OMG. Please reserve all judgement on rMBP until you see it in person.

[AZREOSpecialist]

What you are reading in this thread is the typical FUD that gets thrown around when a new, more powerful and better designed product is introduced. The first to criticize it are those who own last year's model. The typical nonsense goes something like this... "there's nothing compelling me to upgrade", "it's just last year's model with a new screen", "it's not that great", blah blah ad nauseum.

Feature-for-feature the rMBP is less expensive at the Apple Store than a comparable non-Retina model. Equip each one with the same hardware and you will see the Retina model is hundreds of dollars less expensive. There is no advantage to buying the non-Retina unless you want to pay more for an outdated design.

And for those who insist the regular non-Retina model is more expandable - really? Let's see... you can upgrade the HD to a SSD (Retina already has SSD), you can upgrade the 8 GB RAM to 16 GB RAM with non-Apple supported 3rd party products (Retina has 16 GB built and supported by Apple). Retina lacks Superdrive - which hardly anyone needs but can be purchased for $79 - but has quad resolution display, 50% more robust battery, thinner and lighter.

The regular MacBook Pro has nothing over the Retina model, in fact it's the reverse. Once you look at the cost, I think you're quickly realize that the rMBP is the way to go in terms of "bang for the buck". You cannot expand the non-Retina model to anything beyond what is already offered in the Retina model.

Even for those who don't like the screen, why wouldn't you buy a laptop with the same or better specifications for less money? Makes no sense.

I'm not sure why this has to get so personal.

If you want to upgrade the ram and play with the drives all the time get the MBPC. If you want an ultra thin next gen device get the RMBP. Are you opening the laptop all the time or actually using it?

Pretty much everything is better in the RMBP, size, weight, speakers, screen, etc. Cooling is the best I've ever seen on a laptop and I mean that.

I used to open up my laptops all the time and i got nothing out of it but wasted time and money. The CPU/GPU make the computer outdated before any drive or RAM does, generally, and those are the same on the RMBP and the CMBP, so when Ivy Bridge/650M becomes useless, so will your CMBP's. Laptops are not upgradeable as desktops are. Get over it, this is the direction of the industry. The days of replacing CPU's in laptops are more or less over (I used to do that in the core2duo penyrn days).

External Storage is easy now thanks to USB 3.0 and SSD's in a 3.0 enclosure running @ 200mb/sec.

Ram is easy, if you want to max out at purchase just do it for 16gb.

If you don't want to jump into it then leave it. But I dont get the vitriol for those who have taken the plunge.

The lag /choppy UI issues have been largely addressed in Mountain Lion, and denying this just seems silly. Further optimisations are sure to come also. This has proven itself to be largely squared around software optimisations and they're already coming.

Best way to describe RMBP is "nerd jewellery". You need more than a day with the RMBP to appreciate it. Once the whole thing comes together for you... well its just nice to be the first one in the HiDPI world

 

[mykelala01]

The retina display isn't a professional feature like the machine's name implies. That means that all of your expensive professional software is going to look like crap on the screen. Have CS5.5 instead of CS6? Good luck waiting for Adobe to update it for retina. Over the life of the machine, probably 70% at most of your apps will get updated.

Let's say that you need create a graphic for a web page that's 300x300 pixels. Depending on how the software handles it, it's going to be A, half-sized on the screen, which makes judging if text is big enough on a normal screen, etc. a hassle, or B, full sized but pixellated, which just isn't good for obvious reasons. People can argue "Well, you should just be making your stuff with retina displays in mind." Well, great, but you're working for other people, and they probably won't care about that in the slightest, and won't be attempting to implement it on their site. Most things need to be what resolution they need to be, end of story.

For programs like 3D apps that are demanding on the GPU, you don't want the computing-power-sucking likeness of the retina display taking precious frames per second away from you in playback.

It's like being an accountant and having your accounting calculator with all kinds of special buttons taken away, and replaced by a normal one that can accomplish the same thing, just less conveniently.

I've seen the retina display MBP, and it looks great, both screen-wise and in design, but the screen just isn't a professional feature. With all of this in mind, none of it matters to the average user, who browses the web and does email and spreadsheets.

Yup you are right specially working with other people. How would you explain that the picture that they want on their site, can't be edited to your rMBP. Apple are really trying to push the technology towards retina. But it would probably took like 4 to 5 years before everyone adapt. Specially even in their line of product only the 15 inch, Ipad and Iphone got retina. I doubt we are seeing bigger display with Retina any soon. For It will push it's limit on our current technology at hand.

 

[Meever]

What's the point of a gorgeous screen if the friggen ui lags? It's like being in 2001 all over again.

Unless I can roll back to Lion I'm demanding a refund.

 

[gentlefury]

What's the point of a gorgeous screen if the friggen ui lags? It's like being in 2001 all over again.

Unless I can roll back to Lion I'm demanding a refund.

ummm, yeah, the UI is incredibly smooth. You have no idea what you're talking about

 

[sofianito]

Apple does not officially support 16 GB and will not cover any problems related to such a RAM expansion under warranty.

I am running my late 2008 MBP with 8GB of RAM since Snow Leopard has been released and had no issues. Ivy Bridge supports 32GB RAM, and I bet you whenever the 16GB RAM modules will be available, cMBP owners would be able to upgrade to 32GB , unless Apple limits it by software...

The rMBP is obviously a much less expensive computer to produce given that feature-for-feature it is less expensive than its non-Retina counterparts.

You lack of credibility. You are just speculating without any proof...

Apple is fixing the price. Their sales and marketing team have overpriced the cMBP and are lowering their rMBP's margins this time because they probably want to push toward a model that will provide them much higher margins... Only time will tell...

Buying a Retina over the regular is a no-brainer given Apple's pricing.

If the rMBP didn't have issues with the retina display that are apparently affecting randomly users, and if someone does not care about upgradability, low disk space, then the rMBP BASE MODEL ($2,199.00) would be a no-brainer. Spending $3k on a laptop is an unnecessary whim unless you are wealthy or you've gone out of your mind

 

[ljonesj]

I've heard mostly negative reviews of antiglare films, but I'd be interested to see a MBPR with one attached. What others may find unacceptable may be ideal for these old eyes. In fact, for my eyes, a 4 year old MBP with a 1440x900 display IS a retina display! I think sometimes people forget that it's not just how sharp the display is; it's how good your eyesight is!

i will agree with you there when i have an iPhone 4 8gb model and cant tell a difference from it to my ipod touch 3rd gen screen my friend has the 16gb iPhone 4 and i still cant see the difference between my iPod touch and his iPhone

 

[Dangerous Theory]

I've heard mostly negative reviews of antiglare films, but I'd be interested to see a MBPR with one attached. What others may find unacceptable may be ideal for these old eyes. In fact, for my eyes, a 4 year old MBP with a 1440x900 display IS a retina display! I think sometimes people forget that it's not just how sharp the display is; it's how good your eyesight is!

I haven't seen the retina MacBook yet, but it should be easier on my short sighted eyes right? Apart from the 2" upgrade from my MBP, I assume the higher density display will be less blurry from the same distance.

On a side note, this is what threads are looking like for me recently in iPad safari. Even ones you've not posted in...

 

[Dangerous Theory]

Spending $3k on a laptop is an unnecessary whim unless you are wealthy or you've gone out of your mind

I don't think that's a fair comment unless you're the sort of person who always buys the bare minimum of what you need. For example, what car do you own? I bet it ain't something ****** like a Chevrolet/Daewoo Matiz . People are entitled to spend their personal allowance on whatever luxuries they want.

 

[Feed Me]

I

On a side note, this is what threads are looking like for me recently in iPad safari. Even ones you've not posted in...

empty your cache?

 

[stevelam]

In case you can't read: I spent lot of time actually comparing the rMBP and the normal MBP side by side. All web images looked much better on the rMBP due to much improved contrast and colors. Of course they will look worse compared to their HiDPI-enabled versions, but thats not the point here. I haven't seen any hint of blur people are talking about, and I have even compared renderings of text such as this image. They clearly look different on rMBP (there is definitely some smoothing filter as in bilinear upscaling), but the end effect (what you see on the screen) is in no way inferior (and often actually looks better - subjectively, of course) to what the non-retina MBP displays. Again, the only way I can imagine people perceiving them as blurry if they directly compare them to retina-aware content (such as having a image containing text near an actual HiDPI text block).

BTW, your logic is absolutely flawed. You talk about 'baseless things' and then come with ridiculous claims like images should 'look worse by definition' . Yes, they look worse then HiDPI versions of the same images. But that was never the point.

in other words, typical web images look worse on the RMBP than on regular screens.

so basically you just completely contradicted your own point (which apparently, was never your point). gotcha. thanks!

 

[sofianito]

I don't think that's a fair comment unless you're the sort of person who always buys the bare minimum of what you need. For example, what car do you own? I bet it ain't something ****** like a Chevrolet/Daewoo Matiz . People are entitled to spend their personal allowance on whatever luxuries they want.

Wrong example, I don't own a car, it is a company car

 

[GGJstudios]

I haven't seen the retina MacBook yet, but it should be easier on my short sighted eyes right? Apart from the 2" upgrade from my MBP, I assume the higher density display will be less blurry from the same distance.

I've seen it and if I look close, it appears somewhat sharper than the other MBPs, but not dramatically so to my eyes. The glare, which Apple claims is significantly reduced, seemed about the same to me as other glossy screens. As I said before, many won't have a problem with that, but I do.

On a side note, this is what threads are looking like for me recently in iPad safari. Even ones you've not posted in...

That's weird. Have you cleared the cache? (assuming you can do that on an iPad).

 

[Dangerous Theory]

I've seen it and if I look close, it appears somewhat sharper than the other MBPs, but not dramatically so to my eyes. The glare, which Apple claims is significantly reduced, seemed about the same to me as other glossy screens. As I said before, many won't have a problem with that, but I do.

That's weird. Have you cleared the cache? (assuming you can do that on an iPad).

Yeah did that now and it's fixed, just thought I'd show you first cause it's kinda cool and odd lol. Somehow Safari got a bit confused about which images go where

 

[leman]

in other words, typical web images look worse on the RMBP than on regular screens.

so basically you just completely contradicted your own point (which apparently, was never your point). gotcha. thanks!

You really read only what you want to read, do you? I said: typical web images look worse than their HiDPI versions on the retina screen. I also said: typical web images look the same or better on retina screen than on the regular screen. See? What that so difficult?

As to your 'they must look worse', apparently you never gave the whole thing a serious though. A non-retina pixel is exactly 2x2 retina pixels. So if you pixel-double a typical image on a retina screen, you get exactly the same physical representation of the image as on a regular screen (e.g. 100x100 regular pixels = same physical area as 200x200 retina pixels). Thus, in theory, regular images should look absolutely the same on retina as on non-retina (quality differences between the displays notwithstanding).

Of course, its a bit more complicated than that, as OS X does not actually pixel-double the images, but rather performs linear interpolation. This induces some blur to the upscaled image. But this blur is only really visible if you look at the upscaled image on the regular screen (e.g. upscale 100x100 image to 200x200). Because on the retina screen displays the upscaled 200x200 have exactly the physical dimensions of 100x100 on a non-retina screen, the blur is actually not noticeable in the real image. At least I was not able to see any.

BTW, did you actually do some side-by-side comparisons on the two or are you just talking 'theoretically'?

----------

The glare, which Apple claims is significantly reduced, seemed about the same to me as other glossy screens..

From my side-to-side comparisons, the glare has been really greatly reduced (the rMBP had much less reflections than the regular MBP in the same position). Of course, if you tolerate no reflections at all, both screens fail.

 

[yanki01]

saw one at my local BB and , it looked really cleeeeeeean! i wish i had the cash but my 09er will do.

 

[matrix07]

in other words, typical web images look worse on the RMBP than on regular screens.

so basically you just completely contradicted your own point (which apparently, was never your point). gotcha. thanks!

Read his post 3 more times.

 

[sofianito]

I think that spending a lot of hours in front of a retina may have side effects... Like for instance, you could easily break with your GF/BF because you start to see her/him ugly and not retinased...

 

[Queen6]

I am running my late 2008 MBP with 8GB of RAM since Snow Leopard has been released and had no issues. Ivy Bridge supports 32GB RAM, and I bet you whenever the 16GB RAM modules will be available, cMBP owners would be able to upgrade to 32GB , unless Apple limits it by software...

By the time the average user needs 32Gb of RAM, the present line of MBP`s Retina or not will have far bigger bottlenecks.

FWIW All this infighting Retina versus standard MacBook Pro, is sadly laughable; both machines are extremely competent with little competition, both have positives and negatives, however attempting to enforce your personal view/choice is futile. Which one is better ? this is only answered by the individual users need, not you the commentators personal criteria, especially those that dont even own one.....

As the individual you must filter the content of the internet very carefully, everyone is a "Pro", everyone is the "expert", for the most part they are not, some are well informed, the majority are not. If you need help to make a significant purchase, or qualification on hardware, wait for a recognised source, not the kid with 10 minutes hands on in Best Buy

 

[leman]

The regular MacBook Pro has nothing over the Retina model, in fact it's the reverse. Once you look at the cost, I think you're quickly realize that the rMBP is the way to go in terms of "bang for the buck". You cannot expand the non-Retina model to anything beyond what is already offered in the Retina model.

I am agreeing with almost everything in your post, but I'd like to comment on this one. I think what many mean by expandability is primarily the ability to install a new, faster and cheaper SSD once one is released. This is of course one benefit of the non-retina version, albeit a very far fetched one.

Currently, the retina MBP actually is more expandable because of the dual TB and HDMI ports.

----------

FWIW All this infighting Retina versus standard MacBook Pro, is sadly laughable; both machines are extremely competent with little competition, both have positives and negatives, however attempting to enforce your personal view/choice is futile. Which one is better ? this is only answered by the individual users need, not you the commentators personal criteria, especially those that dont even own one.....

This is by far one of the most useful posts in this thread

 

[kamran9558]

What you are reading in this thread is the typical FUD that gets thrown around when a new, more powerful and better designed product is introduced. The first to criticize it are those who own last year's model. The typical nonsense goes something like this... "there's nothing compelling me to upgrade", "it's just last year's model with a new screen", "it's not that great", blah blah ad nauseum.

Feature-for-feature the rMBP is less expensive at the Apple Store than a comparable non-Retina model. Equip each one with the same hardware and you will see the Retina model is hundreds of dollars less expensive. There is no advantage to buying the non-Retina unless you want to pay more for an outdated design.

And for those who insist the regular non-Retina model is more expandable - really? Let's see... you can upgrade the HD to a SSD (Retina already has SSD), you can upgrade the 8 GB RAM to 16 GB RAM with non-Apple supported 3rd party products (Retina has 16 GB built and supported by Apple). Retina lacks Superdrive - which hardly anyone needs but can be purchased for $79 - but has quad resolution display, 50% more robust battery, thinner and lighter.

The regular MacBook Pro has nothing over the Retina model, in fact it's the reverse. Once you look at the cost, I think you're quickly realize that the rMBP is the way to go in terms of "bang for the buck". You cannot expand the non-Retina model to anything beyond what is already offered in the Retina model.

Even for those who don't like the screen, why wouldn't you buy a laptop with the same or better specifications for less money? Makes no sense.

I totally agree with your post but the only problem I have is that I cant accept the lag which I see every where even after installing ML. The only thing which is causing the rMBP to stop lagging is when I change the resolution using switchrex to non hi dpi resolution and when you do this all the retina beauty fades. I seriously want this issue to be solved as the GPU is clearly working twice then what its supposed to.

 

[gentlefury]

I totally agree with your post but the only problem I have is that I cant accept the lag which I see every where even after installing ML. The only thing which is causing the rMBP to stop lagging is when I change the resolution using switchrex to non hi dpi resolution and when you do this all the retina beauty fades. I seriously want this issue to be solved as the GPU is clearly working twice then what its supposed to.

Sorry, there is no setting for non-HiDPI except if you are using a 3rd party application. rMBP is ALWAYS full res. You are just using higher res UI elements.

 

[GoreVidal]

i have seen it in person and was even more underwhelmed honestly

I used it for over a week and was even more underwhelmed honestly.

----------

^ This is a joke right?

Doesn't seem like it, but your post does.

 

[sofianito]

MBP 17" 2.5GB AntiGlare, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD+1TB HDD
rMBP 2.7Ghz+16GB RAM+768SSD - not impressed

I am impressed by your dream specs . 1,5TB of disk, that's amazing

Which one do you use most?

 

[Laco]

I spent quite a bit time at the Apple Store staring at the retina and non-retina Macbook Pro's and I couldn't see any difference. I do wear glasses so maybe my vision isn't that great.

A funny thing happened when I was there. I was looking at the non-Retina 15 and two teenaged boys came next to me and were looking at another non-retina 15 Macbook Pro. They were talking about how amazing the Retina Macbook Pro is while looking at a non-retina Macbook Pro! I found this very amusing.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

What's the point of a gorgeous screen if the friggen ui lags? It's like being in 2001 all over again.

Unless I can roll back to Lion I'm demanding a refund.

Something must be wrong with your particular unit, as I have a 2.6 GHz model without even a hint of the slightest lag anywhere, no matter what I'm doing. Safari 6 scrolling is almost too fast for me.