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Mac Book Pro Retnia on its way

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Bennytsmithjr

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 3, 2012
37
0
Ok....So I know this is pointless but I am so excited to be getting my first Mac (MBPR). I have been reading the forms and doing my research, and a lot of it seems a little over my head. I would like to install parallel and put Windows 7 on my mac..... How difficult of a process will this be? Or should i just wait a little while before i go hog wild with software and stuff?


15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display

2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
512GB Flash Storage
 
Bennytsmithjr said:
Ok....So I know this is pointless but I am so excited to be getting my first Mac (MBPR). I have been reading the forms and doing my research, and a lot of it seems a little over my head. I would like to install parallel and put Windows 7 on my mac..... How difficult of a process will this be? Or should i just wait a little while before i go hog wild with software and stuff?


15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display

2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
512GB Flash Storage
Click to expand...

Looks like a great machine!
I can't determine if my 256SSD is too small.. haha.. but I think I'm good with my 256
 
Installing Windows 7/8 with Parallels Desktop 8 si very, very easy. It's impossible for you not to be able to install it. My mom could do it. It's a lot more simple than boot camp.
 
Love mine, only problem i had was 10 dead pixels (randomly apperaring every week or so, starting with 1 dead pixel, then suddenly 2 more etc.).. but i got my screen replaced 20 hours after i took it in.. and i have no problems with it now !
 
pgiguere1 said:
Installing Windows 7/8 with Parallels Desktop 8 si very, very easy. It's impossible for you not to be able to install it. My mom could do it. It's a lot more simple than boot camp.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I am so excited! Should have it on October 16th..... Its going to take me some time to learn all of keyboard codes and learn all of the tricks... Should i run benchmark test when i first get it???
 
Zeov said:
Love mine, only problem i had was 10 dead pixels (randomly apperaring every week or so, starting with 1 dead pixel, then suddenly 2 more etc.).. but i got my screen replaced 20 hours after i took it in.. and i have no problems with it now !
Click to expand...

was the panel had the dead pixel LG or Samsung? Which one do you have now?

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Orlandoech.com said:
Nice I love mine. Don't listen to all the haters.
Click to expand...

Lg or Samsung?

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procrastinasn said:
Looks like a great machine!
I can't determine if my 256SSD is too small.. haha.. but I think I'm good with my 256
Click to expand...

Do you have the Lg or Samsung display?
 
Mac-Tech said:
was the panel had the dead pixel LG or Samsung? Which one do you have now?

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Lg or Samsung?

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Do you have the Lg or Samsung display?
Click to expand...

I have had two rMBPs, first one was a base model with an LG screen and it was amazing, I only returned it to get 16GB ram, this model has a Samsung screen which is also awesome. The Samsung screen is less vibrant and contrasty however. I personally preferred the LG screen.
 
Hope you enjoy it! This machine is also my first Mac (for twenty-odd years anyway), and the first "desktop replacement". All previous laptops I've had have been miniature ones, fun but not a real computer. The rMBP is a slight downgrade on performance compared to what I'm used to in a desktop, but not enough to be a problem.

I have tried both commercial virtualisation programs, but am happy with VirtualBox for running the things I need to (there are two or three Windows XP programs I need to use, and I also use Paint Shop Pro for image manipulation, as there's nothing else but Photoshop that serious for OSX and I'm not keen on Photoshop's interface).

I did have Windows 7 both virtually and on Bootcamp, but just never used it. It's nice to know it's there just in case, I suppose. If I really need to use something Windows it will usually work in XP. I have Win8 on bootcamp now (just ran the upgrade), which is used for games and laughing at the Metro interface.

Games on the Mac are very slow indeed, and eat juice like there's no tomorrow. Even an ancient game like Half-Life 2 takes forever to boot and load between scenes, but this is because it's a port from the PC. Battery life is well under 2 hours running a game, presumably because of the GPU.

Overall, though, the machine is excellent. It's finally possible for me to have a perfectly acceptable machine on my desk and yet still have everything with me when I'm sitting on the sofa or away from home.
 
tillsbury said:
Hope you enjoy it! This machine is also my first Mac (for twenty-odd years anyway), and the first "desktop replacement". All previous laptops I've had have been miniature ones, fun but not a real computer. The rMBP is a slight downgrade on performance compared to what I'm used to in a desktop, but not enough to be a problem.

I have tried both commercial virtualisation programs, but am happy with VirtualBox for running the things I need to (there are two or three Windows XP programs I need to use, and I also use Paint Shop Pro for image manipulation, as there's nothing else but Photoshop that serious for OSX and I'm not keen on Photoshop's interface).

I did have Windows 7 both virtually and on Bootcamp, but just never used it. It's nice to know it's there just in case, I suppose. If I really need to use something Windows it will usually work in XP. I have Win8 on bootcamp now (just ran the upgrade), which is used for games and laughing at the Metro interface.

Games on the Mac are very slow indeed, and eat juice like there's no tomorrow. Even an ancient game like Half-Life 2 takes forever to boot and load between scenes, but this is because it's a port from the PC. Battery life is well under 2 hours running a game, presumably because of the GPU.

Overall, though, the machine is excellent. It's finally possible for me to have a perfectly acceptable machine on my desk and yet still have everything with me when I'm sitting on the sofa or away from home.
Click to expand...

Wow, Thanks. From the sounds of it we will be using it for most of the same things. I'm surprised you said it was a downgrade from the desktop your used too..... I found this video on YouTube to be pretty interesting. You should check it out.

http://youtu.be/x2pm7Vk0tqM
 
Bennytsmithjr said:
Wow, Thanks. From the sounds of it we will be using it for most of the same things. I'm surprised you said it was a downgrade from the desktop your used too..... I found this video on YouTube to be pretty interesting. You should check it out.

http://youtu.be/x2pm7Vk0tqM
Click to expand...

I was used to a Windows 7 desktop, have had 16Gb RAM and 512Gb SSD in the last two desktops so the rMBP is not quick by comparison. I only bought the MBPr because of the 768Gb option (on a desktop, 512Gb is more than enough as a main drive as you can use a spinny disk as well). Win7 apps in general seem to be significantly faster than their OSX cousins, presumably because most of them are written for Win7 and ported over. Or perhaps for some other reason. Video conversion, for example, takes minutes on the rMBP but seconds on a PC with similar specs. iMovie is a joke, spending an hour importing a video before keeling over. If you're used to video processing on a PC it will take a while to get used to a Mac. Similarly, the general wobbliness of OSX is a bit of a distraction and the number of times I have to reboot (or attempt to reboot, but the spinny ball won't let me, or some other app complains about rebooting) is a bit of a backward step compared with Win7. But not the end of the world. The one thing that completely infuriates me is the Finder, and its complete lack of any form of apparent design by someone who's used a computer (or looked for a file). But I understand that most Mac users feel the same, and we're stuck with that for the moment. There are plenty of nice features -- spotlight, and the integration with iOS devices, to name just two.

TL;DR. It was very much easier than I thought to move from a serious Windows setup to a rMBP, even though I have plenty of critical applications and can't have them down for any length of time. I don't use Windows (virtually) nearly as much as I thought I would; I don't use Bootcamp at all really.

I'm really happy with my rMBP. The only concern I have is what to do if it dies and throws away my data, which is more likely than with a PC (it's already done it once on the upgrade to ML, which Windows has never done to me) and much less easy to fix (on a PC you just chuck the drive into another PC). For that reason I religiously back up with Time Machine (which is what saved me after the ML upgrade), but I am also looking at storing a fair bit of stuff on an SD card, which I could then use on a MBA or similar if I convince the missus to get one.

Here in good old NZ, we have no Apple stores and so if the rMBP dies I am completely stuffed. So I'm a bit living on the edge without a spare Mac I can potentially transfer to.
 
tillsbury said:
I was used to a Windows 7 desktop, have had 16Gb RAM and 512Gb SSD in the last two desktops so the rMBP is not quick by comparison. I only bought the MBPr because of the 768Gb option (on a desktop, 512Gb is more than enough as a main drive as you can use a spinny disk as well). Win7 apps in general seem to be significantly faster than their OSX cousins, presumably because most of them are written for Win7 and ported over. Or perhaps for some other reason. Video conversion, for example, takes minutes on the rMBP but seconds on a PC with similar specs. iMovie is a joke, spending an hour importing a video before keeling over. If you're used to video processing on a PC it will take a while to get used to a Mac. Similarly, the general wobbliness of OSX is a bit of a distraction and the number of times I have to reboot (or attempt to reboot, but the spinny ball won't let me, or some other app complains about rebooting) is a bit of a backward step compared with Win7. But not the end of the world. The one thing that completely infuriates me is the Finder, and its complete lack of any form of apparent design by someone who's used a computer (or looked for a file). But I understand that most Mac users feel the same, and we're stuck with that for the moment. There are plenty of nice features -- spotlight, and the integration with iOS devices, to name just two.

TL;DR. It was very much easier than I thought to move from a serious Windows setup to a rMBP, even though I have plenty of critical applications and can't have them down for any length of time. I don't use Windows (virtually) nearly as much as I thought I would; I don't use Bootcamp at all really.

I'm really happy with my rMBP. The only concern I have is what to do if it dies and throws away my data, which is more likely than with a PC (it's already done it once on the upgrade to ML, which Windows has never done to me) and much less easy to fix (on a PC you just chuck the drive into another PC). For that reason I religiously back up with Time Machine (which is what saved me after the ML upgrade), but I am also looking at storing a fair bit of stuff on an SD card, which I could then use on a MBA or similar if I convince the missus to get one.

Here in good old NZ, we have no Apple stores and so if the rMBP dies I am completely stuffed. So I'm a bit living on the edge without a spare Mac I can potentially transfer to.
Click to expand...


Thanks for sharing..... so time machine is a must i take it.
 
crikey yes, first thing I switched on. Just find any old drive or get one of those really cheap USB external drives (I found a 500Gb USB3 on special, ripped it apart and put a 3Tb drive from my old PC into it). I can confirm that you can boot from it and reinstall 500Gb of MBPr inside half an hour from Apple's upgrade trying to brick your MBP. So it certainly works! Interface is weird, more trendy than useful, but does the job.
 
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