Buy open box 15" rMBP for $2199 or wait for Haswell?

[maxosx]

so no refurbs for ya? I've never had a problem and don't know anyone personally who has had a problem with Apple store refurbs.

I cannot speak from personal experience, however I've seen Apple's refurbs & know people that have them. They're excellent. Very well done, they look & function as new.

 

[Serban]

I could see them being introduced/presented in WWDC with them shipping in late july/august. I doubt apple would hold another event or something to introduce it. Makes sense. Let everyone know its coming, whats coming, and how "amazing its going to be". Then take a month to month and half to build lots of stock then go on sale!

+1 to that. I also think they want to be one of the first brand to update with the latest intel chips even they are not ready. They will likely announce them with the new mac pro and at the finish Phil will say: " Available from ..th of july"

 

[Count Blah]

I cannot speak from personal experience, however I've seen Apple's refurbs & know people that have them. They're excellent. Very well done, they look & function as new.

Agreed. I just read your statement and interpreted it as you being against referbs. So I was just throwing out the referb as a very legit option for the OP. Though the model specs from the OP had yet to show up on referb site.

If it did, I would not hesitate to jump on it, if I were looking for those same specs. There is a 2.7/16/769 for $2,619.00 right this minute. Which would come in around $2299 on referb for the specs listed by the OP. In that case, $100 is well worth it to go referb over open box, IMHO.

enjoy.

 

[magbarn]

i guess its a little too late for the advice, but i would have waited. I know you say its worth it and all but 1) theres no way they will not update the rMBP. Of any laptop apple sells, the rmbp needs the upgraded CPU/GPU the most. There is still moments of lag and processor intensive tasks can still lag the computer.
2) there might have been a price drop.

Also, it seems like you use your laptops for a long time which means spending a little more money is not that much of a deal to you. Is the extra wait and spending $600 more worth the possibility that you will have to invest into a new laptop 1 year or 1 1/2 years earlier?

Personally, I would have waited because haswell is intel's "tock" of the tick-tock cycle. The cpu bump isnt whats impressive, its the GPU and battery life increases that will make the biggest difference between then and now. Since you do work that involves the GPU, having that new haswell GPU (HD5000) + 750m will make a world of difference.

But hey if youre happy with your choice then thats really all that matters!😎

So far leaked Haswell benchmarks are only showing 10% max improvement with 5-7% typical for the same clockspeed as IB. The biggest gains should be in battery life, even then the rMBP's screen is the big power sucker and I don't think they'll be great strides made in improvement. The Iris Pro iGPU in Haswell is a significant improvement. The GT750M is pretty much a 10% clock speed jump over the 650M in the current rMBP no big gains in the dGPU either.

 

[thekev]

The SSD is in the SuperDrive bay, but to the best of my knowledge it doesn't matter where you put it with this particular model, it's only SATA II everywhere. All apps and startup are already on the SSD. Only thing on the HDD are large work files, movies, music, photos, etc.

I notice sluggishness the most when working with large InDesign files. I design a 150 page monthly magazine, and it brings the machine to a crawl at times. It's a combination of a lack of processing power, GPU power, and RAM. I'm maxed out at 8GB RAM. I'm definitely looking forward to 16GB+ in any new machine. I even have to export the final document in chunks because InDesign gives me an "out of RAM" message if I try to export the whole thing at once.

Adobe apps tend to have some memory management settings available within their preferences. You may have them set too high for what you have installed. Beside that, 8GB of ram can feel pretty slim on CS6 with a couple applications open. It's more tolerable with an ssd, as it definitely alleviates scratch disk lag. 16 + ssd is excellent.

I will say this. You won't get anything significant from the gpu. In those 2 apps, it's not the gpu that is causing you grief. It plays a minor role. It's one of those things where it tends to be faster than the cpu for certain functions. You're likely bottlenecked by ram/scratch disks first (ram can probably take care of all of it), cpu second, and gpu a distant third. The benchmarks may look pretty, but they mean very little in actual use.

 

[MrMacNasty]

I found a similar deal at Best Buy over the weekend. I've searched all local area Best Buy open box deals online and was gonna buy a 15" Retina base model that was supposed to be in stock but when I got there it was gone.

However, to my surprise as it wasn't listed online, they had the top of the line 15" Retina with 512ssd/16GB of ram for $2307, plus Best Buy was offering 10% off open box the past weekend which reduced the price down to $2077.

Plus, Best Buy was offering 3x reward zone points means about $120 back. While new macbooks may be coming soon but likely months away, I wouldn't be able to afford a new macbook anyhow, so I bought this one on the spot.

So far, I find this macbook totally awesome and you can't tell it was open box as it's flawless. This macbook even has a gorgeous Samsung display, and so I'm planning to keep this macbook regardless of what's on the horizon.

I hope that the OP is enjoying his new machine as well as I am, and as we are both Best Buy reward zone members in Silver status we have 60 days to return if something new comes out that blows us away, so we can't go wrong!

If anybody out there is on the fence about buying now or waiting to see if new models are announced and stumbles upon a similar open box deal for this macbook at Best Buy, I say buy it before somebody else beats you to it!

I went ahead and purchased the open box unit today. It's in perfect condition, with the box, accessories, everything. 4 cycles on the battery. Apparently it was purchased back in March according to the warranty start date, however. LG rev 1 screen, but it looks great and I'm just going to keep my eye out for any IR. If there's a problem, Apple will take care of it. I have a 60 day return period at Best Buy because I'm a Premier Silver member as well.

After negotiation and using my Reward Zone dollars, my price was $2000 + tax. Hard to beat that.

 

[ProMod]

I found a similar deal at Best Buy over the weekend. I've searched all local area Best Buy open box deals online and was gonna buy a 15" Retina base model that was supposed to be in stock but when I got there it was gone.

However, to my surprise as it wasn't listed online, they had the top of the line 15" Retina with 512ssd/16GB of ram for $2307, plus Best Buy was offering 10% off open box the past weekend which reduced the price down to $2077.

Plus, Best Buy was offering 3x reward zone points means about $120 back. While new macbooks may be coming soon but likely months away, I wouldn't be able to afford a new macbook anyhow, so I bought this one on the spot.

So far, I find this macbook totally awesome and you can't tell it was open box as it's flawless. This macbook even has a gorgeous Samsung display, and so I'm planning to keep this macbook regardless of what's on the horizon.

I hope that the OP is enjoying his new machine as well as I am, and as we are both Best Buy reward zone members in Silver status we have 60 days to return if something new comes out that blows us away, so we can't go wrong!

If anybody out there is on the fence about buying now or waiting to see if new models are announced and stumbles upon a similar open box deal for this macbook at Best Buy, I say buy it before somebody else beats you to it!

Nice work! Sounds like you got the best of everything. I would have loved to purchase with 10% off and 3x reward zone points, but I had no idea that was coming around the corner, and there is no guarantee that any store in my area would have an open box rMBP that met my specs.

I wonder if I can try to talk them into letting me return it and re-buy it on the spot to take advantage of the 10% and 3x RZ points? 😀

 

[fskywalker]

Nice work! Sounds like you got the best of everything. I would have loved to purchase with 10% off and 3x reward zone points, but I had no idea that was coming around the corner, and there is no guarantee that any store in my area would have an open box rMBP that met my specs.

I wonder if I can try to talk them into letting me return it and re-buy it on the spot to take advantage of the 10% and 3x RZ points? 😀

Well, you could return it 5 minutes before they close and then come back the very next day when the open......😀

 

[ProMod]

I actually just located another rMBP in my area that meets my specs. By just using the coupon, I'll get it $150 cheaper than I did a couple weeks ago after haggling and hassle. I think I'm going to head down there tonight and take a look at it, and if it's good to go, buy it and return the one I have now. Thanks MacNasty for the heads up!

 

[MrMacNasty]

Sorry I wasn't able to see your post until now but unless I'm mistaken I think it's too late to get those offers. I believe the Best Buy 10% open box deal along with the 3x points offer was only offered last Saturday/Sunday. I only found out about that offer myself around 5PM last Sunday and so I had to act very quickly to get in on that deal. If you weren't able to get in on this deal at this time, then perhaps it'll be offered again sometime over the next couple of months while you are still within your 60 day return period.

I actually just located another rMBP in my area that meets my specs. By just using the coupon, I'll get it $150 cheaper than I did a couple weeks ago after haggling and hassle. I think I'm going to head down there tonight and take a look at it, and if it's good to go, buy it and return the one I have now. Thanks MacNasty for the heads up!

 

[ProMod]

Sorry I wasn't able to see your post until now but unless I'm mistaken I think it's too late to get those offers. I believe the Best Buy 10% open box deal along with the 3x points offer was only offered last Saturday/Sunday. I only found out about that offer myself around 5PM last Sunday and so I had to act very quickly to get in on that deal. If you weren't able to get in on this deal at this time, then perhaps it'll be offered again sometime over the next couple of months while you are still within your 60 day return period.

You're partially correct. The 3x RZ points offer was indeed only valid last weekend, but the 10% off coupon runs through 6/1.