Perhaps a daft question...

[Morrile]

Hello,

I know the 15" retina cannot have it's memory increased as it's soldered to the motherboard but the hard drive can be but at a huge cost, so plan B is...

I am thinking along the lines of getting a new 15" and upgrade the RAM to 16Mb (I hear the RAM is not soldered to the motherboard) and replace the hard drive with a 512Gb OCZ-VERTEX4.

I would appreciate some constructive opinions before going ahead

Morrile

 

[Ploki]

If you don't care about the Retina display and thunderbolt port, then that's the smartest thing for sure. It'll cost you about 25% less than retina with same specs.

 

[mankar4]

I would appreciate some constructive opinions before going ahead

I'd suggest that you go to the store and put a retina and a classic next to each other, and decide if you want the retina screen. Surf the web a bit on each machine, load a few apps, read a pdf, and write something in pages/textedit on both machines. Also, you may want to change the display resolution on the retina to "more space" so you can see how much screen real estate is added with the retina display.

Some people can't live without retina after experiencing one (myself included) and some people don't care. If you don't care, you should definitely go with your plan B. But if you like the retina display, no amount of upgradability/repairability or HD space in the classic mbp will make up for the use experience of that display.

 

[AppleMacFinder]

If you don't care about the Retina display and thunderbolt port, then that's the smartest thing for sure. It'll cost you about 25% less than retina with same specs.

Classic Macbook Pro has thunderbolt port as well. Everything, except the retina display.
I wonder if someone will create a hybrid: classic MBP body + retina display,
to get the best of two worlds: repairability and beauty!

 

[NewishMacGuy]

Classic Macbook Pro has thunderbolt port as well. Everything, except the retina display.
I wonder if someone will create a hybrid: classic MBP body + retina display,
to get the best of two worlds: repairability and beauty!

If only...

 

[Rhinoevans]

Hello,

I know the 15" retina cannot have it's memory increased as it's soldered to the motherboard but the hard drive can be but at a huge cost, so plan B is...

I am thinking along the lines of getting a new 15" and upgrade the RAM to 16Mb (I hear the RAM is not soldered to the motherboard) and replace the hard drive with a 512Gb OCZ-VERTEX4.

I would appreciate some constructive opinions before going ahead

Morrile

Do it, That is what I did, Retina screen WAY over rated!

----------

I'd suggest that you go to the store and put a retina and a classic next to each other, and decide if you want the retina screen. Surf the web a bit on each machine, load a few apps, read a pdf, and write something in pages/textedit on both machines. Also, you may want to change the display resolution on the retina to "more space" so you can see how much screen real estate is added with the retina display.

Some people can't live without retina after experiencing one (myself included) and some people don't care. If you don't care, you should definitely go with your plan B. But if you like the retina display, no amount of upgradability/repairability or HD space in the classic mbp will make up for the use experience of that display.

Anybody can live without a Retina! Please...

 

[Ploki]

Classic Macbook Pro has thunderbolt port as well. Everything, except the retina display.
I wonder if someone will create a hybrid: classic MBP body + retina display,
to get the best of two worlds: repairability and beauty!

Yeah, but it has only one. Which gets used pretty fast. Admittedly it has ethernet+fw800 but i still prefer the flexibility of two TBs. If cMBP had two thunderbolt ports instead of i.e. fw800, I'd get the cMBP. This way I'm probably getting the rMBP.

Do it, That is what I did, Retina screen WAY over rated!

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Anybody can live without a Retina! Please...

To be honest after working on it for about 30 minutes its a pain in the ass to go back to the normal screen. Still, with HiRes version of 15" you could easily get by. I wish apple made 1680 standard on cMBP and hires version would be 1080p

 

[bobr1952]

Classic Macbook Pro has thunderbolt port as well. Everything, except the retina display.
I wonder if someone will create a hybrid: classic MBP body + retina display,
to get the best of two worlds: repairability and beauty!

Well not totally true as the shape of the Retina is different. Not that much different? Well that depends as for me, it was the next reason after the Retina display that went into my decision.

 

[Morrile]

Many thanks to all

Hello,

Many thanks folks for the great responses I do use the mac for Adobe Dreamweaver & Lightroom but for person use only, so I don’t realistically need retina display.

I shall wait up to the 10th Jan to see if there are any offers and take them up on their zero interest finance. One small deciding factor was the inability to secure Apple’s most expensive laptop with a Kensington lock, a deterrent is better than none, especially when in hotels.

Morrile