The new MacBook Air sounds perfect for your needs. Any reason not to go for that?
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Next-Generation 13-Inch MacBook Pro Benchmarked with Modest Performance Gains
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The new MacBook Air sounds perfect for your needs. Any reason not to go for that?
But They could have a great differentiation between the Air with battery life and the Pro with power
This supports the rumours that the 13" Retina MacBook Pro will get a minor redesign to be thinner. They'll be able to split some of the 35W to 28W TDP between thinning the enclosure and increasing battery life. The 35W Haswell's use the HD 5000 since they spend their TDP on the CPU, while as you mention, the 28W Haswell actually has better GPU performance than the 37W Haswell due to the HD 5100 despite using less power, which makes it a good choice to match a retina display. It's still a little disappointing that Apple wasn't able to wrangle a custom dual core Haswell from Intel with embedded DRAM.This is good news.
Using the 28W CPUs means:
- Similar CPU performance at much lower power use
- Large increase in GPU performance
These CPUs have the HD 5100 Iris integrated graphics. Here's a comparison chart:
Leftmost bars are the old HD 4000 graphics.
Middle bars are the new HD 5000 graphics like those in the 2013 Air.
Rightmost bars are the HD 5100 graphics that will probably be in the new 13" retina.
Really it does sound almost perfect but I plan to do a moderate amount of gaming here and there. I got a windows laptop for the same reason but I'm just incapable of suffering through windows. Figured a mbp with 8gb of ram would be the best of both worlds.
Yes, the performance being roughly the same is no big deal so I agree. It's not like software suddenly changed in one year. I'm waiting for a Haswell 13" one too. Hope it's not too much longer now.
Maybe Apple can get the battery life up to ten hours when Mavericks is factored in too.
MacBook Pro wishlist:
- Major increase in battery life
- Slight CPU performance increase
- Significant discrete GPU increase (the nVidia one)
- Thunderbolt 2.0 and/or support for external 4K displays
Quad Core + 16GB option for the 13" version
Nice to have:
- Slightly thinner/lighter
- Slight increase in Retina resolution
- Slightly cheaper
Thats all I am looking for. The 5000 series graphics will do what I need, but its time for quad core POWER!!
Pretty sure the HD5000 graphics in the new Airs are better for gaming than the HD4000 in the current MBP. You can search around, check out e.g. the first post in this thread.
At what point do you feel comfortable taking your fully charged laptop away for the weekend and you leave the charger at home? Are we pretty much there now assuming that this is a vacation weekend and you aren't going to be working on your laptop too much? How about overnight one day work trip? Maybe heavier computer use, but still real world performance on these machines assuming you aren't coding or something all day has to be a full productive day out of these things, right? Plus some quick email checks in the morning before flying back.
Nope. People buying Macbook Pro wants power over battery. People buying Macbook Air wants battery over power.
MacBook Pro wishlist:
- Major increase in battery life
- Slight CPU performance increase
- Significant discrete GPU increase (the nVidia one)
- Thunderbolt 2.0 and/or support for external 4K displays
- Quad Core + 16GB option for the 13" version
Nice to have:
- Slightly thinner/lighter
- Slight increase in Retina resolution
- Slightly cheaper
While I like all in ones I have to admit that by now they can drop the disk drive.
But, I hope they let us still tinker with memory and hard drive options (i,e, user upgradeable ) as the thing gets older (I tend to keep mine for 5 / 6 years)
I tend to buy cheaper entry models to save $$$ and the gradually beef them up.
If you don't want retina, buy a Macbook Air. Non-retina models come with mechanical hard drives that are pretty slow by today's standard
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People buying 15 Macbook Pro wants power over battery. People buying 13 Macbook Pro0 wants battery and portability over power.
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Without SSD, No!
The GT3 graphics in MBA is the same one to be used in 13inch MBP.
I agree with your assessment that these benchmark numbers are just an ego boost as most users don't scratch the surface on the capacity of these processors. I did want to add that I consistently get 7 to 8 hrs of battery life on my 15 rmbp. Using email, word processing, excel and light Internet. It makes a full work day, without shutting down on me.
In other words we are already there. If there is anything I would demand, it would be removing the proprietary ram and ssd and reducing the price. Removing proprietary components would naturally drive down the price anyway. It's no secret this will be apples new direction, lets make it more accessible. SSDs no longer cost $1 per mb..
For our MR friends about to throw a fit because of the 'modest' power gains shown in the Geekbench graphs, bear in mind that we're also gonna get i7 BTOs. Here's hoping we'll finally have 16gb RAM for the 13'.
And yes, I agree with one poster here who stated that if you want something with good battery life, go with the Airs. Even last years Ivy Bridge models, the Airs in several reviews and tests showed longer battery run times compared to the Pro siblings. Yes, we'll see a slight improvement in battery life in the Pros but don't expect them to be as substantial. Plus the Airs will even get BETTER numbers when you install Mavericks in them.
The 28W seems to point to the direction that Kuo is once again right and we might see a thinner 13". No way to confirm until we see them but I have a feeling he's spot on... again.
I love these benchmark leaks. Now waiting for the 15" ones.
And yes, I agree with one poster here who stated that if you want something with good battery life, go with the Airs. Even last years Ivy Bridge models, the Airs in several reviews and tests showed longer battery run times compared to the Pro siblings. Yes, we'll see a slight improvement in battery life in the Pros but don't expect them to be as substantial. Plus the Airs will even get BETTER numbers when you install Mavericks in them.
The 28W seems to point to the direction that Kuo is once again right and we might see a thinner 13". No way to confirm until we see them but I have a feeling he's spot on... again.
I love these benchmark leaks. Now waiting for the 15" ones.
My rMBP 13" already gives me a full day of juice. But I'd give it all up for just a little bit more.
This is the 13" though and it's running an i5.
Most likely the 5200 is in the 15" and running an i7.
I want to see the 15" i7 benchmarks and also hopefully a 2GB video card.
It's not the CPU performance thats the problem, it's the underwhelming 5100 gpu, they should've went with the 5200 which is a beast and could've easily fit in the current rMBP while getting about 2 hour battery boost because of haswell and maverick.
The display resolution is going to be the deal breaker here. You would think that 2.4/GHz + 28W along with the 'U' would mean this is a lower voltage part but Haswell mixes this up. The Core i5-4258U falls right in the middle of the board at $342 with the Iris 5100 Graphics.
That was too much research to avoid jumping the gun.
That was too much research to avoid jumping the gun.
What a load. The MacBook Air is Apple's lowest end laptop - you expect it to perform like a Mac Pro? CPUs, GPUs and RAM are in a place where most people will experience satisfactory performance on even entry level machines. Mac OS is one of the few operating systems that is designed with older systems in mind, and the Apple ecosystem is one where old and slower machines seem to have the longest lifespan.
So no, there is nothing a MacBook Air user can't do with the machine that they need to do. Your argument holds no water.
Welcome to the world of how Apple updates its products. They could have given you an Air with 16gb RAM BTO. They could have given you a Quad Core Ivy Bridge 13" rMBP last year. Why didn't they?
Rule of thumb, best not to get over generous in making your wish list when waiting for ucoming Apple products. Some kids here are already dreaming of Thunderbolt 2, Quad Core + HD 5200 Iris Pro in the 13" and not to mention IGZO for all Pros. I'm not saying I wouldn't love those. I'd be ecstatic if those will happen. But I've seen how Apple moves through these years. One example is the little kiddos dreaming of Retinas in the Airs a few months ago.
I'm shocked Apple hasn't extended to you an offer of employment. You obviously know more about designing Apple's computers than Apple.