My local apple dealer called me up last week with some good news, they just got in a couple of gold retina MacBooks. The catch was that both of them was the base model. Having read the mixed reviews and the gap in performance between the base at 1.1 ghz and the 1.3 ghz model made me think twice. I did however pick it up today after 10 days of dwelling.
At the moment I stream football in HD with Silverlight and browse the web. No hiccups. The lag everybody is crying about, was present in the indexing process upon booting the machine for the very first time. Now every transitions smoothly between desktops and video streams. Expose is working great as well, even with a HD stream in motion. All my fears and disbelief in the "weaker" CPU is gone. This machine is a winner.
I use the "more space" option in the Displays option, and the screen still looks nice. Fonts are great to read. The trackpad and the keyboard has brought my the most hassle, though I love the layout and the new font on the keys. The new gestures and feel of both the trackpad and the keyboard feels different, but I can feel that the experience is growing on me and the "problem" is fading away slowly with each push.
Haven't installed Photoshop or Lightroom yet, but I believe the casual edit will work just fine. I can update later with more details regarding the CC software from Adobe and how it is to do basic editing on Nikon D810 and Leica M9 RAW files. I have another machine for this purpose, which also has more space to store big files and triple the horsepower to make beachballs and slowdowns non existent.
The sound is great. Commentators, the crowds cheering and the movement of the ball is conveyed quite good for such a small machine and speaker system. I'm watching a soccer stream, while streaming music from SoundCloud in Safari while writing this review, and I have yet to experience any beach balls or lags. It plays music great. I would no longer bring a set of different speakers to a hotel room or a friend for a casual evening.
The weight is delicate and balanced. I am writing this review on my chest and it feels almost like air. I have been waiting on this form factor since my first laptop. No looking back. This will satisfy 99% of users. Power users should get a desktop and a couple of great external displays. If you are waiting for skylake, you are either poor or in the market for PC with real GPUs to game. I wouldn't recommend a laptop for performance hunters anyway. Go build a Hackintosh, buy a iMac or splurge for a Mac Pro. At least get a Macbook Pro 15 with quad core.
Simply the purchase of the year for me. I also bought the 2010 Macbook Air when it first arrived five years ago, and it didn't impress me like this machine. Again, I am reviewing the retina Macbook Gold 1.1 ghz with 256 GB SSD. Migrated from a rMBP 13 (mid 2014) base model, I also owned a rMBP 15 (late 2013) before that.
At the moment I stream football in HD with Silverlight and browse the web. No hiccups. The lag everybody is crying about, was present in the indexing process upon booting the machine for the very first time. Now every transitions smoothly between desktops and video streams. Expose is working great as well, even with a HD stream in motion. All my fears and disbelief in the "weaker" CPU is gone. This machine is a winner.
I use the "more space" option in the Displays option, and the screen still looks nice. Fonts are great to read. The trackpad and the keyboard has brought my the most hassle, though I love the layout and the new font on the keys. The new gestures and feel of both the trackpad and the keyboard feels different, but I can feel that the experience is growing on me and the "problem" is fading away slowly with each push.
Haven't installed Photoshop or Lightroom yet, but I believe the casual edit will work just fine. I can update later with more details regarding the CC software from Adobe and how it is to do basic editing on Nikon D810 and Leica M9 RAW files. I have another machine for this purpose, which also has more space to store big files and triple the horsepower to make beachballs and slowdowns non existent.
The sound is great. Commentators, the crowds cheering and the movement of the ball is conveyed quite good for such a small machine and speaker system. I'm watching a soccer stream, while streaming music from SoundCloud in Safari while writing this review, and I have yet to experience any beach balls or lags. It plays music great. I would no longer bring a set of different speakers to a hotel room or a friend for a casual evening.
The weight is delicate and balanced. I am writing this review on my chest and it feels almost like air. I have been waiting on this form factor since my first laptop. No looking back. This will satisfy 99% of users. Power users should get a desktop and a couple of great external displays. If you are waiting for skylake, you are either poor or in the market for PC with real GPUs to game. I wouldn't recommend a laptop for performance hunters anyway. Go build a Hackintosh, buy a iMac or splurge for a Mac Pro. At least get a Macbook Pro 15 with quad core.
Simply the purchase of the year for me. I also bought the 2010 Macbook Air when it first arrived five years ago, and it didn't impress me like this machine. Again, I am reviewing the retina Macbook Gold 1.1 ghz with 256 GB SSD. Migrated from a rMBP 13 (mid 2014) base model, I also owned a rMBP 15 (late 2013) before that.
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