If everyone bought what they needed, no one would buy Apple products.. these are luxury products and people will buy them because they 'want' them.
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Macbook Pro Retina vs Macbook Pro Normal
- Thread starter MrTennisNinja
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If everyone bought what they needed, no one would buy Apple products.. these are luxury products and people will buy them because they 'want' them.
I guess after weighing the options I'll be going with the MacBook retina. In the end it comes down to price for what I want. My 2007 pro died 2 months ago so I need something ASAP.
Must haves for me this time is 8gb and 256 SSD drive which is the base model retina. If you load up the non-retina version with those specs it is $300 more.
Must haves for me this time is 8gb and 256 SSD drive which is the base model retina. If you load up the non-retina version with those specs it is $300 more.
The retina is the better long term buy and here is why.
The retina macbook pro is the future of apple notebooks. Every notebook will be that thick or thinner next year. The non-retina macbook pro represents the old style and will be phased out and will tell people next year that anything notebook from apple that is not as thin as the retina is old style. The private sales will tank. The retina will be updated and nobody will want anything but that.
Also, the retina is upgradeable. For one, just order it with 16gb of ram. That is most likely all you can put in the non-retina until they produce 16gb dimms which will happen but be very expensive for at least a year or two. You are looking at 2yrs from now for them to be affordable by which time your macbook pro will be ancient.
The hard drive on the retina is removable. No issue there. It will take OWC all but a month or two to come out with an upgrade for it. You will see.
The battery? Well its just as upgradeable as the non retina MBP so whats the difference. Pay the $200 to apple and get a new one in 3 years.
There is nothing more left that is any different between the 2. My wife just got me a new ipad today and I said hmm, whats really the difference between this and my ipad 2. It took me 10 minutes to figure out the text on sites is way more crisp on the new ipad than the old. Once this is well known retina will be a must for everyone, not to mention the fact the retina pro is IPS. The non retina is TN. HUGE difference right there. Well worth the extra cost alone.
So you see, they left the old ones for hold outs but eventually you will wish you spent the extra cash on the retina if not for the IPS display, thinnness, and SSD but for the resale value.
I have every macbook ever made. I upgrade the minute they come out and sell the old on craigslist. I can tell you that seeing a nice clear IPS display sold me in an instant and I would NEVER go back to a regular hard drive. SSD is the only drive I will use I don't care how much they cost because they are worlds apart from a rotating hard disk drive. My air beats everyones computer no matter what the processor speed simply because of this SSD and has ever since I bought the core2 duo air.
The retina macbook pro is the future of apple notebooks. Every notebook will be that thick or thinner next year. The non-retina macbook pro represents the old style and will be phased out and will tell people next year that anything notebook from apple that is not as thin as the retina is old style. The private sales will tank. The retina will be updated and nobody will want anything but that.
Also, the retina is upgradeable. For one, just order it with 16gb of ram. That is most likely all you can put in the non-retina until they produce 16gb dimms which will happen but be very expensive for at least a year or two. You are looking at 2yrs from now for them to be affordable by which time your macbook pro will be ancient.
The hard drive on the retina is removable. No issue there. It will take OWC all but a month or two to come out with an upgrade for it. You will see.
The battery? Well its just as upgradeable as the non retina MBP so whats the difference. Pay the $200 to apple and get a new one in 3 years.
There is nothing more left that is any different between the 2. My wife just got me a new ipad today and I said hmm, whats really the difference between this and my ipad 2. It took me 10 minutes to figure out the text on sites is way more crisp on the new ipad than the old. Once this is well known retina will be a must for everyone, not to mention the fact the retina pro is IPS. The non retina is TN. HUGE difference right there. Well worth the extra cost alone.
So you see, they left the old ones for hold outs but eventually you will wish you spent the extra cash on the retina if not for the IPS display, thinnness, and SSD but for the resale value.
I have every macbook ever made. I upgrade the minute they come out and sell the old on craigslist. I can tell you that seeing a nice clear IPS display sold me in an instant and I would NEVER go back to a regular hard drive. SSD is the only drive I will use I don't care how much they cost because they are worlds apart from a rotating hard disk drive. My air beats everyones computer no matter what the processor speed simply because of this SSD and has ever since I bought the core2 duo air.
It all makes sense and I to a large degree do agree with you. My problem with the retina macbook is ironically the screen. I guess I will have to go have a look myself, but before I get any actual proof that it will be AT LEAST as good in 1680x1050 as the normal highres macbookP15 screen, I won't be going for the retina, because it's the root to all problems both in OSX and win7 when you need a sharp display, scaling is just not an option for graphical work.
I currently have a 13" laptop that runs 1920x1080 as native, and ya thats awesome! but its too small... 2880x what ever on a 15" is just silly. So at the end of the day most people would be probably be running 1680 or 1920 on their 15" anyway but with scaling.
I disagree. With the standard macbook pro I can (and will) swap put the DVD drive and replace it with a solid state drive to playback media from a media server on my primary drive. This is a huge benefit to me. I will easily upgrade the RAM when I need to, or replace a drive if I need to. I am a professional and use my laptop for my work. I like the Retina Pro but still choose the standard one because it is far more suited to me. The retina display preferences do not even give a numerical display of the resolutions available, another thing which is very important in my profession. As nice as it is, the retina macbook pro is another step in the direction of mass-consumer friendly products from Apple. ...like Final Cut X, or, iMovie Pro as they like to call it in the local mac store.
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The highest res the retina will display is 1920. The screen looks nice but I really was not impressed enough to want one. And the lack of control over it really put me off. I tried to buy a 15" anti-glare today but they don't keep them in stock, much to my disappointment.
Yes i agree somewhat. But i think you are a little optimistic. You do know you can put a SSD in the classic pro dont you? The design on the classic Pro is still a good design. It is still one of the thinnest 15 laptops on the market. It is 24mm thin. Intel ultrabook spec for 14 and over laptops is 21mm thin. The classic MBP almost qualifyies for intels ultrabook spec.
It isnt like the new RMBP is half as thick, just 25%. Not a huge difference in my opinion. The classic MBP will be with us for a few more years until prices of componets drop. The price of the retina will have to drop to base MBP non retina levels for that to happen.
And resale value will remain strong on the Legacy MBP even when they are dis.
I see 3 main arguments for RMBP
1. Cost - Even if you do it yourself and not buy it from apple, RMBP gives you more value for yout money
2. Upgradability - Only RAM is soldered. Rest of it can be upgraded
3. Apple's business model - As we have seen with iphones and ipads, Apple will not allow you to use all their upcoming software features without their latest gear. Eventhough, it could handle the software with the existing hardware. It started with PowerNap.
I dont think i agree.
first of all, theres no way the resale value of a non retina is going to be hurt. i can resale my 2009 macbook pro right now on ebay for 300 bucks less than what i bought it for. period. which is what i will be doing this week. and thats if i didnt do any upgrades to it, but i did, i upgraded it to 8gb memory, and added an optibay. now i can get the whole value back, if not more. i too, resale every other year, except this one macbook, because i was using it along side my newer one.
not to mention its always been a bad idea for resale value to by the first model of any new change they make. I bought the first macbook pro 17". they updated it with in months to hold twice as much memory, and higher processor speeds. when i went to sell it a couple years later, the ones that came out a few months later, sold for a grand more than mine.....
secondly, even if it did hurt the resale, it wont happen for 1-2 years, by then, it would be a more perfect time to upgrade to the retina because by then, all of their devices will most likely be retina (external displays, imacs), and most anything else will be retina ready/aware.
working on a retina macbook while at the same time working on a non retina external display is just going to give you a migraine and an eye twitch. so when all their crap and everyone elses crap is updated, then it makes since to switch.
either everyone around switched to mac after the whole powerpc to intel switch, or everyone is forgetting that whole thing.
dont get me wrong, it does look amazing.
Having an early-2011 MBP 15" with HR AG screen, I'm actually envious of the non-Retina 15". Good speed bump, cooler running, USB 3.0, and everything upgradable/compatible, with room to spare if I remove the DVD-drive and install 2nd HD. I really wish I could justify upgrading right now.
The Retina MBP IMHO is a mistake. The existing line-up made perfect sense for me - iPad, MBA, and MBP. Distinct enough to serve different purposes. Now the rMBP - how does that fit in? It's obviously a trend towards making everything as thin as MBA, but why?? I have an iPad, and don't need my laptop to sacrifice everything in the name of being little thinner and lighter. MBP is plenty thin and light already. If I did, I would buy MBA.
The non-upgradability of RAM and HD seal the deal for me - my storage capacity needs change faster than my computer upgrade cycle. My 1-year old MBP has a 512Gb SSD in it, and I'm already wishing it was bigger. These computers aren't $300 netbooks where you are expected to make sacrifises, or $500 iPads cheap enough to upgrade on regular basis. When I spend $3K on a laptop, I expect greatness. My current MBP is close to it, the new non-Retinas are the best laptops on the market right now, again IMHO.
The Retina MBP IMHO is a mistake. The existing line-up made perfect sense for me - iPad, MBA, and MBP. Distinct enough to serve different purposes. Now the rMBP - how does that fit in? It's obviously a trend towards making everything as thin as MBA, but why?? I have an iPad, and don't need my laptop to sacrifice everything in the name of being little thinner and lighter. MBP is plenty thin and light already. If I did, I would buy MBA.
The non-upgradability of RAM and HD seal the deal for me - my storage capacity needs change faster than my computer upgrade cycle. My 1-year old MBP has a 512Gb SSD in it, and I'm already wishing it was bigger. These computers aren't $300 netbooks where you are expected to make sacrifises, or $500 iPads cheap enough to upgrade on regular basis. When I spend $3K on a laptop, I expect greatness. My current MBP is close to it, the new non-Retinas are the best laptops on the market right now, again IMHO.
rMBP
I just ordered the rMBP 2.7GHz/16GB RAM/768GB Flash Storage =$4Gs
Reading this thread is making me feel like a D-bag for being an "early adopter" but I was using a MBP 2008 and desperately needed a new computer ASAP, and i was waiting 6 month for this release. (with the Ivy)
I'll post my conclusion once I get it in a couple week and I have the chance to play around with it, but i have to think the rMBP is the future. (Well that is what I'm telling myself)
I just ordered the rMBP 2.7GHz/16GB RAM/768GB Flash Storage =$4Gs
Reading this thread is making me feel like a D-bag for being an "early adopter" but I was using a MBP 2008 and desperately needed a new computer ASAP, and i was waiting 6 month for this release. (with the Ivy)
I'll post my conclusion once I get it in a couple week and I have the chance to play around with it, but i have to think the rMBP is the future. (Well that is what I'm telling myself)
I'm finding the idea of the non-Retina MBP with hi-res display increasingly tempting. Although there are several threads debating this, I can't find any definitive comparisons by anyone who's used both for any length of time. By Apple's own definition, the hi-res display is close to (>90%) "retina".
In the end, the choice boils down to this: will the shortcomings of the retina display (by which I mean muddy non-retina-optimised apps and websites) be overcome satisfactorily within the typical lifetime of the machine (say three years)? If the answer is yes, I can see the case for early adoption. If the answer's no, surely the hi-res non-retina MBP is the best laptop in the business?
yeah, just like i thought usb 3.0 and thunderbolt were the future, but look how long it took for apple to get usb 3.0 or hdmi, and now look how long its still taking for thunderbolt to be adopted by others as well as become cheaper.....way to long.
this change is going to take alot longer then people are thinking. i think these early retina adopters are going to be like those people who thought they had HD TV service just because the image was stretched....when in fact they just had standard def.....scaled up and stretched. (i know its not the same)
no offense.
i learned my early adoption lesson already., like i said before, when i bought the first macbook pro that launched and maxed it out to almost 4 grand, then found they doubled the memory capacity and raised the processor speeds months later. i was then stuck with 2gb memory for a while....
I think you maybe just convinced me to get a non-Retina. I'm considering selling my 2010 MBP and 2007 8-core Mac Pro and getting a new 2.7GHz MBP. I'm on the fence between the two... I'd like to use my current 128GB SSD and 750GB 7200 RPM drive (in the optical bay) of a non-Retina. Not only is it significantly cheaper than the Retina, but I'll have more storage on me at all times, with the speed boost that SSD provides.
But that Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 comment you made is dead on. My MBP is one revision before Thunderbolt and I remember thinking "MAN! That's AWESOME, I might need to sell my MBP to get Thunderbolt!". I held off and forgot about it... mainly because no one was selling/buying Thunderbolt devices. I suppose Retina optimization may be faster, but still... it doesn't always pay to be an early adopter.
It looks better in 1680 x 1050 than the normal screen. But, it's not "pixel per pixel" accurate. For that you need to be in the 1440 x 900 mode (unless apps like Photoshop can create separate "views" that bypass the final screen scaling, but I don't know what the API for Retina-aware apps looks like or if it's that granular).
The future is like Amiga way back when they had 1 board for everything. Apple's strength lies in having a single logic board with soldered in RAM, SSD, processor, graphics processor, and components. It allows for shorter pathways which means faster processing and ultimate speed. The problem with the Retina MacBook Pro this year is that the SSD is using a hack-job SATA connector still which is causing slowdown on I/O. While it's better than the non-retina MBPs, it's still violating its own mantra by having the SSD separate from the rest of the logic board. Apple should have just made everything non-user serviceable and done away with current tech. The MBP should be an appliance where it just works and works better than just parts popped together. While this means that MBP retirement is about every 3-4 years, it would make IT Asset Retirement/Purchasing idiot-proof. Same thing goes with any tech related problems: backup data, get replacement machine, restore to replacement. My only gripe was that the change wasn't complete enough. I'm waiting until they work out all the kinks with the RMBPs and then purchasing a 2nd gen model which I'm hoping will have the SSD completely integrated. Thunderbolt is now a little more relevant with the single logic board but what's missing is on-board RAID in the MBP so RW speeds would increase as well as SSD capacity. Once that happens, Thunderbolt will be capable of that theoretical 10Gbps/1.25GBps I/O. We're currently at about half/quarter of the data rate for the SSDs but at least we're making strides to getting to full speed.
It is a tough choice obviously, or there wouldn't be so much debate. I looked at them both today at the Apple store. It was really crowded. I was the only one closing them and picking them up. I would think more people wanted to see how they carry, but I guess not.
I wouldn't make a big deal about the size ("thinness.") Yes it's thinner but it's hard to notice, in my opinion. On the desk they have the same footprint.
Anyway. I would pick the rMBP base model no question. As spec'd it will last 3 years easy. 8GB RAM should be plenty. In 3 years there will be no more standard-def models, all will be "retina." You will be forced to get a new battery or sell it, but most people do that anyway. I think the rMBP's will be worth more in 3 years than the standard def's.
Now for my opinion. I think the Air is a better choice for a student. Put an external monitor in the dorm or apartment for doing real work. Much more portable and much cheaper, and easier to work on at a desk with a real mouse and keyboard.
What I'm wondering about more than anything is why students would spend thousands of dollars on a MBP. Fully blown out at $4000... Really?
I wouldn't make a big deal about the size ("thinness.") Yes it's thinner but it's hard to notice, in my opinion. On the desk they have the same footprint.
Anyway. I would pick the rMBP base model no question. As spec'd it will last 3 years easy. 8GB RAM should be plenty. In 3 years there will be no more standard-def models, all will be "retina." You will be forced to get a new battery or sell it, but most people do that anyway. I think the rMBP's will be worth more in 3 years than the standard def's.
Now for my opinion. I think the Air is a better choice for a student. Put an external monitor in the dorm or apartment for doing real work. Much more portable and much cheaper, and easier to work on at a desk with a real mouse and keyboard.
What I'm wondering about more than anything is why students would spend thousands of dollars on a MBP. Fully blown out at $4000... Really?
Cruggles, That's what I said; failsafe.
Basically that's what I said Cruggles. SSD for primary use and HDD for backup/storage.
Basically that's what I said Cruggles. SSD for primary use and HDD for backup/storage.