Not Sure What to Get

[ggibson913]

So I have the original 2012 15" Retina Macbook Pro with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD. It is still worth some money so I was thinking about getting a new Retina Macbook Pro with 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD and selling the current one to help pay for it. The thing is I am not sure whether I want another 15 inch or a 13 inch. Most of the time it is on my desk on a stand connected to a monitor so being used mostly as a desktop.

I have thought about an iMac but my fear is I won't have room. I do telecommute and now I can just connect my work PC to my existing monitor via Mini Display port. I still need to do that after so a Laptop is a better choice for me. I like to 15" because it gives me a bigger screen work with but with the 13 inch I could operation in Clamshell and buy a second display. Thoughts?

 

[Essenar]

The thing about the 13" is that once you outfit it with similar specs to the 15" (16GB of ram for example and a slightly better CPU, like the 2.9 i5 and 256), you're very near the 15" base price. At $1500, you get a 256GB, add the 16GB for $200 and the 2.9 for $100 and you're at $1800.

At that price, you can get the 15" base from Best Buy for $1850'ish. But the 15" comes with the Iris Pro and a quad-core. It's much faster.

If you're definitely going with the 512, it's even worse because instead of the Iris Pro, you get the M370x with 2GB of memory. The price difference at that point is only a $100-200 because the 512 13" with i7 is $2199.

What really gets you is resale value. The 15" with 512 is the best spec MacBook you can get, period, for this generation. It will absolutely hold its value because people will always have a use for a strong 15" with dedicated GPU.

A 13" high end will be a little tougher to sell because most people who decide to get a 13", will at most go for the 256 and 16GB but rarely both 16 and 512 SSD. Their thought process will be similar to the one I just made (Might as well get the 15).

 

[Potatochobit]

NOT ALL 13" are 4 core processors.
be sure to CHECK.
that is the biggest issue.
other than that, get an external monitor and the 13" is good.

 

[maflynn]

NOT ALL 13" are 4 core processors.

Actually 13" MBPs are only dual core, not quad core. There's nothing to check they all are dual.

 

[junkw]

neither choice; wait for the next iteration