Best Buy seems to rotate the MacBook Pro models it puts on sale.

The sale on the MacBook Pros (Latest Models) fluctuate. I've seen them at $50, $100, and now $150 off on various models, 13" with or w/out TB and the 15" as well. The best combined discount would be the 10% off Birthday Coupon with a sale price (if you are one of their rewards member (free) or student enrolled email list). The 10% off would be more than the $125 Student Deal (even $25 off more than Apple/University Campus Store) if you get one priced at $1299 or up (after sale price).

The higher priced the Mac, the greater the discount, obviously. On a $2249 base model 15" with TB @ 10%off is already $224 off. So it's just the timing of the sale of the Mac to squeeze out as much of a discount you want to settle with. The only caveat is they are sold as is, and not configurable. Ok for most people who prefer discount over the power users who need more configured MacBooks to their liking.

PSA:
In essence, those on the fence trying to get a 13" Macbook Pro w/TB 256GB HDD (but thinks the $1799 start price is ridiculously high, I def think so) can get it for $1484 (pre-tax), and cheaper than the $1499 256GB HDD nTB, literally more than $300 off right now during the current sale and 10% off (if applicable to you).

 

[theitsage]

Don't forget about open-box units during these sales either. Back in April, Best Buy had a $200 off on the Late 2016 15" MBP. I had a 10% coupon for Elite Plus and was able to talk the manager into applying it to an open-box 15" ($1,742.39).