Looking to purchase 1st MBP

[mastergrim8]

Greetings, long time widows user here looking to replace a widows notebook
I'm currently on an HP DV6T 2000
* Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
* Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Quad Core processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz
* 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
* 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
* 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M
* 15.6" Screen (1366x768)
* LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
* 12cell Battery.

I initially bought it for gaming purposes along with school. I found it to bulky at times for travel and the battery life sucked. This notebook has lasted me 3+ years but the optical drive burned out, the battery is dead (can only function plugged in), constantly have to do reinstall, wifi card is dead. This P.O.S. is dying on me.

My situation: I'm soon to be heading into the graduate studies (Physical therapy) of the medical field. I'm looking for something that has great battery life and will be able to last 3+ years.
I'm weighing in between the non-retina mbp 13 and rmbp 13. I don't mind the weight differences.

If I get the non retina mbp (mid 2012 2.9ghz i7) I'm planning to upgrade to 500gb/1Tb SSD (Samsung) and max ram to 16gb. My only concerns are that the battery life is much shorter than the rmbp. However I enjoy the upgradeable feature of it and repair seems much cheaper if damage should occur.

If I get the rmbp, I'll get better battery life and better display but cut off an arm and leg for SSD and Ram. I'm also fearful of the cost of repair.

What I intend to use it for: note taking, word processing, ppts, prezi presentation, dartfish (biomechanical video analysis), dropbox, and I will use the laptop as a do it all reference (textbook, picture viewing, video viewing, video analysis). I'd prefer it to be semi-future adaptable. My budget is $2000 after taxes (NYC~9%).

If it helps: I'm on a Samsung Note 2 for phone purposes and great battery life. I also take notes on my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 via lecture notes and sometimes pen/paper. I really want to carry my tablet and laptop daily. I've been carrying my tablet and netbook (acer 10.1) but the netbook is extremely weak and slow and the resolution is not so clear I don't really care for the ecosystem of Apple nor Samsung. I just want the job done.

Open to suggestions and I'm looking to purchase before my current HP fails me.

Edit: also, note I will be purchasing educational store

 

[Meister]

Did you consider the base macbook air?
You can get the 13" 4gb/128gb for 899,- and it will be more than fine for your needs.
Saves you a hell of a lot $
Is there any particular reason you need so much storage and ram?

 

[mastergrim8]

Did you consider the base macbook air?
You can get the 13" 4gb/128gb for 899,- and it will be more than fine for your needs.
Saves you a hell of a lot $
Is there any particular reason you need so much storage and ram?

Ram for videovbrowsing, video analysis and my internet browsers seem to drain ram like crazy. I need a lot of storage because I don't want to carry a external HD and I want everything within reaching distance.

Also this will be my only computer since I own no desktop and I also plan on partitioning widows because dartfish isn't OSX compatible.

 

[Meister]

Ram for videovbrowsing, video analysis and my internet browsers seem to drain ram like crazy. I need a lot of storage because I don't want to carry a external HD and I want everything within reaching distance. Also this will be my only computer since I own no desktop and I also plan on partitioning widows because dartfish isn't OSX compatible.

I don't want to start another ram thread (there is plenty of those) but only for browsing through videos and the internet you don't need anything more than 4gb of ram (on a 2013 mac) for the foreseeable future. If you really are concerned about it, really need so much storage and are not keen on a retina display then your initial thought was in the right direction.

This is what I would do:
Get the 2012 macbook base model. (about 950,- where i live)
Don't upgrade it yet and see if you are fine with the 500gb hdd and 4gigs ram.
If you think its too slow then stick an ssd in it and you can still upgrade the ram later.
In any case you end up spending much less.

 

[maflynn]

I'd opt for the retina MBP because of the benefits you mentioned ,better battery life and better performance. The only knock I see on this is its not as expandable as the classic MBP.

If you're going to want this for the next 3+ years I think the rMBP is a better investment imo

 

[joeytp]

I'd opt for the retina MBP because of the benefits you mentioned ,better battery life and better performance. The only knock I see on this is its not as expandable as the classic MBP.

If you're going to want this for the next 3+ years I think the rMBP is a better investment imo

Hi,
I would go the same way... Simply because apple is gonna stop producing 13"MBP https://www.macrumors.com/2014/03/05/apple-to-stop-13-inch-non-retina-macbook-pro/ ... if you any reason you wanna sell it in few year you will more than the 150$ you would pay for the rMBP...

It's only my opinion, but i guess you have post on the forum to have different opinion haha!

 

[mcarling]

Get the Retina MBP. I could never go back to a non-Retina display. There are few applications for which 8GB is inadequate and swapping to SSD is not such a performance hit as swapping to a HDD. You will be able to replace the SSD with a more capacious one in the future at a better price if you need more capacity.