Rant

Sounds like a great setup. Enjoy

 

13" MBPs are great machines. Personally, my only beef with them is the screen (low resolution and forced to go glossy display).

 

I don't think people recommend not getting the MBP 13" with 8 gb RAM and 512 gb SSD, they just recommend not getting it from Apple.

Apple's RAM upgrade prices are way high. You can get RAM much cheaper from other stores. There is simply no reason to buy RAM from Apple, period.

As for the Apple SSD upgrade options, you should know that not all SSDs are created equal and Apple uses inferior products (last I heard, but I have been hearing rumors recently that they have improved their stock SSD). You could have gotten a much better SSD for your money if you bought from another retailer/online.

So to put it bluntly, you straight up wasted your money (as in I could have built the EXACT same system you have for hundreds cheaper). But hey, no flames here, it's your money, you earned it and you do what you want with it.

Also, this is all assuming you will actually notice an improvement with 8gb RAM (which 99% of users will not) and 512 gb SSD (which 99.99% of users will not).

 

It just wasn't smart of you to waste your money by purchasing those upgrades from Apple. I can guarantee that you overpaid for those upgrades.

 

I personally can't justify the price to performance ratio if I was going to max out a MBP 13". I mean Macs are already pricey enough as it is, why add overpriced components to increase the speed just by a tiny bit? Unless you're a professional or really think those few extra seconds you're going to save are worth the money, I would refund it and put the money into better use. Just my 2 cents.

 

I just wish 8 GB was that ****ing expensive I am fine with 4 GB but still I'd get 8 GB if it wasn't so expensive

 

Get two 4GB DDR3 sticks off of Newegg. They cost around $110 each.

 

I am just wondering why you spent so much on a performance oriented machine but got one with an integrated graphics card and older generation CPU. It would seem if you were actually worried about performance, you would have purchased the 15" or 17" which offer discrete and Core iX CPU.

I won't bother to talk about the upgrades which you paid handsomely for.

 

Surely for the portability? Personally I wouldn't have blown that on a 13" but if you want the best performance out of the most portable MBP then you have no other option. I find the 15 & 17 quite cumbersome compared to the 13, but then my performance needs are reasonably low.

 

I realize it's for portability, but if performance is so important, sometimes you have to compromise other things.

 

The 8gb ram is useful if you do enough on it, and an SSD is AWESOME. Overpaying apple ~$150 for the ram and $250 for the 512GB SSD is silly. Not to mention the SSD is not the top of the line. The same money would have gotten you a faster SSD if you didn't get it from Apple.

I would expect veteran computer user to be comfortable with doing a simple RAM and HD upgrade and knowing enough to find out what their really getting for their money when it comes to specs

I guess if money is no object and your lazy, sure give away your money, why not to a good charity though instead of Apple?

Also I agree with whoever said the screen is the really disappointing thing on the 13", give me 1440px x 900px!!

 

What I would do for a 512GB SSD

 

Not everyone wants to deal with third party manufacturers or testing dead components. OP might be a corporate multitasking road warrior whizzing across spaces and applications like nobodies business, and if his machine blows up (ram or ssd) in Japan or Canada, one trip to the Apple store and they'll swap in some brand new components.

enjoy your new machine op.

 

Wow! That's one hell of a machine. I would buy that any day ... but $3,300!

I think I'll just have to stay with the baseline version

 

WOW! That is one LOADED machine!

 

How often do you need half a terabyte of data in such a situation? An external hdd would work just as well addition to a smaller ssd. Then why would an ssd be necessary? Oh the os takes 30 seconds longer to load or it takes 10 seconds to load Photoshop and now he might miss his plane?!?

 

I wouldn't want an external hdd to fiddle around with if I could help it.

Besides, an SSD isn't only for speed.

It's more reliable, cooler, lower power consumption.

No moving parts....Ever had a head crash?

 

As I already said not many people need a half terabyte of data on a laptop for business uses. So more than likely a smaller ssd would be fine.
As far as reliability ssds fail too. And yeah I have had hdds fail.

I really do not get those that think a $3300 13" MacBook pro is money well spent.

 

For Those Of You Who Worship Speed & Quality

READ ON

http://macperformanceguide.com/bto-mbp.html