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Macbook Pro. Late 2011 vs Upcoming 2012.

lewisflude

lewisflude

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 10, 2012
47
7
London
Firstly, a bit of background.

I'm a web developer. I write web applications in ruby and python (although I prefer ruby). I also love music. Ableton Live 8 is always by my side on my 2007 Windows 7 PC (the bane of my life). I live by the command line, and although I use OSX every now and again spend most of my time in Linux.

I'm in a situation where an employer wants to pay me £1500 for one months work (2-3 hours a day).

We came to the conclusion, it might be a good idea to get a new laptop to work on considering the machine I'm currently using is falling to bits and has an old dual core processor that takes years to compile even the simplest of source code.

There have been several posts talking about the rumours of a 2012 MacBook Pro redesign. I even posted on reddit about it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/pkd9e/is_now_a_bad_time_to_buy_a_macbook_pro/

The bits of advice I was given in that post were pretty polarised.

One group of people told me: "If you can wait, then wait. If you need it now, buy it now." The other group are telling me this is a very bad idea considering the redesign is just around the corner. This strikes me as very sensible advice.

I thought I'd bring the discussion here, because it's a different community and maybe there are some folks here who can help me make my choice.

One thing I was considering was building a desktop PC for £500 and rescuing some old components I have lying around and using this for the next few months until the new models come out.

For the record, I welcome the death of the optical drive. Even though I am in a position whereby I need to burn DVDs or CDs on a fairly regular basis, it just doesn't make sense to have them built into a notebook computer when you're not using them every day. The Air style, slightly bigger and thicker would definitely work very well. I'm a big lover of the current MBPs look, but I think they could do better.

Thanks very much and sorry for going on and on!

Edit: The question is: Should I buy now or should I wait 90 days.
 
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I don't really see a question in there, so I will go based on the reddit question: Is now a bad time to buy a MacBook Pro?

It depends really. If you like what has been described in the rumors, then yes, it is a bad time to buy.

If you don't like it, then it still is because the old ones will be cheaper when the new ones come out.

If you need it now, then no, the current MacBook Pros are great machines. If it has everything you need, there is no reason not to buy if the need is there.

We are looking at a June-July release for these Ivy Bridge machines. If you need it before that, you don't have much of a choice.
 
Good answer! Sorry, I should've been clearer with my question.

You're right there, in that I don't have a choice if I need it now, which I do. But I don't specifically need a MacBook Pro. If I'm going to be shelling out £1500 for a machine, I expect it to last a few years and with another model just around the corner, it might make sense to wait 90ish days before the next one comes out and to just buy something cheaper in the meantime, such as a desktop with similar functionality.

Obviously it's not ideal and I'd prefer to be using OSX, but it's a solution!

The things I like: No ODD, new design, better screen (retina?), Ivy Bridge
Dislike: Need to do job this month

So, I guess if I can spend £500ish on the cheapest machine possible to get the job done (ThinkPad Edge / desktop) then I can get the best of both worlds.

I wanted to hear about people who have been in similar situations to me before.

Do the 90-100 days just fly by, or is it horrible to have to wait that long?
 
Flys by if you don't think about it (i.e. Use your laptop everyday). IMO, if you buy a cheap laptop in the meantime, the resale value wouldn't be as great if you were to buy a Mac, at least you'll get 60% back. Not trying to justify a Mac buy, but it makes more sense for me :X
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

You have to consider the possibility that despite some positives, you may not like what they release.
 
If I'm shopping to buy one and won't care for the rumor'd specs and will be happy with the current Sandy Bridge MBPs, there are lots of sales now on the early 2011 MBP. If you want the late 2011 ones, wait a bit and as calderone mentioned, when the 2012 models will come, the late 2011 will have to be cheaper. :)
 
calderone said:
I don't really see a question in there, so I will go based on the reddit question: Is now a bad time to buy a MacBook Pro?

It depends really. If you like what has been described in the rumors, then yes, it is a bad time to buy.

If you don't like it, then it still is because the old ones will be cheaper when the new ones come out.

If you need it now, then no, the current MacBook Pros are great machines. If it has everything you need, there is no reason not to buy if the need is there.

We are looking at a June-July release for these Ivy Bridge machines. If you need it before that, you don't have much of a choice.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that there actually have been any rumours. Ivy Bridge is almost a given, but that's about it. No part leaks, no codenames in the software, etc.
 
The current macbook pro in 15" or 17" form is a rocket ship.

I'd buy a current one (in fact, faced with rumours of an update when i bought mine in August, I did) - it' still a good machine, expandable and if you turn off the discrete video when you don't need it - has great battery life.

Ivy bridge is going to be mostly an onboard GPU speed bump, but its not likely to best the discrete GPU in current machines, so its somewhat irrelevant to a new macbook pro imho, except for maybe in the 13" model. CPU speed wise, the current machines are already extremely fast (mine is typically 90-95% idle during most normal use).

Sure a retina display would be nice, but the current hires screen is decent enough.

If you spend time waiting for the new pro - by then the rumour mill will be going off about the rumoured new Air replacement, and so on.

If you need a machine, buy one. I really don't think the difference between the current model and the next model is going to significantly change the useful life expectancy of the machine a great deal.

Waiting to try and "time" hardware upgrades is pretty pointless. There is ALWAYS something new around the corner - and there's always the risk of new-hardware teething issues (MBA wifi bugs anyone?). Which isn't cool, if you're using it for business.

The current MBP is solid, and has about a year of real world exposure to verify that fact...

Buying a cheap laptop in the meantime means you need to make do with a cheap ****** laptop for the job. I've got one of those at work - an Elitebook 2560, and it ***** me to tears when I have to use it. Why can't PC makers build a trackpad that works? etc...
 
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Had a feeling it'd be closer to 6 months than 90 days!

You see, I'm glad I posted in here, because you've given me totally different answers than the ones I received on Reddit.

I know this is a decision I need to make myself, but from what you guys have told me, it does make sense to buy a MacBook now because there will always be another one around the corner, plus if I *did* want to resell my laptop to buy a new one, I'd get a much larger portion of my money back with a MBP considering they are always in demand.

One thing I could do, is buy the current MBP this weekend (via educational discount) and then buy the new iMac or iPad when it comes out so I get my "must have latest of everything" fix.

Does this sound like a good idea? :)
 
I reckon the new refresh will be within 3 months (assuming the Ivy Bridge release doesn't get delayed). So, taking that into consideration, I would TOTALLY advise you to wait.

I mean, it's just around the corner and you will pull your hair out if Apple comes up with something awesome (like retina display or something like that) and you missed it just by some weeks.
 
The argument for waiting and buying last years model cheaper isn't watertight if you want more bespoke features such as hi res and or anti glare. In the UK at least, I've not come across any of these in the refurb store I can only assume they will be even harder to find once apple stop making them altogether.
 
You see, my situation is that I have someone who wants me to do some work for them. About one months work at 2-3 hours a day who'd like to pay me £1500. He suggested spending the money on a new machine as it'd make it a more enjoyable experience doing the work, which is creating a widget using either Ruby on Rails or Django.

I need to start work on this project in the next couple of weeks. I'm currently using a Toshiba with a dual core Centrino processor although when working for others I've used iMacs or other desktop computers.

A few months isn't really too long for me to wait if I can shell out £500 or so on a machine that'll last me a few months.

I was considering a ThinkPad because, for £500, it'll have a 15" monitor and "get the job done" and I was equally thinking of building a desktop because the processing power would be perfect although I'd have to work at home. My last desktop PC broke a few months ago, I've build several desktop PCs.

Retina display IS worth waiting for in my opinion, as is a redesign of the unibody.

Any other opinions?
 
seriously, don't expect any huge bump from late 2011 to 2012

you can notice a difference between 2 machines separated by 2-3 generations but not 2 consecutive upgrades
 
thats like comparing yesterdays Fart with tomorrows, you really have no clue what tomorrows fart will be like

that said nobody here or any other forum can guarantee anything about release dates or what the specs will be

this is just one of the questions with no answer, other than buy now if you need now, you sound like a person who understands technology evolves and the next realease will always be atleast an atempt at being "better"
 
iisforiphone said:
thats like comparing yesterdays Fart with tomorrows, you really have no clue what tomorrows fart will be like

that said nobody here or any other forum can guarantee anything about release dates or what the specs will be

this is just one of the questions with no answer, other than buy now if you need now, you sound like a person who understands technology evolves and the next realease will always be atleast an atempt at being "better"
Click to expand...

Rotten eggs with a slight hint of bacon.
 
Hi,
Sorry to hi-jack this thread but I thought I'd post on here rather than start a new thread with a similar question.

I was all set to buy a 15" MBP and was only querying the screen, whether to go hi-res or not. I finally managed to see the hi-res side by side with the standard screen. To me the quality difference of the screen is night and day, with the hi-res being significantly better. the trouble is I found the text, menus, browser search bars etc too small (especially the text on the bookmark bar) on the hi-res screen and within 5 mins I was getting a headache and feeling nauseous. I know that a lot of text etc. can be zoomed, but menu bars and search bars can't. Plus I would like it to be larger by default, as the idea of having to zoom things every time I open an app could get quite annoying. For me at least anyway.

The sensible thing is then to get the standard screen. However, after seeing this screen side by side with the hi-res I'm always going to be disappointed with the screen quality of the standard and so it will spoil my MBP experience. What dilemma I thought. But then I read on a number of websites that there's rumours of MBP's being released with retina displays in Q2 of this year. I also read that the screen ratio will be that of the current standard screen so menu, font size etc shouldn't be an issue, and it will have a higher quality.

So my question is that IF a new MBP is on the way, what is the likelihood it will have a retina display, and what is the chance that this will be on the 15" MBP's? Also, is it likely to have the same ratio as the current standard screen or have the smaller menus like the current hi-res? The current base 15" MBP spec is apparently more than enough for me so spec shouldn't be an issue, unless they drastically reduce it if they go thinner, so my only reason to wait is purely on the display. I don't need a new laptop, I just fancy a swap from windows so can wait.

My only other concern is the rumour of lack of optical drive as I do like to RIP and Burn CD's and DVD's. However, I would sacrifice the inconvenience of not having an internal optical drive for a retina display (assuming of course the menus etc aren't as small as the current hi-res screen).
 
snerkler said:
Hi,
Sorry to hi-jack this thread but I thought I'd post on here rather than start a new thread with a similar question.

I was all set to buy a 15" MBP and was only querying the screen, whether to go hi-res or not. I finally managed to see the hi-res side by side with the standard screen. To me the quality difference of the screen is night and day, with the hi-res being significantly better. the trouble is I found the text, menus, browser search bars etc too small (especially the text on the bookmark bar) on the hi-res screen and within 5 mins I was getting a headache and feeling nauseous. I know that a lot of text etc. can be zoomed, but menu bars and search bars can't. Plus I would like it to be larger by default, as the idea of having to zoom things every time I open an app could get quite annoying. For me at least anyway.

The sensible thing is then to get the standard screen. However, after seeing this screen side by side with the hi-res I'm always going to be disappointed with the screen quality of the standard and so it will spoil my MBP experience. What dilemma I thought. But then I read on a number of websites that there's rumours of MBP's being released with retina displays in Q2 of this year. I also read that the screen ratio will be that of the current standard screen so menu, font size etc shouldn't be an issue, and it will have a higher quality.

So my question is that IF a new MBP is on the way, what is the likelihood it will have a retina display, and what is the chance that this will be on the 15" MBP's? Also, is it likely to have the same ratio as the current standard screen or have the smaller menus like the current hi-res? The current base 15" MBP spec is apparently more than enough for me so spec shouldn't be an issue, unless they drastically reduce it if they go thinner, so my only reason to wait is purely on the display. I don't need a new laptop, I just fancy a swap from windows so can wait.

My only other concern is the rumour of lack of optical drive as I do like to RIP and Burn CD's and DVD's. However, I would sacrifice the inconvenience of not having an internal optical drive for a retina display (assuming of course the menus etc aren't as small as the current hi-res screen).
Click to expand...

I personally think that they will have some sort of retina display but I don't think it will be standard. There is probably gonna be an up charge for the display.
 
ldominguez1986 said:
I personally think that they will have some sort of retina display but I don't think it will be standard. There is probably gonna be an up charge for the display.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, they'll charge. I wasn't saying it was going to be standard. Any idea if the menus etc will be larger than the current hi-res?
 
iisforiphone said:
thats like comparing yesterdays Fart with tomorrows, you really have no clue what tomorrows fart will be like

that said nobody here or any other forum can guarantee anything about release dates or what the specs will be

this is just one of the questions with no answer, other than buy now if you need now, you sound like a person who understands technology evolves and the next realease will always be atleast an atempt at being "better"
Click to expand...

But what if the day before yesterday all you ate was yogurt and sprouts, and today you had a big bowl of chili, with some cabbage, and a few stouts. You can pretty much be sure tomorrows fart is going to have more gusto. I'm extremely possitive the next Macbook Pro will be served with a side of chili.:D
 
This whole farts analogy is getting out of hand! :p

As for the screen, there are rumours to suggest there might be a retina display MacBook, sure. Some similar hardware has been spotted and they've been releasing larger icons which may mean they're on the way for sure.

Q2 is pretty early! Ivy Bridge doesn't come out until April afaik, do you really think the MBPs could come out then?

Just feels too soon.

My gut feeling is they won't come out until the autumn is nearly here because we still have iPad 3 and iPhone 5 to get out of the way!
 
Expect:

1. Minimal CPU performance increase, unless the 13" goes Quad-Core. The 15" and 17" will get minimal CPU increase. 10-15% at best.

2. Better integrated GPU performance, about 30-40% better than the current integrated GPU.

3. A lot less power usage. Expect about 30-45 minutes extra battery life with the same size batteries on the current MacBook Pro. Even more under load.

4. Less heat. Less energy used = less heat.

5. Perhaps a new design. Nobody really knows.
 
The increased graphics usage isn't really important to me. I do the odd bit of video processing every now and again but I'm more about the processor to be honest.

I run Ableton Live (a DAW like Logic or Pro Tools) with many tracks, sometimes up to 100 or 200 and my computer cries.

I also write code.
 
How far in advance do Apple tend to announce new MBP's. Do they tend to announce them a month or so in advance, or announce them and they're in the shops the following week?
 
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