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siraggi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 21, 2015
3
0
Hello.

I have decided to get a MacBook Pro 13" Ratina.
Is it worth waiting for the new release this year or should I get the 2014 model?
How big will the upgrade be?

I hope that you can help.
 
Probably not...

Hello.

I have decided to get a MacBook Pro 13" Ratina.
Is it worth waiting for the new release this year or should I get the 2014 model?
How big will the upgrade be?

I hope that you can help.

It depends what you use it for, but a minor update in processor will give little benefit to the majority, the graphics will be slightly better but unless gaming or editing large video files this will have little effect. It will be better on battery too, maybe an hour extra.

Other than that I just can't see any other changes until skylake to be honest....

I would get a refurb 2013 model and save a shed load of cash as they are the same as a 2014 apart from a .2GHZ speed increase giving no real day to day benefit...
 
Is it worth waiting for the new release this year or should I get the 2014 model?
Worth is subjective. To one person, they can wait, to another, they cannot.

You didn't mention how you'll be using the computer, so its impossible for us to say if the 2015 model will represent a large improvement on your computing tasks
 
Worth is subjective. To one person, they can wait, to another, they cannot.

You didn't mention how you'll be using the computer, so its impossible for us to say if the 2015 model will represent a large improvement on your computing tasks

Thank you all for your quick answers.

I am studying Computer Science, so I will be writing and running code on it. I am not sure how much computing power I will need later in my studies. I have a gaming rig, so I will not be playing games on it.
 
Are you currently in university or are you just starting next September?

If you need a laptop now, get it now. The current 13" MBP will probably handle most of your course load just fine. In my experience, most coding you'll be doing in class will not require a beast of a computer. However, the projects you decide to take on might. Also, CPU might not be the only thing to look at. Lots of CS majors I know used to rely heavily in virtual machines which are RAM hogs. Also, having a bigger screen can also be nice when staring at code for hours.

If you're just starting class next year, wait. If you currently have a laptop it might be worth the wait.

The next update will feature Intel Broadwell cpus. So the update will be more significant than the last one which was just a slight CPU speed boost on the Haswell chips. So on top of a slightly faster CPU, you can expect better battery life and a nice graphics improvement.
 
You didn't mention what you have now.

If you choose to wait, expect to wait at least until June and possibly until October. If the people who believe that Apple will skip Broadwell are to believed, then you might have to wait longer than that, perhaps into 2016.

The current rMBPs are great. I would buy one now if I didn't already have one.
 
I'm actually in the exact same situation, needing a laptop for my computer class labs. This is my first class, and I need to run windows. So I have considered buying a cheap laptop loaded with windows for now and wait for macbook pro retina release hopefully by summer. But at some point I need something with a cpu that can handle a larger monitor, so that would mean buying windows for my mb pro, because the cheap laptop might not be able to handle the large monitor from what I understand. Plus, by cheap I still seem to be looking at around $280 to $400.

So I am pretty set on buying the low end 13" MB Pro Retina for now, though Best Buy does have a sale on a few higher end configurations this week.

My thought was, I could buy a low end MB Pro now, or a high end 15" at twice the price with the idea it might last twice as long. But with the money I save on the lowed `13", I could buy another low end in a couple of years that might be better than the high end 15" I buy now. At least my reasoning is running somewhere along those lines, however fallible and speculative it may be.
 
in general, i'd advise people to buy laptops based off of Intels 2 year tick-tock cycle. Particularly the tick part. So the next laptop to buy would be skylake. 2 year is probably where the laptop starts to show it's age and will still have a good resale value.
 
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