Macbook Pro 13 inch 512GB Early 2015 vs 15 inch 256GB July 2014

[TheKevinFang]

So my question is,

Which one would be better? My budget is around £1000-1400, and a 13 inch 2.9Ghz i5 512GB rMBP costs £1220, while the 15 inch i7 2.2Ghz 256GB rMBP costs £1300 (but the late 2014, as there is no 2015 on Amazon).

Also, do you think I should wait until the 2015 15' Macbook Pro is stocked by resellers on Amazon? Overall, I would need some portability, but am fine with the 15' dimensions. I need a decent storage, so 128GB is out of question, but is the 256GB SSD enough? I don't really want to carry an external HDD. I do value screen real estate a lot, as well as the quad-core i7 CPU, and the 16GB ram, but the price is higher, and there isn't a Force Touch trackpad (don't know if that's good or bad), as well as no quad-core Broadwell CPU's for the May 2015 15' model.

I am really torn between the two, and I want to buy a new Macbook Pro before the next school year starts, preferably late July to August.

Kind regards in advance,
- Kevin

 

[TheKevinFang]

PS: Do you guys have in inclination to when the 15' 2015 rMBP will be stocked on Amazon.co.uk?

 

[Cuniac]

The 15in is going to be a much more powerful machine. it has 4 core vs the 2 cores the 13 in uses. The 15in 2014 MBP at 2.2Ghz has a multicore score of 12973 while that 13in has a score of 7228. However, one is 256GB and one is 512GB. And that's a huge difference. If you think you'll be ok with just 256GB I would get that. Otherwise the 13in should be ok and you'll be better off with the 512 depending on what your doing.

 

[TheKevinFang]

Should I wait for the 2016 Macbook Pro for the Skyline (or Broadwell) model? Don't want to be stuck with an outdated macbook in less that one year.

 

[McDLT]

There will always be something better right around the corner. Buy as needed.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

Should I wait for the 2016 Macbook Pro for the Skyline (or Broadwell) model? Don't want to be stuck with an outdated macbook in less that one year.

Reports are coming that make Skylake not exactly the huge upgrade intel is making it out to be performance wise. What it may give is perhaps a higher energy efficiency allowing a cooler system overall. There also might be some new ports and wireless features (probably insignificant). If those are considered significant then you may wait. The 15 model was just updated so it's a good time to buy one if you need one. The AMD is no slouch either considering the benchmark if you opt for the dGPU. Truthfully I would definitely buy this year's model especially if you have a Mac older than 2011. I have a 2009 13" (stock) model and I'll be getting the 2015 15" model which will be an enormous upgrade from everything (honestly it doesn't matter what I upgrade to it will be an upgrade ).

 

[TheKevinFang]

This is my first Mac period. I'm an apple convert as of last month... Took me 16 years to realise the quality of the apple ecosystem.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

This is my first Mac period. I'm an apple convert as of last month... Took me 16 years to realise the quality of the apple ecosystem.

What will you be using the computer for?? Unless we know this information then we can't advise you at all.

Gaming, Video Editing, and other demanding apps will obviously benefit from the quad core and the better graphics in the 15 inch. But if this is for college or Uni to take notes, write papers and do research, watch movies and surf the web, then the portability, better battery life etc of the 13 inch is a better fit.