Considering rMBP - Some questions

[jNSK]

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. I thought it was finally the time to sign up as I'm having a bit of a dilemma!

I currently own a 13" Macbook Pro 2011 - I've upgraded it to 8GB RAM, taken out the optical drive and installed an SSD (128GB, so I have that and the hard drive).

The resolution has been REALLY annoying me for months now - I code heavily using Xcode and do web development and the screen resolution just really is not big enough. About half of my time is spent working on a secondary monitor, but when not using that the screen just isn't cutting it. Other than that, the computer is very fast, as it obviously should be.

Now, I'm considering buying a 15" Retina MBP however I'm put off by all this talk of slow scrolling and lag and such. I have looked around and cannot find many people talking about recent performance - could someone give me their two cents as to how bad these performance glitches actually are? I would be going for 16GB of RAM.

I mean, my rationale is that if I buy one now and Haswell turns out to be a huge upgrade, I would not lose much money if I upgraded since Mac's have such a high resell value -- right?

If I can get most of the money I paid for it in, say, 3 months time, I will just buy one now. How likely do you think this will be? I don't have much experience in buying Macs and selling them within the same year.

Any thoughts anyone could share with me on this topic would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Furthermore: Is the extra $120 (AUD) worth it to upgrade from 2.4 GHz to the 2.7 GHz processor? Will I notice much of a difference? I suppose it'll reduce code compile times...

tl;dr Macbook Pro 13" screen resolution too small for my needs. Considering rMBP. Wait for Haswell or buy now and upgrade to Haswell if required.

 

[Macman45]

I thought the same about the resolution as you, but trust me, the retina rMBP is way ahead. I came from a 17" cMBP to my ( 3 week old ) 13" rMBP. The display more than makes up for the lack of real-estate, and the option to increase it easily via system prefs. means you won't have issues working with it.

I have the 3GHZ model with a 512B SSD and 8GB of RAM. It's blinding fast, runs all my heavy duty apps fine, and the small form factor is perfect. How I ever carried that lump of a 17" around for so long is beyond me. I' suppose that there is an argument for waiting for the re-fresh, but frankly I'd buy now.

I was a little worried about space, so have a WD my book 2TB external USB 3 unit which is also small enough to carry. All told the whole lot fits neatly into my bag, and weighs a lot less than the 17" I can honestly say I don't miss the screen size at all.

 

[jNSK]

I thought the same about the resolution as you, but trust me, the retina rMBP is way ahead. I came from a 17" cMBP to my ( 3 week old ) 13" rMBP. The display more than makes up for the lack of real-estate, and the option to increase it easily via system prefs. means you won't have issues working with it.

I have the 3GHZ model with a 512B SSD and 8GB of RAM. It's blinding fast, runs all my heavy duty apps fine, and the small form factor is perfect. How I ever carried that lump of a 17" around for so long is beyond me. I' suppose that there is an argument for waiting for the re-fresh, but frankly I'd buy now.

I was a little worried about space, so have a WD my book 2TB external USB 3 unit which is also small enough to carry. All told the whole lot fits neatly into my bag, and weighs a lot less than the 17" I can honestly say I don't miss the screen size at all.

Oh, sorry! I should have probably mentioned that I am considering a 15"!

The main issue is that I've heard about these performance glitches and they're putting me off. I just want someone to tell me how it performs, recently (after the latest OS X updates and such), with the resolution at, say 1680x1050 and above. Performance in, say, Xcode and screen transitions and such.

I'd also love to know if anyone has bought a MacBook and sold one less than a year later - would be interesting to know how much I will lose if I decide to bite the bullet then upgrade to Haswell later this year.

 

[Macman45]

Oh, sorry! I should have probably mentioned that I am considering a 15"!

The main issue is that I've heard about these performance glitches and they're putting me off. I just want someone to tell me how it performs, recently (after the latest OS X updates and such), with the resolution at, say 1680x1050 and above. Performance in, say, Xcode and screen transitions and such.

I'd also love to know if anyone has bought a MacBook and sold one less than a year later - would be interesting to know how much I will lose if I decide to bite the bullet then upgrade to Haswell later this year.

Well, the technology is the same, I've had mine for 3 weeks and have had no issues at all. The HD 4000 chipset is better than I thought it would be, and is even capable of running pretty intensive games at a decent setting. As far as the 15" goes I can't really pass comment, but you should be fine IMO.

 

[kittencounter]

It's win-win if you can wait

- If Haswell turns out to be great update u can buy even greater machine
- If Haswell turns out not that great...u buy this generation of rMBP for cheaper price

The whole scrolling performance thing is software related crap. In some apps it's buttery smooth, in some it's not that great but not unusable.

Please don't get me wrong but I hardly can understand the whole "should I wait or buy it now" questions. If you can wait then you don't seem to need it that much and ppl who need the machine for work then they have to buy it NOW anyway. I mean while ppl asking this question others are already enjoying the display, got their work done and most likely made lots of money out of it.

 

[jNSK]

It's win-win if you can wait

- If Haswell turns out to be great update u can buy even greater machine
- If Haswell turns out not that great...u buy this generation of rMBP for cheaper price

The whole scrolling performance thing is software related crap. In some apps it's buttery smooth, in some it's not that great but not unusable.

Please don't get me wrong but I hardly can understand the whole "should I wait or buy it now" questions. If you can wait then you don't seem to need it that much and ppl who need the machine for work then they have to buy it NOW anyway. I mean while ppl asking this question others are already enjoying the display, got their work done and most likely made lots of money out of it.

Like I said, I will be using it for work. The question is more about finding out about these performance issues than 'should I upgrade'. I've said that I'll just buy Haswell if it turns out to be better and was wondering how much I'd lose in the upgrade process.

 

[Livewings]

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. I thought it was finally the time to sign up as I'm having a bit of a dilemma!

I currently own a 13" Macbook Pro 2011 - I've upgraded it to 8GB RAM, taken out the optical drive and installed an SSD (128GB, so I have that and the hard drive).

The resolution has been REALLY annoying me for months now - I code heavily using Xcode and do web development and the screen resolution just really is not big enough. About half of my time is spent working on a secondary monitor, but when not using that the screen just isn't cutting it. Other than that, the computer is very fast, as it obviously should be.

Now, I'm considering buying a 15" Retina MBP however I'm put off by all this talk of slow scrolling and lag and such. I have looked around and cannot find many people talking about recent performance - could someone give me their two cents as to how bad these performance glitches actually are? I would be going for 16GB of RAM.

I mean, my rationale is that if I buy one now and Haswell turns out to be a huge upgrade, I would not lose much money if I upgraded since Mac's have such a high resell value -- right?

If I can get most of the money I paid for it in, say, 3 months time, I will just buy one now. How likely do you think this will be? I don't have much experience in buying Macs and selling them within the same year.

Any thoughts anyone could share with me on this topic would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Furthermore: Is the extra $120 (AUD) worth it to upgrade from 2.4 GHz to the 2.7 GHz processor? Will I notice much of a difference? I suppose it'll reduce code compile times...

tl;dr Macbook Pro 13" screen resolution too small for my needs. Considering rMBP. Wait for Haswell or buy now and upgrade to Haswell if required.

The processor upgrade is not worth it. There's barely any difference.
I recommend you to wait for Haswell as Haswell brings some major improvements.

 

[ncrypt]

I went across to the 13" rMBP and decided against waiting for Haswell simply because the performance issues are software related meaning that it will be fixed at some point -with or without Haswell.

Having said that, I don't actually find the performance of my machine an issue, even with multiple VMs and apps open. I found that the lag between spaces can be mitigated by installing totalspaces which uses a different transition, thus bypassing Apple's laggy implementation.

Sure, I could have waited for Haswell, but I'm glad I didn't. I really don't find this an issue -trust me, I'm the kind of person who'd notice if it was. I'd only wait for Haswell if you want to do graphically intensive work on the integrated gpu, but since you want the 15" rMBP, that's irrelevant anyway since you can always switch to dedicated.

Hope this helps.

 

[jNSK]

I went across to the 13" rMBP and decided against waiting for Haswell simply because the performance issues are software related meaning that it will be fixed at some point -with or without Haswell.

Having said that, I don't actually find the performance of my machine an issue, even with multiple VMs and apps open. I found that the lag between spaces can be mitigated by installing totalspaces which uses a different transition, thus bypassing Apple's laggy implementation.

Sure, I could have waited for Haswell, but I'm glad I didn't. I really don't find this an issue -trust me, I'm the kind of person who'd notice if it was. I'd only wait for Haswell if you want to do graphically intensive work on the integrated gpu, but since you want the 15" rMBP, that's irrelevant anyway since you can always switch to dedicated.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for the insight. To be honest, I don't even use spaces. Because I've grown up on Windows, I'm an Alt-Tab, windows all over the place sort of guy. It's just how I work and it works for me. I don't use Mission Control much and I don't full screen apps (I make the window full screen but not actually use full screen mode if you know what I mean).

I wouldn't even notice those animations slowing down if they're still present. I am mainly concerned about the scroll lag I've seen mentioned on websites. How are they with fixing that on sites such as Facebook?

 

[ncrypt]

Thank you for the insight. To be honest, I don't even use spaces. Because I've grown up on Windows, I'm an Alt-Tab, windows all over the place sort of guy. It's just how I work and it works for me. I don't use Mission Control much and I don't full screen apps (I make the window full screen but not actually use full screen mode if you know what I mean).

I wouldn't even notice those animations slowing down if they're still present. I am mainly concerned about the scroll lag I've seen mentioned on websites. How are they with fixing that on sites such as Facebook?

Ah well fair enough, I found that's where most of the lag is, so you should be okay.

RE Safari and Facebook, there is some lag, but by installing the Webkit Nighty (the beta version of the rendering engine behind Safari), it is smooooth. Plus, webkit is updated on a daily basis meaning things can only get better

Browsing The Verge right now (really image heavy site), and it's pretty buttery.
Something else to help is to use the extension 'ClicktoFlash' which disables flash on sites (you can reactive it on demand by clicking the placeholder) and defaults to load web videos to HTML5 since flash it really hogs the cpu.

 

[jNSK]

Ah well fair enough, I found that's where most of the lag is, so you should be okay.

RE Safari and Facebook, there is some lag, but by installing the Webkit Nighty (the beta version of the rendering engine behind Safari), it is smooooth. Plus, webkit is updated on a daily basis meaning things can only get better

Browsing The Verge right now (really image heavy site), and it's pretty buttery.
Something else to help is to use the extension 'ClicktoFlash' which disables flash on sites (you can reactive it on demand by clicking the placeholder) and defaults to load web videos to HTML5 since flash it really hogs the cpu.

Thanks for the reply (again)! Does this extend across all the resolutions, including 1920x1200? I'll probably be running it on 1680 at the very least.

 

[ncrypt]

Thanks for the reply (again)! Does this extend across all the resolutions, including 1920x1200? I'll probably be running it on 1680 at the very least.

You're welcome!

Yup. Well, I'm on the 13" rMBP so the highest I can go is 1680 which I've been using since day 1, so all of the above is based upon that res

Now of course, if you decided to run at the native resolution of 2880×1800, you'd have zero lag since the UI doesn't need to be scaled, but I know my eyesight can't handle it :L

 

[jNSK]

You're welcome!

Yup. Well, I'm on the 13" rMBP so the highest I can go is 1680 which I've been using since day 1, so all of the above is based upon that res

Now of course, if you decided to run at the native resolution of 2880×1800, you'd have zero lag since the UI doesn't need to be scaled, but I know my eyesight can't handle it :L

Well, I bit the bullet and ordered one. I am sure I will love it.

 

[ncrypt]

Well, I bit the bullet and ordered one. I am sure I will love it.

Awesome!!!! I'm sure you will

 

[jNSK]

Awesome!!!! I'm sure you will

Yeah! Thanks for you help

 

[ColdCase]

Its an excellent machine. Facebook is buttery smooth for me, I haven't noticed any scroll issues with my loaded rMBP 15, 2.8GHz.. but I run mostly apple video and photo editing and a couple different web design apps.

 

[inlinevolvo]

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. I thought it was finally the time to sign up as I'm having a bit of a dilemma!

I currently own a 13" Macbook Pro 2011 - I've upgraded it to 8GB RAM, taken out the optical drive and installed an SSD (128GB, so I have that and the hard drive).

The resolution has been REALLY annoying me for months now - I code heavily using Xcode and do web development and the screen resolution just really is not big enough. About half of my time is spent working on a secondary monitor, but when not using that the screen just isn't cutting it. Other than that, the computer is very fast, as it obviously should be.

Now, I'm considering buying a 15" Retina MBP however I'm put off by all this talk of slow scrolling and lag and such. I have looked around and cannot find many people talking about recent performance - could someone give me their two cents as to how bad these performance glitches actually are? I would be going for 16GB of RAM.

I mean, my rationale is that if I buy one now and Haswell turns out to be a huge upgrade, I would not lose much money if I upgraded since Mac's have such a high resell value -- right?

If I can get most of the money I paid for it in, say, 3 months time, I will just buy one now. How likely do you think this will be? I don't have much experience in buying Macs and selling them within the same year.

Any thoughts anyone could share with me on this topic would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Furthermore: Is the extra $120 (AUD) worth it to upgrade from 2.4 GHz to the 2.7 GHz processor? Will I notice much of a difference? I suppose it'll reduce code compile times...

tl;dr Macbook Pro 13" screen resolution too small for my needs. Considering rMBP. Wait for Haswell or buy now and upgrade to Haswell if required.

Anabdtech has been reviewing haswell and it will be about a 10% bump, same as when we went from sandy to ivy...

 

[gmikesell]

I purchased a mid-2012 15" base MBPr on clearance from Best Buy and still ended up paying $2060 after tax. I read A LOT of text on it all day, 7 days a week so I really wanted the retina display. I must say, I absolutely love this laptop. It runs pretty much perfectly now, after the most recent update. The only issue I've ever had with it was an occasional line flicker across the bottom of the display after waking from sleep. However, it seems to be happening less and less frequently. Used to happen every time. Now, it's been a few days since I've seen it and am unable to replicate the issue so I'm pretty sure that must have been a software based problem.

Recently, I've noticed my TV (60" Samsung Plasma) is starting to flicker. Getting suspicious my TV is about to go out. It's tempting to return my MBPr to take advantage of a great deal on a new 60" LED but every time I have just about made up my mind, while shopping online on my laptop, I'm awed by the clear display and end up changing my mind. Looks like I'm keeping the laptop and may end up having find a way to watch TV programs on this thing. lol

 

[vatter69]

Everyone expecting Haswell being a huge boost - prepare yourself for a huge disappointment

 

[Queen6]

Everyone expecting Haswell being a huge boost - prepare yourself for a huge disappointment

Been like this for some time, Intel`s focus is power consumption and temperature, not performance 10% sounds about right.

 

[xShane]

Hi all,

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. I thought it was finally the time to sign up as I'm having a bit of a dilemma!

I currently own a 13" Macbook Pro 2011 - I've upgraded it to 8GB RAM, taken out the optical drive and installed an SSD (128GB, so I have that and the hard drive).

The resolution has been REALLY annoying me for months now - I code heavily using Xcode and do web development and the screen resolution just really is not big enough. About half of my time is spent working on a secondary monitor, but when not using that the screen just isn't cutting it. Other than that, the computer is very fast, as it obviously should be.

Now, I'm considering buying a 15" Retina MBP however I'm put off by all this talk of slow scrolling and lag and such. I have looked around and cannot find many people talking about recent performance - could someone give me their two cents as to how bad these performance glitches actually are? I would be going for 16GB of RAM.

I mean, my rationale is that if I buy one now and Haswell turns out to be a huge upgrade, I would not lose much money if I upgraded since Mac's have such a high resell value -- right?

If I can get most of the money I paid for it in, say, 3 months time, I will just buy one now. How likely do you think this will be? I don't have much experience in buying Macs and selling them within the same year.

Any thoughts anyone could share with me on this topic would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Furthermore: Is the extra $120 (AUD) worth it to upgrade from 2.4 GHz to the 2.7 GHz processor? Will I notice much of a difference? I suppose it'll reduce code compile times...

tl;dr Macbook Pro 13" screen resolution too small for my needs. Considering rMBP. Wait for Haswell or buy now and upgrade to Haswell if required.

With a 15" rMBP with 16GB RAM you should be fine. If you have any problems, take advantage of your AppleCare.

I'd recommend upgrading to 2.7Ghz for only $120 more. Since you code heavily in Xcode (and depending on your project size(s)), your projects will likely compile faster. You'll have much more leniency when it comes to multitasking (i.e. Xcode, a couple of browser windows and multiple tabs open for research/APIs, documents, etc.).

 

[cosmicjoke]

IMO don't take anyone's word for it on UI lag, go see for yourself. take note of all the places people complain about lag (scrolling on sites like the verge, facebook & the like) maximizing contact list, resizing app store and everything along that line and just throw everything you can at one of their floor models... see for yourself and make your mind up.

IMO it's considerably laggier than my late '11 15" mbp but still utterly worth it. YMMV.

 

[locoboi187]

I has no lag expect maybe when i zoom in a huge PDF file. Webkit solves Safari's lag but even then, 10.8.3 improved things overall.

 

[jNSK]

I saw that the latest seed of 10.8.4 addresses 'graphics drivers' (information available on Google), and I can be 95% certain that will address Retina issues. The 650M should be more than enough to power the display.

Anyway, I went ahead and ordered 2.4 GHz, 16GB RAM, 256 GB SSD rMBP last night. I spoke to a friend who has the 2.7 GHz model (paid the extra $120) who also owned the 2.3 GHz 2012 model. He said he did not notice a difference at all (he does exactly the same things for work as I do).

I suspect the only time you're really going to notice that much of a bump on processors like these is when you're doing a lengthy operation such as compiling video. Even on my current 13" MBP, compiling a large Xcode project takes less than 10 seconds. I decided, in the end, I could probably put the $120 to better use on some accessories for the MacBook, such as Magsafe 2 converter and a new case.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

 

[B...]

Cool. Enjoy your new machine!