Advice on rMBP Configuarations

[Soaring]

Hey everybody.

I plan to purchase a rMBP in the coming days, and I have been looking into the various configurations. I think I have settled on the following modifications to the base model:

• 2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
• 256GB Flash Storage (will keep this the same)

I use Photoshop all the time, and I do a lot of website development. I will also be doing moderate video editing in Final Cut Pro X.

I had a 2006 17" MBP that ran Tiger, and the battery morphed out of the bottom six months ago, so this will be a big upgrade for me. I have been using a PC desktop that is a couple of years old, and it runs Windows 7 for most of my work as I waited for the latest MBP release, then I decided to wait a couple of months after the release in case there were any bugs to be worked out.

I plan to own this laptop for five years or so, and am not looking for resale value. I have an external HD, so the flash storage is not a huge deal for me.

What are your thoughts on my choice of upgrades?

Also, I ride the train everyday, and will bring this to work with me a few times a week. Do you think it is manageable to carry around? I walk about a mile from the train station to my office. My 2006 17" MBP was burdensome, so I rarely traveled with it.


THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR ADVICE

 

[Orlandoech]

Great machine. Yes it can be carried around unless you're a little girl who cant manage a few pounds in a bag or backpack.

I personally think the upgrade to 2.6 isnt worth it, but if you're keeping it for 3-5 years then $100 is nothing.

 

[yusukeaoki]

Said above me.
But since yo are editing videos, photos, etc, I suggest you get a bigger storage.
It doesnt have to be the internal SSD but spend some money on external such as 1TB/2TB external drives.

You CPU and RAM id enough to do those work but the space will not be enough.
A 1080p 30min iPhone 4S video is about 20GB.

 

[stevelam]

i assume you'll be using an external monitor with the rmbp at home and at work. photoshop is unusable on the retina screen right now.

 

[Soaring]

I already have an external hard drive.

I also do not plan to use it with an external monitor too much. I have seen some images from how it looks in Photoshop, and while there are some issues, I think it would still be useable.

I probably will wait until Photoshop is updated though, which should be coming soon (at least I hope so) considering Apple was talking about it at their launch more than two months ago.

 

[stevelam]

I already have an external hard drive.

I also do not plan to use it with an external monitor too much. I have seen some images from how it looks in Photoshop, and while there are some issues, I think it would still be useable.

I probably will wait until Photoshop is updated though, which should be coming soon (at least I hope so) considering Apple was talking about it at their launch more than two months ago.

without an external monitor, the rmbp is not a good standalone machine right now unless all you do is read text.

and i wouldn't count on a photoshop update any time soon.

 

[Soaring]

It's not going to be my stand alone machine anyway. I am not asking for your opinion on apps. I started this thread to get people's opinions on the configurations I am thinking of getting.

Ps will be updated by the end of the year, and I am not worried about that. There are enough other uses for the rMBP right now, especially since I don't have a working laptop at the moment. I am not going to continuously wait for all the apps to be "perfect", because I would be waiting forever then.

 

[nontroppo]

Yes, I think that is a great config (I have that but with 512GB SSD). It is an excellent machine, a real workhorse and can be used as an excellent standalone machine (I use SwitchResX via keyboard shortcuts for using Adobe Illustrator CS6 and Lightroom 4 without problem). Final Cut Pro X on the rMBP is amazing. I have a 2010 15" MBP and work on several beefy Mac Pro's with Apple Cinema displays, and I actually prefer the rMBP for lots of my work at the moment. Working at 220DPI is simply one of the most significant upgrades I've experienced in the last few years (along with video editing on SSD raids), the UI stays fast and fluid[1], even resampled non-retina images are no worse than the originals on low DPI displays[2], and the machine stays surprisingly cool.

I would recommend upgrading to thunderbolt externals as the price drops. We have two daisy chained devices (Seagate 3TB chained to a LaCie 2TB) at work and they don't drop their throughput which is amazing to see in action.

----
[1] the hysteria over perceived lag which only some people see only with certain browsers and certain websites, or doing weird things like resizing the app store as fast as possible is distracting fluff.

 

[Soaring]

Thanks nontroppo. I appreciate it. Sounds like you use your rMBP for more than just reading text...

 

[Soaring]

Just made the purchase, and will have the rMBP in my hands between 9/5-9/7!

 

[stevelam]

It's not going to be my stand alone machine anyway. I am not asking for your opinion on apps. I started this thread to get people's opinions on the configurations I am thinking of getting.

Ps will be updated by the end of the year, and I am not worried about that. There are enough other uses for the rMBP right now, especially since I don't have a working laptop at the moment. I am not going to continuously wait for all the apps to be "perfect", because I would be waiting forever then.

you're the one that mentioned you 'use photoshop all of the time' so i just assumed that would be something you cared about. apparently not. meh.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

i assume you'll be using an external monitor with the rmbp at home and at work. photoshop is unusable on the retina screen right now.

Come on, it's not that bad! I regularly use it at 1680x1050 resolution and don't have any problems. Is it ideal? No. Is it usable? Yes.

 

[nontroppo]

Infact it is as useable as Photoshop on a lower DPI display, because the resampling does not lose any information, and the higher DPI display causes less optical pixel distortion. stevelam doesn't seem to understand what is happening on the display — this is a relativist problem. Photoshop looks bad on a rMBP because other Apps can use the full 220DPI, not because it is actually worse than Photoshop on a low DPI display alternative!

 

[Orlandoech]

Come on, it's not that bad! I regularly use it at 1680x1050 resolution and don't have any problems. Is it ideal? No. Is it usable? Yes.

I agree, its not THAT bad, but it definitely needs to be optimized.

 

[stevelam]

Infact it is as useable as Photoshop on a lower DPI display, because the resampling does not lose any information, and the higher DPI display causes less optical pixel distortion. stevelam doesn't seem to understand what is happening on the display — this is a relativist problem. Photoshop looks bad on a rMBP because other Apps can use the full 220DPI, not because it is actually worse than Photoshop on a low DPI display alternative!

you clearly don't use photoshop at all. why bother commenting? sorry but just because i can type text into photoshop and still be able to technically read it doesn't mean its 'usable'. i'm sure its very 'usable' to draw an architectural layout with a crayon. that doesn't mean its a good idea.

 

[nontroppo]

you clearly don't use photoshop at all. why bother commenting? sorry but just because i can type text into photoshop and still be able to technically read it doesn't mean its 'usable'. i'm sure its very 'usable' to draw an architectural layout with a crayon. that doesn't mean its a good idea.

Are you really telling me you don't understand that pixel sizes are equivalent on a pixel doubled app with a double-density display compared to a previous generation MBP!?

Screenshot is Photoshop CS6, from a 2010 15" MBP @1440 (resized 200%) and a 2012 15" rMBP @rescaled1440

IMPORTANT: look at the image loaded into photoshop (a sinusoidal grating mathematically generated using a GLSL OpenGL shader, with no edge interpolation, thus hard pixel boundaries). The retina MBP is not modifying the image, it is using nearest neighbour interpolation resulting in identical pixels sent to the framebuffer as the 2010 MBP. The other members of the CS6 suite are the same, except Lightroom which actually renders UI text at retina resolution.

The only difference therefore will be output transformations, the retina display has much smaller inter-pixels spaces, which causes less distortion (see my 1:1 macro photos on another thread). The effect is that the retinaMBP is perceived as more jagged, not because it is, but because the inter-pixel distortions on the older low DPI display blur pixel boundaries!!!

And that when you see a retina app next to a non-retina app, you realise how poor the previous generation displays are...

Again, CS6 will look significantly better when updated for retina, but at the moment it is not demonstrably worse (though the pixel distortions of lowDPI displays make it look different). I want to see someone who does think CS6 is unusable actually provide evidence that is the case: photos & screenshots not just snide remarks.