Couple of 15" rmbp haswell questions

[commac]

Feeling constrained on the 13" for design and coding long periods of time and the UI lag under load and with an external display is bothersome. Im looking to trade for a 15" with dgpu this weekend. I know the 15" is more powerful but my other questions are.

Is the 15" screen comfortabe/usable at 1920x1200?

What does it take to get the 15" hot or blowing loud?

How many displays before feeling a drop in performance?

Does the battery feel better or worse than the advertised 8hours?

Is it comfortable to use on the couch or in bed?

Is the gpu switch flicker across the board or isolated cases?

Is the gfxStatus app reliable for disabling gpu when on battery?

Thanks to anyone to answers any of my questions.

 

[johnnylarue]

I'll answer what I know:

Is the 15" screen comfortabe/usable at 1920x1200?

Yes. Definitely. I went from using Logic Pro on a 17" 1920x1200 MBP to the 15" retina and, at least for my eyes, the loss in physical size is more than made up for by the resolving power of the display. For text-heavy uses, I'd say try it out in a store if you can--text can be fine for some people, too small for others.

What does it take to get the 15" hot or blowing loud?

I've managed to get this laptop warm but never bona fide hot yet. Fans get audible, but certainly not crazy loud compared to older MBPs. Gaming will get it going for sure.

Does the battery feel better or worse than the advertised 8hours?

This is one of those things. Haswell is crazy efficient for very light duty stuff, especially with the brightness down. I've hit 10 hours easily (probably longer) of internetting at 50% brightness or less. Streaming HD movies while driving a TV/display? Maybe 4-5 hours. Gaming obviously considerably less. Eight hours seems like a reasonable middle point but it really depends what you're using it for.

Is it comfortable to use on the couch or in bed?

Yeah. And that display is pretty luxurious for movie watching in bed.

Is the gpu switch flicker across the board or isolated cases?

Definitely didn't happen on my (first) machine.

Is the gfxStatus app reliable for disabling gpu when on battery?

Absolutely. Best app ever.

 

[commac]

Definitely didn't happen on my (first) machine.

Does this imply you've had quality control issues and your current machine does indeed flicker when GPU switching?

I guess I'll have to wait and see in store about the 1920x1200 res comfort.
The 1680x1050 on the 13" seems too small for comfort at extended lengths.

 

[johnnylarue]

Yeah, it had uneven backlighting resulting in a dark line running vertically through the center of the display... Not super obvious at first glance, but it got on my nerves. (It was otherwise perfect.)

Replacement arrives today.

The resolution setting is very much a personal/subjective thing, so it's definitely worth checking out first. Like I said, I wouldn't use 1920x1200 for casual reading, but for more graphical UI stuff it's great.