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Ok.... Whats the big difference??

coolweirdo

coolweirdo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 13, 2011
236
0
Fl
Ok i've finally decided i'm going to upgrade from my mbp 2011,and purchase a new Macbook (retina macbook pro,or the new macbook air) but there is just one issue that kinda got me stuck at a stand still.So i need y'all help from my 2nd family, Besides the retina display whats the big difference?? ive seen a couple youtube videos that compared the two, but half of me want the Retina and the other half want the Air. What would you guys do if you was me?


Thanks in advance
 
There has been quite a few problems with the Retinas, I would stay away for now. If you can wait another year maybe some of the bugs will be gone, if you need now get the MBA with 8GB of RAM, or you could get the regular MBP 15 with a SSD.

What are you going to be using it for?
 
The retina is 15", the air is 11" or 13".
The retina has a dedicated gpu, the air only has an integrated gpu.
The retina has 2 Thunderbolt ports and one HDMI port.
The retina has an SDXC-card slot while the air only has an SD-card slot.
 
The retina is a lot more powerful. Quad core vs dual core. Upto 16GB ram (8GB standard) vs 8GB maximum (and 4GB standard).

You also shouldn't discount the screen - it makes a significant difference in day to day use.
 
Although the retina model is more superior in terms of performance power and visual productivity, and no one would dare to discount the clarity of the retina screen, but its still stand at this point that the retina screen is very dodgy. He will have a very high chance of getting a "bad retina screen", bad as in image retention or ghosting, than if he were to get a defective air.
The bad screen and the frustration of going back and forth to the apple store to get exchange will ruin the whole experience.
 
xxcysxx said:
Although the retina model is more superior in terms of performance power and visual productivity, and no one would dare to discount the clarity of the retina screen, but its still stand at this point that the retina screen is very dodgy. He will have a very high chance of getting a "bad retina screen", bad as in image retention or ghosting, than if he were to get a defective air.
The bad screen and the frustration of going back and forth to the apple store to get exchange will ruin the whole experience.
Click to expand...

What is your statistical data derived from?
You are leading everyone to believe that every rmbp has a faulty screen.
There are many more people very satisfied with their purchase than not, the boards tend to attract individuals who want to voice negative feedback than not (how many people do you know that come on boards to say they are satisfied vs disatisfied)?
 
xxcysxx said:
Although the retina model is more superior in terms of performance power and visual productivity, and no one would dare to discount the clarity of the retina screen, but its still stand at this point that the retina screen is very dodgy. He will have a very high chance of getting a "bad retina screen", bad as in image retention or ghosting, than if he were to get a defective air.
The bad screen and the frustration of going back and forth to the apple store to get exchange will ruin the whole experience.
Click to expand...
First of all, don't make any conclusions based on what you see on any forum. A disappointed customer will be much more vocal than a satisfied one.

Second, I technically have one of the bad screens. Under very specific circumstances, I can get my display to exhibit image retention. However, under normal use, I cannot see any retention, even with a gray desktop background. And even if I deliberately get retention to appear, it disappears very quickly (within a few seconds if I let the pixels refresh).

On the flip side, what the display does well, it does extremely well. The colors are the best I've seen on any laptop display. Reading text is a delight. The background is very uniform. The screen is equipped with an A-TW polarizer so the IPS glow is non-existant. It's just a very good screen overall.

So there really shouldn't be much frustration. Even a "bad" retina screen is a hundred times better than the air screen. It's just a much more satisfying experience.
 
I have an early 2011 with a quad core i7. It isn't worth an upgrade right now unless you just have a lot of extra cash.

The 2011 macbook pro can take 16gb of ram, mine has 8 in it. The retina comes with 8gb and can take 16gb.

The current processor and RAM is the same architecture as the 2011s (core i7/i5). There won't be much difference in performance when comparing 2 processors of the same architecture at the same clock speed.

The battery life might be better if Intel already did a die shrink on it, but I have not been paying enough attention to that as of late.

The current air is much slower then a 2011 i7. It might be comparable to a 2011 i5 if you got the slowest processor available last year.

The graphics card in the retina machine is 1.6x faster then the 2011 macbook pro, but it has 4x the pixels to drive. You do the math on the performance. The air does not have a dedicated graphics card. It will do 1/3 (at best) of the performance of a 2011 macbook pro.

The retina machine depends heavily on thunderbolt for connectivity but there isn't much thunderbolt stuff out there yet.
 
coolweirdo said:
Ok i've finally decided i'm going to upgrade from my mbp 2011,and purchase a new Macbook (retina macbook pro,or the new macbook air) but there is just one issue that kinda got me stuck at a stand still.So i need y'all help from my 2nd family, Besides the retina display whats the big difference?? ive seen a couple youtube videos that compared the two, but half of me want the Retina and the other half want the Air. What would you guys do if you was me?


Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

If I was you I would purchase both and put it through its course. Pay attention to see which one you tend to go to when you need a computer and that would be your best bet. If you not going to be doing any video editing type work then just get the air. The retina is not that big of a deal unless you need portable high res screen on the go.
 
NeedMoreVideo said:
I have an early 2011 with a quad core i7. It isn't worth an upgrade right now unless you just have a lot of extra cash.

The 2011 macbook pro can take 16gb of ram, mine has 8 in it. The retina comes with 8gb and can take 16gb.

The current processor and RAM is the same architecture as the 2011s (core i7/i5). There won't be much difference in performance when comparing 2 processors of the same architecture at the same clock speed.

The battery life might be better if Intel already did a die shrink on it, but I have not been paying enough attention to that as of late.

The current air is much slower then a 2011 i7. It might be comparable to a 2011 i5 if you got the slowest processor available last year.

The graphics card in the retina machine is 1.6x faster then the 2011 macbook pro, but it has 4x the pixels to drive. You do the math on the performance. The air does not have a dedicated graphics card. It will do 1/3 (at best) of the performance of a 2011 macbook pro.

The retina machine depends heavily on thunderbolt for connectivity but there isn't much thunderbolt stuff out there yet.
Click to expand...

That's a poor way to think of it. In 2d tasks - the GPU is more than powerful enough. Even before the retina display, Apple gave macbook pros the capability of driving multiple 27" displays - those have a fairly close resolution.

In 3d tasks, yes 2880x1800 is tough to drive. But honestly, just turn the resolution down when gaming. I set it to 1440x900 - my framerate is great in even new games, and the picture quality is perfectly fine since it's pixel doubled. I also occasionally play on an external monitor, at which point the pixel count of the internal display doesn't matter.
 
rMBP or Air? We are talking both extremes.

SUV or Convertible - Mhhh tough choice. Buy BOTH and u won't have to think about it.
 
Smart car vs. ferrari enzo.


the big difference is that the retina does everything better than the air.

Retina:

Video editing
3D
Photoshop
You can also game on it
2800x1800p is a huge gain
Able to get more Ram
Able to get more SSD
More ports (+ 2x thunderbolt) + dedicated HDMI


Those things aren't really meant for the air, the air is an ultra portable computer that you do your everyday tasks like youtube, facebook, news, slight video and image editing.
 
I would not get the air. I'd pay a few hundreds more and get a uMBP instead. Not sure about you, but it bothers me if I can't upgrade my hardware as time passes. RAM, HDD, SSD. If I were in your shoes, I'd be deciding from the uMBP or the rMBP and forget about the air, but that's just me =]

Best of luck! :apple:
 
No point upgrading from a 2011 macbook pro yet.

Slap an SSD in it, slap 16 gigs of ram in it and it will be almost as fast as the MBP-R and faster than a 2012 air.

Unless you play games and need the GPU, there's no point yet - ivy bridge isn't THAT much faster than sandy bridge.

Wait for the next CPU generation to get a significant speed boost - sandy bridge to ivy bridge is a small step.
 
For all suggesting Retina model, he obviously doesnt need a Retina for his use.

Web browsing and light use of protools can be done fine with HD4000.

But to be more clear, 2011MBP would be fine as well.
I dont know what model of 2011MBP but 8~16GB RAM, SSD, and Optibay upgrade can make your Mac faster then ever.
 
coolweirdo said:
light use of protools, web browsing
Click to expand...

you want to get a ~$2,000 facebook computer? stick with what you already have, because you won't notice much of a difference. it would make sense if you were upgrading from a '08 or so model, but 11 to 12 won't be a big jump, plus retina model isn't worth getting until next revision.
 
xxcysxx said:
Although the retina model is more superior in terms of performance power and visual productivity, and no one would dare to discount the clarity of the retina screen, but its still stand at this point that the retina screen is very dodgy. He will have a very high chance of getting a "bad retina screen", bad as in image retention or ghosting, than if he were to get a defective air.
The bad screen and the frustration of going back and forth to the apple store to get exchange will ruin the whole experience.
Click to expand...

I have seen three retina Macbooks so far (ordered by our department), all were perfect. Please don't jump to conclusion just because few users here on the forums seem to suffer from bad luck/bad batch whatever.

On-topic: the retina MBP is significantly faster and has a better display (IPS) capable of displaying up to 1920x1200 compared to max 1440x900 of the Air, but its also heavier than the Air.

Get the Air if you need ultimate mobility, the retina MBP if you need mobility+power.
 
ixodes said:
If you want the best MBP, get the upcoming 2nd gen rMBP.

The current model is filled with bugs & annoyances, as is normal for a 1st gen Apple product.
Click to expand...

Simply not true: it isn't "filled with bugs" at all.
 
agaskew said:
Simply not true: it isn't "filled with bugs" at all.
Click to expand...
You may be one of the "lucky ones".

Or perhaps you've avoided reading the many threads and posts here about iP5 problems. That _is_ one of the preferred methods for those who hate facing what is all too obvious. I'll make it really simple for you, here are some links.

You're just a few clicks away from reality.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1460907/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1461071/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1461064/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1452390/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1455399/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1450585/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1450585/


Oh, and you're welcome :)
 
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