Pretty sure they make a fancy binged out store you can find this out with. Just be careful of the dude next to you on the 15" who is writing his entire tech blog update for the day. And, yes of course it's "his" computer just wait your turn.
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Disappointed in Screen Resolution MBP 13" (vs MBA 13")
- Thread starter William90
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Pretty sure they make a fancy binged out store you can find this out with. Just be careful of the dude next to you on the 15" who is writing his entire tech blog update for the day. And, yes of course it's "his" computer just wait your turn.
You know, your reply was a bit douchey considering he had a reasonable point. You state that everything about the MBP is right except it's resolution. Waiting and getting a 13" with 4x the pixels and scalable resolutions sounds like it would fit you perfectly.
I agree, it's logical advice. Surely the 13" rMBP will be able to scale to 1440 x 900. The 13" rMBP will be the best of both worlds, combining the MBP and the MBA. You say your budget is the base MBP and you'll be able to afford SSD and RAM upgrades, but the price of the base 13" rMBP might just come out to around the same price and is likely to include 8 GB of RAM and SSD already.
OP are you me because I am debating between the 2012 13'' Air and Pro for nearly the same exact reasons.
I used to own the 2011 13'' Pro for my last year of college. However, I ended up selling it afterwards because the resell value was still high and I no longer needed to carry a machine around classes (I have powerful Windows machine at home). Anyway, I loved the fact that I could upgrade the SSD and memory on my own for reasonable prices, which I did.
I am probably a more niche example, but being in software development and working constantly with various IDEs and editors, the smaller resolution was less than ideal for me. While working on projects, I found myself wishing I was on my desktop, which didn't even provide that much more real-estate (1440x900). I'm not saying the 1280x800 was absolutely terrible and unusable. For word processing, office tasks, and most if not all web browsing, the resolution was fine. Also, my friends who also had Pro's seemed to get along well on the Pro screen, so I had thought maybe it was just me who was used to working with more space.
I honestly wouldn't be too optimistic about gaming performance out of the 2012 13'' Pro. Yeah, CS:GO will probably run great on custom settings. In terms of Skyrim and SC2 though, I wouldn't expect ideal performance. Especially SC2, which is heavily cpu-bound. Ivy Bridge isn't a big step at all compute-wise from Sandy Bridge, and I could barely get acceptable frame rates in mid to late game scenarios with all low settings playing against the game AI. I haven't tried Skyrim, but who knows, maybe the HD4000 can handle it pretty well.
For me, the decision comes down to what I really need versus what I think I want. The new machine, whichever one I choose to get, is supposed to be my on-the-go workhorse; powerful enough to substitute as a primary non-gaming machine. I'm not going to be gaming when I'm out and I'd rather game on ideal settings on my desktop at home. Screen real-estate and portability (although the Pro isn't that heavy) out-trump the upgradabilty of the Pro for me. I'm not going to need more than 4GB of memory. Hell, my non-gaming memory usage never exceeds more than 3GB. I'm not the type that leaves like 20 youtube tabs open.
I'm almost certainly going to go with the 2012 Air. It just seems like the better machine to get at this current time. The 2012 13'' Pro probably still has its uses, but it's for a very specific niche: those who absolutely require the need to upgrade, can work with the lower resolution, and don't mind heavier/thicker form factor.
I used to own the 2011 13'' Pro for my last year of college. However, I ended up selling it afterwards because the resell value was still high and I no longer needed to carry a machine around classes (I have powerful Windows machine at home). Anyway, I loved the fact that I could upgrade the SSD and memory on my own for reasonable prices, which I did.
I am probably a more niche example, but being in software development and working constantly with various IDEs and editors, the smaller resolution was less than ideal for me. While working on projects, I found myself wishing I was on my desktop, which didn't even provide that much more real-estate (1440x900). I'm not saying the 1280x800 was absolutely terrible and unusable. For word processing, office tasks, and most if not all web browsing, the resolution was fine. Also, my friends who also had Pro's seemed to get along well on the Pro screen, so I had thought maybe it was just me who was used to working with more space.
I honestly wouldn't be too optimistic about gaming performance out of the 2012 13'' Pro. Yeah, CS:GO will probably run great on custom settings. In terms of Skyrim and SC2 though, I wouldn't expect ideal performance. Especially SC2, which is heavily cpu-bound. Ivy Bridge isn't a big step at all compute-wise from Sandy Bridge, and I could barely get acceptable frame rates in mid to late game scenarios with all low settings playing against the game AI. I haven't tried Skyrim, but who knows, maybe the HD4000 can handle it pretty well.
For me, the decision comes down to what I really need versus what I think I want. The new machine, whichever one I choose to get, is supposed to be my on-the-go workhorse; powerful enough to substitute as a primary non-gaming machine. I'm not going to be gaming when I'm out and I'd rather game on ideal settings on my desktop at home. Screen real-estate and portability (although the Pro isn't that heavy) out-trump the upgradabilty of the Pro for me. I'm not going to need more than 4GB of memory. Hell, my non-gaming memory usage never exceeds more than 3GB. I'm not the type that leaves like 20 youtube tabs open.
I'm almost certainly going to go with the 2012 Air. It just seems like the better machine to get at this current time. The 2012 13'' Pro probably still has its uses, but it's for a very specific niche: those who absolutely require the need to upgrade, can work with the lower resolution, and don't mind heavier/thicker form factor.
A lot of people also find the screen on the Air to be 'too small', and prefer the bigger fonts etc on the Pro. Heck, I know people with the Pro or MacBook that even lower the resolution a little bit to make things even bigger!
Remember that people were setting 19" LCD monitors to 800x600 because 1280x1024 (native resolution) is 'too small'.
Remember that people were setting 19" LCD monitors to 800x600 because 1280x1024 (native resolution) is 'too small'.
Thanks everyone for all the great replies! I honestly think I should give the MBP 13" a go and get used to the lower resolution. Thing is I need a notebook asap to get my engineering degree. I can always sell my MBP eventually if an 13" retina is released and I can't live without a higher resolution.
Right now I don't have the money to buy upgrades like SSD and additional memory - and I need a notebook right now - but later in the year I will. Besides, I'm going to install the SSD and the memory myself, which is a lot cheaper than the Retina display upgrade (Where I live the MBP 15" is 400 EU / 600$ more expensive with a Retina display)
In your case I would have gone for the MBA too. However, I value the ability to game to much to go with a MBA. Just like yourself, I have a monster of a windows PC at home to play games with at maxed out settings. The gaming experience on the Intel HD4000 won't be great, but I've done some research and quite a lot of games (even some of the more demanding newer games) can be played with reasonable settings with the HD4000. It won't be anything like on the PC at home, but still. The MBA uses the ULV version of the HD4000 and doesn't perform as good as the normal model.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Apple store and check out the MBP 13" in person!
Right now I don't have the money to buy upgrades like SSD and additional memory - and I need a notebook right now - but later in the year I will. Besides, I'm going to install the SSD and the memory myself, which is a lot cheaper than the Retina display upgrade (Where I live the MBP 15" is 400 EU / 600$ more expensive with a Retina display)
In your case I would have gone for the MBA too. However, I value the ability to game to much to go with a MBA. Just like yourself, I have a monster of a windows PC at home to play games with at maxed out settings. The gaming experience on the Intel HD4000 won't be great, but I've done some research and quite a lot of games (even some of the more demanding newer games) can be played with reasonable settings with the HD4000. It won't be anything like on the PC at home, but still. The MBA uses the ULV version of the HD4000 and doesn't perform as good as the normal model.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Apple store and check out the MBP 13" in person!
You cannot upgrade them (for the most part). They are built like the Airs are with everything sealed or soldered on to the board. At least the 15" is that way...the 13" is to be determined, but I'd be willing to bet it's going to be built the same way as the 15".
unfortunately with Apple there's no perfect Macbook there' always something missing from one configuration to another...
Yup, and that's a brilliant business model to keep people buying new laptops each year instead of every 3-4 like we should.
If I had the cash there would have been no problem: Maxed out rMBP 13", but I have to be realistic and stay within my budget. My budget allows the normal BMP 13" or an MBA 13" - and I prefer the MBP!
Yup, and that's a brilliant business model to keep people buying new laptops each year instead of every 3-4 like we should.
Brilliant for Apple it is. For me the consumer... not so much! But I think I'll keep my 13" MBP for 3-4 years by upgrading it. Or I'll sell it when I feel the need to buy a new one.