Questions about the maxed out 15" rMBP

[ZestyOne]

I really want to buy the most expensive 15" rMBP for business. Right now I have an early 2011 17" MBP.

I use it on my desk regularly with a 27" cinema display, and I also use it often while traveling.

I do have a few Q:

1. Was the whole LG screen burn thing fixed?

2. Do you think in the upcoming refresh they will update any hardware besides the Haswell chip? Gfx, memory, etc?

3. Most importantly.. someone told me that their retina MBP has some stuttering issues because of such a high resolution, and that they 'honestly wouldn't have bought it' if they could do it again. They said different css intensive sites are quite janky and slow down a bit. Or things can stutter if under load. Is this something you guys have experienced? This is absolutely not something that would be good for my workflow.

Thanks!

 

[tillsbury]

Never seen the screen issue, so I don't know. I have an LG from day 2 of release, but never had an issue. If you do have an issue, you can get it replaced or fixed.

Yes in the new refresh you can expect to see Halswell chips, more power, more battery life, HD5000 integrated graphics and possibly a slightly bumped up GPU, 801.2ac wifi and pcie (twice the speed) SSDs. These are pretty much a given on the next rMBP I should think. Also presumably HDMI1.4 and TB2 ports. Anything else is a guess.

Don't agree with the stuttering at all. Everything is smooth as on this machine, always has been. Usually run 1920x1200 when using as a laptop, or 1920x1200 and an external DisplayPort 30" display running 2560x1600. No problems here. It's quicker than my top-end Windows desktop was in all respects other than gaming.

 

[MNapples]

Usually run 1920x1200 when using as a laptop, or 1920x1200 and an external DisplayPort 30" display running 2560x1600. No problems here.

Do you think you're not encountering stuttering because you're not using the laptop's native resolution? Also, how well does a retina work with an external display? I'm looking to add an extra monitor to my setup that will run at 1920x1080, while keeping the Macbook at it's native resolution.

 

[jcpb]

To answer the more pertinent points:

1. Was the whole LG screen burn thing fixed?

Not really. It's also not something that bothers me at the slightest, as I had IR problems with desktop monitors as well.

2. Do you think in the upcoming refresh they will update any hardware besides the Haswell chip? Gfx, memory, etc?

If the updated Airs are any indication:

LPDDR3 (same as regular DDR3L, but lower power consumption)
GT7x0 for graphics (higher-spec'ed Kepler of last year, but not by much until Nvidia releases new chips around next year)
Switch from proprietary-SATA3 to proprietary-PCIe for storage (maybe)

3. Most importantly.. someone told me that their retina MBP has some stuttering issues because of such a high resolution, and that they 'honestly wouldn't have bought it' if they could do it again. They said different css intensive sites are quite janky and slow down a bit. Or things can stutter if under load. Is this something you guys have experienced? This is absolutely not something that would be good for my workflow.

I run a hack on system startup to get the native resolution instead of using the default scaling modes. Not seeing stuttering issues here.

 

[ZestyOne]

To answer the more pertinent points:
I run a hack on system startup to get the native resolution instead of using the default scaling modes. Not seeing stuttering issues here.

Wow interesting... so what does that look like visually on your screen? does it make everything bigger or smaller? The one thing that I'm not looking forward to is on my 17" i have TONS of screen real estate....

when i go to the mac store and look on the 15", its like all my favorite sites dont even fit in the browser window unless i make it take up 80% of the screen, which seems crazy to me.

 

[tillsbury]

Do you think you're not encountering stuttering because you're not using the laptop's native resolution? Also, how well does a retina work with an external display? I'm looking to add an extra monitor to my setup that will run at 1920x1080, while keeping the Macbook at it's native resolution.

No, the 1920x1200 is actually the highest resolution the rMBP runs. It images the screen at double-size (in this case, 3840x2400) and then scales *that* down to 2880x1800, which is why it looks so good (unlike any other LCD display on a non-native resolution). So it's the slowest it can be. If you use SwitchResX (recommended) you can flick to 2880x1800 native, at which point the "retina" (HiDPI mode) turns off and you are on a plain 2880x1800 display. This is great when you're using an application full-screen that you know well and need maximum real estate. For day-to-day browsing I go back to 1920x1200 although I find that a bit annoying for most work as there's not enough real estate for what I'm used to.

External monitors work fine, as expected. 3rd party cables are much cheaper than the equivalent Apple ones usually. This thunderbolt to DisplayPort cable (for a Dell monitor) was US$6 from ebay. If you close the lid you're on external only, if you open the lid you have both as expected.

 

[ColdCase]

The SA2 (in use since feb) seems to be much less prone to IR.

I have a 27in LG external display that is great, but apple does not do as good of a job font smoothing on third party displays as they do with apple displays (I think the default is no smoothing). So text may be a bit ragged unless you zoom a bit. Someone not used to the retina display may not notice it as much. There are terminal commands (dunno off hand but google search) that turn on and adjust font smoothing, but the results are not as good as text on the retina.