cMBP Hires AG - 15" Mid 2012 vs 17" Late 2011

Are you planning on carrying the 17" MBP around with you on a regular basis? If not, you'll probably want to go with the refurb 17". The 17" is a beast performance-wise, but it is also a beast to have to lug around. I carried a 17" PowerBook G4 for about a year. I don't think I'd do it again if given the chance.

 

I've been wrestling with a similar question, so I'll share my thoughts.

I've been looking at 2 different 15" MBPs. The new 2012 similar to yours, but 500GB Hard drive for $1899. Or, the refurbished 2011 15" with a 1GB AMD Radeon 6750, and 750GB hard drive for $1,679.

The refurbished is close enough in price to make me think about the 2012 MBP. However, I do occasionally use Premiere Pro CS 6, which has been written to take advantage of the 1GB AMD Radeon 6750, but not the Nvidia GT650. Plus even if it recognizes the Nvidia chip, Premiere Pro usually requires a video card with 1GB. There's also the fact that the refurbished computer comes with a slightly bigger hard drive. So, in my case, I think the refurbished computer is the better deal.

In your case, you get the 1GB video card and a larger screen for the same amount of money. If the bigger video card and larger screen outweigh USB 3.0 and a newer video card (with less memory), than I'd go with the refurbished 17". I personally prefer the size of the 15" and would probably go with the 2012 MBP.

 

Yes. The 2012 model has quite a bit better GPUs. That's both the HD 4000 and 650M.

 

I hadn't fully considered that. The Intel HD4000 is the least sucky integrated GPU I've ever seen and the new NVIDIA GPUs are pretty good as well. Go for the 2012 15".