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MacBook Air and 13" Retina MacBook Pro Updated to Improve Speed and Battery Life

The 13" rMBP is $2500 for dual core processor with 16GB and 1TB hard drive. That's a few hundred dollars too expensive for me.

I had hoped for a quad core processor and a slight decrease in SSD prices (upgrading to 1 TB costs double the going retail price of SSD drives).

It still looks like a good machine, but I miss the days of being able to upgrade hard drives/SSD drives and memory myself.
 
caddison said:
Advice, please...

I've been ready to pull the trigger on a decked out 15" and was waiting for this day with hopes that there would be some kind of upgrade, knowing that the processors aren't ready.
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The processors have been ready for some time. Broadwell is basically last years processor and should have hit instead of the refreshed processors we go. The design of SkyLake is a done deal and has been ready for some time now.
So, for those of you who are more used to this kind of dilemma than I am, would you...

1.) Take the gamble waiting for a new 15" version, knowing that it might not even happen at all this year... the processors are supposed to be ready by end of July, but nobody knows for sure.
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Nobody in these forums knows but the general feel from people in the know is that SkyLake comes in the second half of the year. Honestly though I suspect that they will come earlier in the guise of performance laptop chips.
2.) Get one of the new 13" versions, fully decked out and save myself a few hundred bucks.
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Only you understand your needs.
3.) Just buy a fully decked out 15" that is available now and forget today ever happened.

Any advice would be fantastic... thanks!
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Learn to make decisions for yourself.
 
Nice that they upgraded the flash storage. It was already very fast and if the x2 improvement is true, then I wonder if it's similar flash disks that are in the Mac Pro.
 
GoCubsGo said:
True, but I don't really want a bag-o-adapters to deal with either. But still, I guess if it's that important than I could do it. I wonder if it could drive a large thunderbolt display.
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The Mac Book is a joke, buy one of the Airs instead or if you really want retina a MBP.

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caddison said:
That all depends... does anyone know how the new fifth-generation 3.1GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7 benchtests against the fourth-generation 2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7?

I'd be really interested in seeing that, but I can't find anything on it yet... but I probably don't know what to look for either. Heh... :D
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Broadwell, CPU wise, is at best 5% faster clock for clock. So maybe you get the equivalent of 500 MHz better performance. Don't forget though that we get a rather massive GPU upgrade. These are very rough numbers and doesn't cnsider Any Broadwell specific optimizations that may be possible.

If you are asking if the 2.8 to 3.1 spread is worth it, I'd have to say yes.
 
subsonix said:
Nice that they upgraded the flash storage. It was already very fast and if the x2 improvement is true, then I wonder if it's similar flash disks that are in the Mac Pro.
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2x faster flash storage... so compared to the 700MB/s I get on my Haswell 13" rMBP, it would be up to 1.4GB/s? Dayamn!
 
kaellar said:
So instead of just finally adding that freakin' IPS (not even retina resolution) to otherwise perfect MBAs they introduce that silly ugly underpowered piece of crap? Apple, you're killing me, literally.. :(
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That Mac Book will be useful,to some people but I suspect that we will see a lot of them for sale used as people become disappointed with them. This might end up being an Apple laptop with the used resale value of a Windows laptop.

Sad really I suspect we will need 10 nm chips before this machine comes into its own. Even then it is a hard sell without ports.
 
We're seeing much of the same as with the original MacBook Air. Only two and a half years later did it come of age, including adding a second USB port.

This is clearly an early-adopter machine.
 
Are they moving to a 3 product MB lineup or will this design with a larger screen eventually replace the MBA and MBP? Maybe they've moving to a new lineup of 12"MB, 14" MBA and 16" MBP with the MBA and MBP getting new designs next year.
 
wizard said:
The Mac Book is a joke, buy one of the Airs instead or if you really want retina a MBP.

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Broadwell, CPU wise, is at best 5% faster clock for clock. So maybe you get the equivalent of 500 MHz better performance. Don't forget though that we get a rather massive GPU upgrade. These are very rough numbers and doesn't cnsider Any Broadwell specific optimizations that may be possible.

If you are asking if the 2.8 to 3.1 spread is worth it, I'd have to say yes.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? I asked an Apple sales guy in chat and he said quad cores can still handle CPU intensive programs better (I gave him the example of music production software when comparing a 2011 quad 15in i7 vs. the 2015 dual 13in i7)
 
So the 11" and 13" MBAs still sport screen resolutions from the '90s and a cheap TN panel? GTFO Apple.
 
Did anyone notice that the starting price for the 15" rMBP was upgraded? They now come standard with 16GB of RAM, but start at $1999.00.
 
theSeb said:
Why don't you wait until later this year when the 15" rMBP is refreshed?
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I need a workhorse right now, if it costs me a couple hundred bucks to turn it like I mentioned in December and buy a new one, it's worth it for me.
 
therza001 said:
For the new rMBP 13", is it worth the upgraded processor from 2.7ghz i5 to either:

1) 2.9 ghz i5 for $100

2) 3.1 ghz i7 for $200

Ready to pull the trigger on this, but unsure if it's even worth the difference for the updated processor.
Click to expand...

Well that depends on what you intend to use that machine for. If you are just going to be emailing, amateur photo organization and editing, using Facebook and watching movies - the base model will suffice. If you have engineering simulations, pro photo and video editing going on - then the upgrades may make more sense.

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dubhe said:
I do not get why the base rMBP is still 128GB, can you really run an OS with your day to day files in that much space? 256GB maybe, but I would have liked to see the mid-range with 512GB. I am going to have to buy the faster processor when all I want is the storage hike.
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Up-sell?

Quite a few people will pay a few extra hundred bucks to upgrade to the higher price point. They will not if the higher storage was offered at the base price point.
 
:rolleyes:
JuliusCaesar said:
It's kind of weird that the 13' rMBP gets a little bump in the battery life department (1 hour), but then, the MacBook Air didn't see any improvements with the Broadwell chips, a least 1 hour too? What do you guys think?
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Sorry double posted...
 
alexfsu said:
I did notice that, I dunno why other countries are getting dicked over
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It has been like that since the last minor update in July 2014

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wizard said:
The Mac Book is a joke, buy one of the Airs instead or if you really want retina a MBP.

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Broadwell, CPU wise, is at best 5% faster clock for clock. So maybe you get the equivalent of 500 MHz better performance. Don't forget though that we get a rather massive GPU upgrade. These are very rough numbers and doesn't cnsider Any Broadwell specific optimizations that may be possible.

If you are asking if the 2.8 to 3.1 spread is worth it, I'd have to say yes.
Click to expand...

The Haswell jul 2014 update was 3.0ghz i7. So it is only a 100mhz increase. Even worse is the turbo speed was actually decreased from 3.5 to 3.4ghz. So don't expect any substantial cpu performance increases
 
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Smearbrick said:
Did anyone notice that the starting price for the 15" rMBP was upgraded? They now come standard with 16GB of RAM, but start at $1999.00.
Click to expand...

That happened when the current 15" rMBPs were introduced in Mid-2014. Unless I'm missing something.
 
theSeb said:
I reckon the new 15" rMBP will come with Thunderbolt 3
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TB 3 will be total fail, if it doesn't include dp1.3.

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mafaky said:
6) Your worries about that single USB-C port: No sweat--Apple's planning to sell you a $ 150 (or more) hub which you can connect USB 3.0 flash drives, Thunderbolt and HDMI, etc. etc. But before doing so, they've gotta bring forward a USB3.0 to USB3.1 (=USB C) adapter...
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When Apple introduced TB, they didn't release a TB hub.
Why would they release a hub now, when usb3.1typeC will be industry standard and all hub makers will release them?

Btw, funny that 13" has now more iGPU power than 15" with iGPU...
 
I ordered a BTO high end Macbook Pro 13 inch on March 1st. Apple sent it out to the Apple Store on Saturday. :rolleyes: Now I have a decision to make on if I should just take the old model when it comes in or return it and order the updated model. I'm leaning on just taking the old model since I don't want to wait another couple of weeks for Apple to send me another BTO computer.
 
doidito said:
In Portugal (and other countries as well) it seems that it has been an update for the rMBP 15.. but only in price! No hardware update..
From 2049€ yesterday to 2299€ today! :eek:
What am I seeing wrong?? Is it me?
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Don't worry your not alone, in Canada the cost went up $350 for both of the 15" (with no updates either). And before people say its because the dollar is lower, its not that low $ .80. Even when our dollar was at par or above we were still paying like $200 more here. Was $2649 then went to $2699 now its $3049. (the 2nd tier Mac Pro model).
 
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Is it a consensus then that Skylake will only be in the next 15" Macbook Pro, and not in the 13" one?
 
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