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Macbook 12 for science sphere: Recommended it to me?

On both the 15 and the 13 it's a give and take. I like typing on the 13 more than the 15. I can say however that I grab the 15 for more tasks because of the screen real estate. 15 would be my choice.
 
Hmm, it most likely is the cpu and since the gpu is also on the cpu in case of the MacBook and the 13" MBP and MBA changing the cpu will also change the gpu. What specs does your current MBP have?

Overall differences between 13" and 15" MBP: size of display. If you buy the higher end MBP 15" you get a more powerful GPU from AMD which, in your case, is rather useless. I'd say you need to decide for yourself if you want a bigger display or not. As for keyboard: that's quite personal so do try typing on one in a store.
 
Dear Dyn, my current MBP is late 2013 model - retina, core i5 4258U, 8gb.
Today I was in Lenovo shop and tried x250 model. Keyboard is really amazing and fantastic, sorry, but for me better than in MBP. But the screen is very terrible (the model has FHD non-touch IPS screen), retina is better more than 10 times! So I do not know what really to buy.
After that I went to apple retailer to try new MBP 13 and 15 with force touch. The keyboard is very similar, I found the difference only in size of display. I do not think that I need larger screen and AMD video card. I think that the new MBP 13 is enough good and even better than my MBP late 2013.
 
I am going to suggest you try the Thinkpad T450s. It's very similar to the 13" MacBook Pro in size and weight, but has the excellent keyboard like the X250 (if anything, it's even better), and has the same new trackpad that has both the dedicated mouse buttons for the trackpoint and a much improved trackpad, that works great with the new Mac-like native gestures now incorporated into Windows 10. It's worth noting that those gestures are not available when using a Mac with Bootcamp as Apple provides only the most basic trackpad driver support for Windows.

The T450s is the standard issue laptop at the engineering firm where I manage the IT infrastructure for good reason. It's among the best reasonably thin and light PC laptops you can buy. As you will be running Windows exclusively I think you will have a lot fewer headaches dealing with a laptop like this that fully supports the operating system you rely on.
 
zhenya said:
I am going to suggest you try the Thinkpad T450s. It's very similar to the 13" MacBook Pro in size and weight, but has the excellent keyboard like the X250 (if anything, it's even better), and has the same new trackpad that has both the dedicated mouse buttons for the trackpoint and a much improved trackpad, that works great with the new Mac-like native gestures now incorporated into Windows 10. It's worth noting that those gestures are not available when using a Mac with Bootcamp as Apple provides only the most basic trackpad driver support for Windows.

The T450s is the standard issue laptop at the engineering firm where I manage the IT infrastructure for good reason. It's among the best reasonably thin and light PC laptops you can buy. As you will be running Windows exclusively I think you will have a lot fewer headaches dealing with a laptop like this that fully supports the operating system you rely on.
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Dear Zhenya, Thank You very much!
I saw in the Internet, but x250 and t450s are very similar notebooks. Difference is only in screen size. I always take my note everywhere with me, so the x250 is better in this way. And why the keyboard is better in t450s?
Thank You!
 
viktit88 said:
Dear Zhenya, Thank You very much!
I saw in the Internet, but x250 and t450s are very similar notebooks. Difference is only in screen size. I always take my note everywhere with me, so the x250 is better in this way. And why the keyboard is better in t450s?
Thank You!
Click to expand...

Yes, they are quite similar and if you are looking to down-size, the x250 fits that bill nicely.

The T450s has a couple of things going for it though. The keyboard is only slightly better because it has a tiny bit more travel, and a bit more activation force for the keys which helps to make it feel even crisper. The 14" screen is probably a bit more usable with the FHD resolution and while I have not seen the current FHD screens on the x250, the reviews reflect what you said - that it doesn't look that great, whereas the T450s FHD screen is pretty good - no MacBook retina - but pretty good. As a smaller benefit, the T450s can be configured with slightly more RAM - 20GB as opposed to 16GB. With either of them, be SURE to spec them with a SSD or plan on installing one yourself. They will feel like dogs without them!

Either way you can't go wrong.
 
Retina on a Mac is also better supported by 3rd party apps when you use OS X. If you must use Windows with a retina display then use Windows 10 as it has the best retina support of all Windows versions. In Windows I personally like the non-retina displays better, things are just easier to read and there are no quirks.
 
dyn said:
Retina on a Mac is also better supported by 3rd party apps when you use OS X. If you must use Windows with a retina display then use Windows 10 as it has the best retina support of all Windows versions. In Windows I personally like the non-retina displays better, things are just easier to read and there are no quirks.
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Dear Dyn, what do You mean 3rd party apps? Thank You!
 
zhenya said:
Yes, they are quite similar and if you are looking to down-size, the x250 fits that bill nicely.

The T450s has a couple of things going for it though. The keyboard is only slightly better because it has a tiny bit more travel, and a bit more activation force for the keys which helps to make it feel even crisper. The 14" screen is probably a bit more usable with the FHD resolution and while I have not seen the current FHD screens on the x250, the reviews reflect what you said - that it doesn't look that great, whereas the T450s FHD screen is pretty good - no MacBook retina - but pretty good. As a smaller benefit, the T450s can be configured with slightly more RAM - 20GB as opposed to 16GB. With either of them, be SURE to spec them with a SSD or plan on installing one yourself. They will feel like dogs without them!

Either way you can't go wrong.
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In Russia today we have these prices: for Lenovo t450s core i7 5600, 8gb, fhd non-touch ips - 1960$, for x250 core i7 5600, 8gb, fhd, non-touch ips - 1660$. So, the question is should I pay 300$ more for the same t450s?
Thanks!
 
Any difference in the size or type of drives installed in the two machines? SSD's or platter drives?
 
In that case it's probably hard to justify the extra expense for the T450s. Pick the one whose size suits you best!
 
viktit88 said:
Dear Dyn, what do You mean 3rd party apps? Thank You!
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Any app not made by the manufacturer of the operating system; in this case that means any app not from Microsoft/Apple. In your case that's not entirely true since we also need to include the Microsoft Office apps.
 
viktit88 said:
In Russia today we have these prices: for Lenovo t450s core i7 5600, 8gb, fhd non-touch ips - 1960$, for x250 core i7 5600, 8gb, fhd, non-touch ips - 1660$. So, the question is should I pay 300$ more for the same t450s?
Thanks!
Click to expand...

Damn that's crazy expensive; that (US equivalent?) $1960 one you mention looks like it's US$1450 + tax (approx $100-$150) on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-20BX001LUS-14-Inch-Laptop/dp/B00TO8IYV6 ).

If you do go for that -- or maybe any computer actually -- do you know anyone you can ship it to in the US who can then send it to you in Russia? I did this a few years ago for someone in Krasnoyarsk. It also took like a month to get to him from the time he ordered it but it saved like $500.
 
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I thought you decided after your test in the store that it was not powerful enough? What happened?
 
zhenya said:
I thought you decided after your test in the store that it was not powerful enough? What happened?
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Yes, It is not powerful enough in windows 10 - I tried spss, matlab in retail store on windows 10. They put the version of windows 10 with bootcamp. On my MacBook 12 I did not not install Windows 10, I bought spss and matlab for mac os x and they are working great! Now everything is amazing - power, design, screen, keyboard, color - everything!!!:) And now I am using only Mac OS X, that is why yesterday I started this topic https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-os-x-for-science-economics.1909106/
Thank You very much Zhenya!!!
 
viktit88 said:
Yes, It is not powerful enough in windows 10 - I tried spss, matlab in retail store on windows 10. They put the version of windows 10 with bootcamp. On my MacBook 12 I did not not install Windows 10, I bought spss and matlab for mac os x and they are working great! Now everything is amazing - power, design, screen, keyboard, color - everything!!!:) And now I am using only Mac OS X, that is why yesterday I started this topic https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-os-x-for-science-economics.1909106/
Thank You very much Zhenya!!!
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This is amazing. I was worried with your earlier post where you had said that you were disappointed by rMB. I use Stata in my work and have been happy with my 5 year old MBP. Though it is now giving me a lot of problems - display fails daily, and battery life is just 2 hours. My commute is a 2 hour train ride each way and need a laptop that I can work on while working and I was seriously considering rMB.
 
mechatak said:
This is amazing. I was worried with your earlier post where you had said that you were disappointed by rMB. I use Stata in my work and have been happy with my 5 year old MBP. Though it is now giving me a lot of problems - display fails daily, and battery life is just 2 hours. My commute is a 2 hour train ride each way and need a laptop that I can work on while working and I was seriously considering rMB.
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For stata no problems! Fantastic notebook! Buy the new 12 MacBook! You will love it!!!
 
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