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Buy now rMBP? or wait for Haswell?

Since Kuo has predicted a notebook refresh for wwdc, it's as close as lock as it gets, in my book.

So, I 'd say by all means wait.

Then buy your retina macbook pro, and laugh at the people who got shafted by apple by buying a typical gen 1 product, a pro computer in 2013 with either 128gb or 256gb of storage (circa 2003 storage at a very, very expensive price) and/or screens with image retention and/or laggier ui which stutters and/or is capped at 8gb of ram.

The retina line version 1, is os x 10.7 Lion, an anomaly of some welcome improvements but with lots of shortcomings. And like lion as soon as apple is able to to, they will quickly be replaced with machines with specifications that match the price tag and the requirements for the retina screen.
 
macman34 said:
Since Kuo has predicted a notebook refresh for wwdc, it's as close as lock as it gets, in my book.

So, I 'd say by all means wait.

Then buy your retina macbook pro, and laugh at the people who got shafted by apple by buying a typical gen 1 product, a pro computer in 2013 with either 128gb or 256gb of storage (circa 2003 storage at a very, very expensive price) and/or screens with image retention and/or laggier ui which stutters and/or is capped at 8gb of ram.

The retina line version 1, is os x 10.7 Lion, an anomaly of some welcome improvements but with lots of shortcomings. And like lion as soon as apple is able to to, they will quickly be replaced with machines with specifications that match the price tag and the requirements for the retina screen.
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For you and some people the Haswell rMBP is like a holly grail; it is just another computer!!!
 
jeblis said:
Expect an announcement around mid June during the WWDC for shipping dates/specs.
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There won't be any announcement regarding MacBooks at WWDC. Doing so will kill sales for several months until refreshed models are launched.

The only way they would announce new Mac's was if they were available almost immediately.
 
haswell or no haswell the rmbp is a solid performer. It is by far the fastest computer I've ever owned and I am 100% happy with my 2013. I could care less if they announce updated models at wwdc, I needed a laptop so I bought one. If you play the waiting game you will always be waiting.
 
pwolfe said:
haswell or no haswell the rmbp is a solid performer. It is by far the fastest computer I've ever owned and I am 100% happy with my 2013. I could care less if they announce updated models at wwdc, I needed a laptop so I bought one. If you play the waiting game you will always be waiting.
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That is exactly my point! There will always be something new comming out. If someone needs a new mac, can wait and wants the latest and greatest (and is willing to pay full price) then the fortcomming Haswell rMBP is the one. If you can live with the 2nd best thing, the 2013 refresh is the way to go now, or at a probable reduced price once the new one gets out. If, on the other hand, you need the computer now, you can either get the 2013 refresh either new or refurbished or do what I did, purchase a 2012 rMBP for a very attractive price ( my max out 15 inch 2.7 rMBP had a $4100 MSRP with the 3 year extended AppleCare, I managed to get it used in excellent conditions with a Samsung display for $2400 shipped). Just my 2 cents
 
fskywalker said:
For you and some people the Haswell rMBP is like a holly grail; it is just another computer!!!
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pal, pay attention, its something that is right around the corner. its not some unknown unicorn 1 year or 2 from now, its going to be released in around 1-3 months


not to mention the rmbp could be cheaper, this is actually in line with past apple launches


you bought your rmbp, good for you, we wont until we get the 2nd gen product.
 
Mr MM said:
pal, pay attention, its something that is right around the corner. its not some unknown unicorn 1 year or 2 from now, its going to be released in around 1-3 months


not to mention the rmbp could be cheaper, this is actually in line with past apple launches


you bought your rmbp, good for you, we wont until we get the 2nd gen product.
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Ok! Hope it is everything you and others are expecting!!
 
fskywalker said:
Ok! Hope it is everything you and others are expecting!!
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tell me our expectations?

we know cpu performance is 5-15% bump

we know gpu performance is 10-15% or 15-20% bump (either the 750m or the 8870m)

what miraculous thing that you imbue in our thinking to say that we expect godlike results?

its the same annoying thing every year, some people want to wait, them we are suddenly chasing unicorns if we do that, meanwhile we know what will be the gain from that wait.

I wonder what am I if Im waiting for broadwell? Cpt Ahab?

You should start thinking need it? buy it. dont need it? dont buy it
 
fskywalker said:
For you and some people the Haswell rMBP is like a holly grail; it is just another computer!!!
Click to expand...

Haswell isn't even such a great iteration for intel, it's the next step from it that will bring some more appreciable changes.


The problem though is the following: Apple has a habit, one that Steve learned the hard way, and he made it a culture there, to try to bring things first to market. In this case it's thinness and a retina screen.

This posits a few problems. The devices don't necessarily get better in every respect. Thus the retina macbook pro lost a lot of storage capacity and also got a screen with a slow or laggy ui. Its thermals also became more of a problem again. Apple could have opted for a thicker design so you don't burn your balls (it's no laughing matter, it's documented it's important for fertility) and a second drive. With their software implementation though retina was always going to be a problem with current graphics. Anyway let's not digress here on what they should or shouldn't have done. At the end of the day that's what they came up with and we have to live with this.

The point is haswell will bring appreciable changes to this gen. 1 product. It's something this machine does indeed need and very much so. That's all some of us have been saying, nothing more nothing less. A rmbp with haswell will be a good product, and one with a horizon for use, the current one is not a bad product of course, but it's compromised. It's not as compromised as the gen. 1 air was say, at least it doesn't have hinges that crack, or a silly port design, and it doesn't overheat. Still it's been known to lag, and software fixes haven't managed to address this, and the screens, despite the recent batch being better, do have image retention problems. It's also super expensive for its storage, and super expensive to allow for even the possibility for the aforementioned problems.

Hence the wait, and apparently the new one is just around the corner. I would be very surprised if we don't see a refresh during wwdc. And I am 99.9% sure we are definitely going to see a refresh by this September. At the very worst the machine is four, four and a half months away. But I do think it's going to be the wwdc.
 
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fskywalker said:
For you and some people the Haswell rMBP is like a holly grail; it is just another computer!!!
Click to expand...

Do the 13" MBP's still only have integrated graphics?

If so, and you're looking at getting a 13", then I'd say wait. The integrated gpu is supposedly getting a major bump. Slashdot has an article up now about the performance difference.

But the 15" models have a discreet gpu so it's not going to see a difference. Maybe a couple % overall due to a faster CPU. And if the 13" has discreet as well then it's not worth it there either.


Then again, if you don't NEED need it now and you're fine with waiting 3 more months then there's nothing wrong with that.
 
karpich1 said:
Do the 13" MBP's still only have integrated graphics?

If so, and you're looking at getting a 13", then I'd say wait. The integrated gpu is supposedly getting a major bump. Slashdot has an article up now about the performance difference.

But the 15" models have a discreet gpu so it's not going to see a difference. Maybe a couple % overall due to a faster CPU. And if the 13" has discreet as well then it's not worth it there either.


Then again, if you don't NEED need it now and you're fine with waiting 3 more months then there's nothing wrong with that.
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discrete*
 
Mr MM said:
pal, pay attention, its something that is right around the corner. its not some unknown unicorn 1 year or 2 from now, its going to be released in around 1-3 months


not to mention the rmbp could be cheaper, this is actually in line with past apple launches


you bought your rmbp, good for you, we wont until we get the 2nd gen product.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I heard there could be a price drop and if I were to pay more for a first gen rMBP than a haswell rMBP, I'd regret it. It's not that haswell will be sooo much better or godly, its that it will offer some improvements as well as just being a second gen and having apple work out some kinks from the 1st gen. And its right in the next month or two so I think for me and most people who are thinking about buying now, its best to wait just a little longer to at least see what's gonna happen.
 
bbishop93 said:
Exactly, I heard there could be a price drop and if I were to pay more for a first gen rMBP than a haswell rMBP, I'd regret it. It's not that haswell will be sooo much better or godly, its that it will offer some improvements as well as just being a second gen and having apple work out some kinks from the 1st gen. And its right in the next month or two so I think for me and most people who are thinking about buying now, its best to wait just a little longer to at least see what's gonna happen.
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I have a hunch there won't be any price drop, just a spec bump to haswell and 512mb and the price drop will come in six months or something. And I am usually right about such things. :) having said that you do get better value for your money of course.
 
macman34 said:
I have a hunch there won't be any price drop, just a spec bump to haswell and 512mb and the price drop will come in six months or something. And I am usually right about such things. :) having said that you do get better value for your money of course.
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What do you mean a spec bump to 512 MB?
 
Freyqq said:
I'm guessing he means a 512gb ssd.

I doubt it though. Probably still a 256gb ssd. I'm hoping for 16 gb of ram though standard or a price drop.
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I think 16gb of memory as standard is less likely than an ssd bump. Even the imac doesn't get as much, and besides if they can fool a few people to go for soldered ram at 8gb they'll achieve their ultimate purpose to force obsolete the computer much faster. While an ssd can always be upgraded.
 
macman34 said:
I think 16gb of memory as standard is less likely than an ssd bump. Even the imac doesn't get as much, and besides if they can fool a few people to go for soldered ram at 8gb they'll achieve their ultimate purpose to force obsolete the computer much faster. While an ssd can always be upgraded.
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Yeah I'm hoping that if there is no price drop then it'll at least be a 512 gb ssd base so then in theory it kinda is a price drop for me because I want the 512 so you get a bump in the base for the same price as the base.
 
macman34 said:
I think 16gb of memory as standard is less likely than an ssd bump. Even the imac doesn't get as much, and besides if they can fool a few people to go for soldered ram at 8gb they'll achieve their ultimate purpose to force obsolete the computer much faster. While an ssd can always be upgraded.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but a 16 gb of ram bump is much cheaper than a 512 gb ssd bump. Also, people seem much more annoyed by the soldered ram than the nonstandard ssd.
 
I would wait.

What i am looking forward to the most is the battery life improvements. they are supposed to be significant, more so than the cpu/gpu increases. Its worth the couple months wait so i can get a significant amount more of battery life
 
Freyqq said:
Perhaps, but a 16 gb of ram bump is much cheaper than a 512 gb ssd bump. Also, people seem much more annoyed by the soldered ram than the nonstandard ssd.
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If it's cheaper it's only marginally so, I would wager it could even be more expensive what with the mega deals apple does with their flash suppliers. As for the soldered bit annoying people, apple these days aren't about not annoying people to be honest. I really can't see them making 16gb standard this season, only on the mac pro (whatever the hell they come up with as a mac pro anyway) at most they 'll make it standard (and that's quite probable actually) on the very high end model, and they might allow more than 8gb ram on the 13" rmbp. But standard on the base 15" rmbp, no way imho.
 
macman34 said:
If it's cheaper it's only marginally so, I would wager it could even be more expensive what with the mega deals apple does with their flash suppliers. As for the soldered bit annoying people, apple these days aren't about not annoying people to be honest. I really can't see them making 16gb standard this season, only on the mac pro (whatever the hell they come up with as a mac pro anyway) at most they 'll make it standard (and that's quite probable actually) on the very high end model, and they might allow more than 8gb ram on the 13" rmbp. But standard on the base 15" rmbp, no way imho.
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it's not marginal at all. 16 gb of ram costs about $60 more than 8gb of ram at retail prices.

512 gb ssd costs about $200 more than $256 gb ssd at retail prices.

Since the ram is soldered in, it's really inexcusable that on a $2200 computer the ram isn't maxed out.
 
I've been back and fourth, but think I've decided to wait. Mainly for 802.11ac (hopefully), thinking on getting a NAS drive to complement the rMBP and think I will regret getting stuck with 802.11n given I'll keep whatever I get for a number of years.
 
Freyqq said:
it's not marginal at all. 16 gb of ram costs about $60 more than 8gb of ram at retail prices.

512 gb ssd costs about $200 more than $256 gb ssd at retail prices.

Since the ram is soldered in, it's really inexcusable that on a $2200 computer the ram isn't maxed out.
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I agree it's inexcusable. Soldered ram should be by default maxed. But it's a bait to have some people bite and have the lifespan of their device shortened, thus apple sometime in the future will be able to sell more. Not a nice way to play it for apple, but that's how they play it these days. That's why many of us don't like the turn they 've taken for the worse.

| don't really agree about the pricing for ssd and ram though, although I admit you could be right after all. Apple has bulk pricing on the ssd flash that could very well mean 512gb is just 20% more, 768gb is 40% from the base etc. I don't really have numbers at hand of course, but when it comes to say idevices where some numbers have been postulated by third party sources, it really is that way. SSd prices, flash prices for apple don't almost double if the capacity doubles, they only grow by a small %.

As an aside, this effing trial of apple vs. samsung has been pretty costly for us what with samsungs great hardware slowly departing from apple's machines, esp. so for the rmbp. Lg screens in, samsung out, image retention in. Samsung ssds out, sandisk ssds in, **** quality controllers in, less speed, less reliability. Apparently it's not only samsung paying that billion, it's us the consumers sharing a part of the "fine". Just because some genius lawyers that are getting paid more than anyone of us will probably make in a lifetime, didn't notice juror Hogan had gone bankrupt having been sued by seagate (closely linked to samsung) and had an axe to grind....
 
Mr MM said:
tell me our expectations?

we know cpu performance is 5-15% bump

we know gpu performance is 10-15% or 15-20% bump (either the 750m or the 8870m)

what miraculous thing that you imbue in our thinking to say that we expect godlike results?

its the same annoying thing every year, some people want to wait, them we are suddenly chasing unicorns if we do that, meanwhile we know what will be the gain from that wait.

I wonder what am I if Im waiting for broadwell? Cpt Ahab?

You should start thinking need it? buy it. dont need it? dont buy it
Click to expand...

Hey Mr MM-I'm sure you've gathered that you know a lot more about this stuff than I do, so I'd like to ask you, what does today's news from intel mean? From what I've read the 15" will be getting the 5200 Iris, and the report said that it will be a 100% GPU increase. Is this super good news, a lot better than expected or am I reading it wrong? Please explain this news in laymans terms for me. Thanks
 
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