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A few rMBP questions before I take the plunge

I

ideonode

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 28, 2008
35
0
Hi all,

I think I'm going to buy the new rMBP (probably 2.7 ghz, 16gb ram). Before I do, I was wondering whether anyone knew the answers to the following to help me make my choice:

1. Will there be thunderbolt thumb drives in the future? I'm debating whether to keep the stock 512gb ssd or go for the 768gb one. The latter is pretty expensive, so was wondering whether an option would be to stick with the smaller driver and hope for technology options in the future.

2. If I get AppleCare, will it start from the day I place my order, the day the laptop ships, or the day I get it? Given current wait times, it seems to me that if I buy the laptop and AppleCare now, I could lose a month of care (I appreciate that the actual AppleCare doesn't kick in till a year after purchase)

3. Has anyone used the new retina pro with an IDE (e.g. Xcode or eclipse)? Any thoughts?

4. Will the rain design iLap work with the new retina pro?

Cheers,
Ideonode
 
There's always USB 3 drives.

AppleCare extends the warranty by an additional 2 years. So it won't start until a year after you receive your laptop.
 
Meever said:
AppleCare extends the warranty by an additional 2 years. So it won't start until a year after you receive your laptop.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. Just checking - would it be a year after I receive the laptop or a year after I order it? If there's currently a four week wait to receive, there'd be no point me ordering now if it means I get one month less of AppleCare...
 
ideonode said:
Thanks for this. Just checking - would it be a year after I receive the laptop or a year after I order it? If there's currently a four week wait to receive, there'd be no point me ordering now if it means I get one month less of AppleCare...
Click to expand...

When you receive the MacBook, you register it with Apple and your AppleCare starts from the date of that registration.
 
ideonode said:
Thanks for this. Just checking - would it be a year after I receive the laptop or a year after I order it? If there's currently a four week wait to receive, there'd be no point me ordering now if it means I get one month less of AppleCare...
Click to expand...

I've noticed that it's a general practice to order Applecare after having had your new computer for around 11 months.
 
ideonode said:
Thanks for this. Just checking - would it be a year after I receive the laptop or a year after I order it? If there's currently a four week wait to receive, there'd be no point me ordering now if it means I get one month less of AppleCare...
Click to expand...

Definitely not from order date, POSSIBLY from shipping date (which would only be a couple of days). Also, you have up to a year to purchase AppleCare, so you could hold on to your money for now anyway.

I think the stand would be OK, since I note they have one model that fits the 13 inch Air and Pro - and the retina is bigger than a (theoretical) 15 inch air would be. Looking at the pictures, it should hold any laptop of the right size - there's no clips or slots or anything like that. But I'm sure the folks at Ilap can tell you for sure.

Thunderbolt or not, 256 GB thumb drives seem unlikely anytime soon! There are certainly TB drives though, and there will be more of them. For a thumb drive, USB 3.0 is more than adequate, especially if you're going to store music or videos on it.
 
Wirelessly posted

In terms of TB, realize that the bottle neck will become the SSD inside the MBP. Theoretical speeds will not materialize (data transfer-thumb drive) faster than the read/write devise. Although, if the bottle neck problem ever becomes the Mac 's SSD...we finally have a good problem!
 
I doubt there will be Thunderbolt thumb drives. Otherwise they would be pretty big and expensive. USB 3.0 thumb drives on the other hand are pretty fast and available now.

You could also use a SDXC card, which currently go up to 128GB. The theoretical capacity limit is 2TB with read/write speeds going up to 300MB/s, so in the future that might be a good option for portable external storage.
 
ideonode said:
Hi all,

3. Has anyone used the new retina pro with an IDE (e.g. Xcode or eclipse)? Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Ideonode
Click to expand...

I just opened up xcode and it doesn't look bad, the text is clear, icons look good, I think i saw a little pixelation on the xcode logo, overall i think it looks fine though. I can't be sure it's been 100% upgraded to work with retina just yet, I use Mvim to develop so, I haven't actually used xcode much yet.
 
Forget TB, USB 3 drives are cheaper and fast. I would not waste time with a thumb drive. Get a good USB drive enclosure and a fast drive (or even and SSD).
 
Thanks for all the responses on this! I decided to go for an all-in rMBP (2.7/16/768).

NewbieCanada said:
I think the stand would be OK, since I note they have one model that fits the 13 inch Air and Pro - and the retina is bigger than a (theoretical) 15 inch air would be. Looking at the pictures, it should hold any laptop of the right size - there's no clips or slots or anything like that. But I'm sure the folks at Ilap can tell you for sure.
Click to expand...

I took your advice and asked Rain Design about this. Their response:
Our iLap and mStand are compatibale with the Retina MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

So there you have it.

Cheers,
ideonode
 
You can buy apple care before your waranty expired so you got less than a year to save some money.
 
Tombs said:
But you won't get the telephone support after 90 days if you don't take out the Apple care.....it's pretty useful.
Click to expand...

I never use telephone support if I have problem I went straight to the genius bar. I rather show them my problem than described it thru the phone.
 
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