Macbook Pro 15" Predicament, what to do...

[aircanman]

Hey all, wonder if I can have some advice, I have the MBP 13" i5 (late 2011) and an iMac 21.5" i3 (2010 I think)

The CD drive is gone on the iMac other than that its fine, we were thinking of downsizing and as I no longer use the MBP for work I was thinking of selling both and getting a MBP 15" with a nice 750GB 7200 Spin and the 650 graphics so I can do some dual booting and Windows games, does anyone think this is a good idea?

I have been quoted £180 to fix the CD drive here in the UK by an authorised apple retailer, as it is out of warranty of course.

IS the 15" a monster laptop? Will it feel too big from using the 13"

 

[skitzogreg]

It's going to feel bigger, but it's not going to be uncomfortable. Taking the 2012 cMBP is in my opinion the way to go, but ONLY if you get an SSD to go with it (aftermarket, preferably). Gaming on the 15" 1GB 650M is likely to net you better performance for gaming, even at the reduced clock speed, simply because the screen is not being re-scaled regardless of resolution. But if you don't get an SSD, it's going to feel sluggish.

Also, get the Hi-Res screen, and when you do that, remember that you're now more expensive than the base rMBP.

 

[aircanman]

It's going to feel bigger, but it's not going to be uncomfortable. Taking the 2012 cMBP is in my opinion the way to go, but ONLY if you get an SSD to go with it (aftermarket, preferably). Gaming on the 15" 1GB 650M is likely to net you better performance for gaming, even at the reduced clock speed, simply because the screen is not being re-scaled regardless of resolution. But if you don't get an SSD, it's going to feel sluggish.

Also, get the Hi-Res screen, and when you do that, remember that you're now more expensive than the base rMBP.

I was going to go for the 650M (512) - Thing about it is I like to keep the machines standard so didn't want to open it up to mess with SSD's etc, was gonna go for the 7200 750GB one, 8Gb ram, cant imagine it will be too sluggish?

 

[jcpb]

Once you used a SSD as a boot drive with any computer, you'll never want to go back to HDDs, fair warning

 

[FastEddiebags]

Most ppl say that the 7200 RPM is a loud beast... A think an SSD is a better choice. They are very simple to install supposedly.

 

[sweetbrat]

SSDs are simple to install...but they're also still pricey compared to traditional HDDs and are by no means necessary. Yes, it speeds up things like launching programs, but if that's not important to you, keep the 7200. That's what I had just until recently and it was perfectly fine. People will go on and on about SSDs, and they are nice, but they're still relatively new technology and aren't necessary for everyone. For most people, they're just a nice thing to spend some money on. If you're not used to using an SSD then there's no reason to think the 7200 will feel sluggish.

 

[Trey M]

7200 RPM HDD is also more likely to fail in a shorter amount of time. Not many people order the 7200 RPM HDD (I used to have one in my 2011 MBP) but there are several cases where the HDD fails prematurely because movement affects it so much more than a 5400 RPM drive. Like others have said, I think you'd enjoy an SSD, but if you need a lot of storage it's understandable you wouldn't because it's a ton extra.

 

[aircanman]

7200 RPM HDD is also more likely to fail in a shorter amount of time. Not many people order the 7200 RPM HDD (I used to have one in my 2011 MBP) but there are several cases where the HDD fails prematurely because movement affects it so much more than a 5400 RPM drive. Like others have said, I think you'd enjoy an SSD, but if you need a lot of storage it's understandable you wouldn't because it's a ton extra.

The failing is an interesting point, something I would rather not happen. Basically I take a lot of videos and I am at the limit of my 500GB now, both my macs have about 10GB left on them!! Which is why I wanted the bigger drive.

 

[Trey M]

The failing is an interesting point, something I would rather not happen. Basically I take a lot of videos and I am at the limit of my 500GB now, both my macs have about 10GB left on them!! Which is why I wanted the bigger drive.

Yeah that's understandable. That would mean though that you have 1 TB worth of video you need stored as well as whatever you create on your new laptop. Since you already have enough content, why don't you get a SSD and use an external drive to store surplus videos?