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Retina over Air?

TallManNY

TallManNY

macrumors 601
Original poster
Nov 5, 2007
4,839
1,812
So GF had some issues with the 2007 Macbook today. Some issues crop up from time to time and so I thought it might be getting time to upgrade. With the price drop of the retina 13", it seems like that is the way to go over the Air. I've heard that the GPU in the 13 Retina struggles a bit to push the pixels on the retina display. But the laptop is never used for gaming, so is that ever going to be a problem for regular light usage (web, Word, excel, etc.)? All home video, picture editing, video game playing is done on the iMac, so the laptop is hardly pushed very hard. iMac also gives us access to DVD drive, so probably don't even have buy that as an external.
 
People are make making it a bigger deal than it is , plus theres an update for safari called WebKit nightly build which fixes the lag heres a link
 
You have to stop going by 'what you have heard'. Go play with them in the store.

Any web page that the Retina gets choppy with (scrolling on The Verge, resizing GMail), a regular Mac is going to have the same problem with.
 
I had a MacBook Air and bought a 13" rMBP in December. It was well worth it. After yesterday's price drops, I'd go for it. It will run circles around the 2007 MacBook, so I wouldn't worry about "what you've heard."
 
Ricanlegend said:
People are make making it a bigger deal than it is , plus theres an update for safari called WebKit nightly build which fixes the lag heres a link
Click to expand...

Thanks. Seems like something that has been or is about to be corrected.
 
I'd go 13" Retina. That is the wave of the future and just received a nice price drop. Plus, it has double the RAM and a faster processor than the Air, along with a MUCH better screen for not all that much more money.

The Air is kind of in a state of transition, and may end up getting a Retina screen sooner rather than later. Pixely screens are about to be a thing of the past in all Apple products

By getting the 13" Retina now, you won't have any regrets that your Mac is outdated for a long, long time. At least from a design and core features standpoint.
 
As an owner of both, the 13" rMBP ultimately makes more sense than the 13" MBA in all cases except where you're really scrimping or truly need maximum portability with a 13" screen.

From day 1, the GPU "issue" has been overblown.
 
Well it depends on what you use your laptop for...

The retina only supports 8GB of ram - the same as the maxed out Air. Also the i7 processor of the Air is not that much slower than the (upgraded) processor of the retina.

I had the 15" retina, but sold it due to lag and choppiness. Also I found it hard to design for web (72 dpi) on the retina display. My Air does not lag on the same websites and is smooth when changing space/window etc. It just seems that the retina is having problems pushing all those pixels, especially the 13" seeing that it hasn't got a discrete graphics card.

So it comes down to personal preference. I work as an Art Director and use the maxed out 13" MacBook Air for all my design needs. It handles Photoshop and Illustrator just perfect - also large files. I just connect it to my 27" Thunderbolt Display when I need more space.
 
IMO 3lbs vs 3.6lbs is a small difference.

I'd go with the rMBP.

I have the 15" rMBP and the screen has ruined me for every other laptop out there. I briefly used my Mom's 2012 11" Air and could not believe how crappy the screen looked. Of course, it's all relative - I owned a 2011 Air with basically the same screen and had no problem with it until the rMBP spoiled my eyes :)
 
The 13 rmbp does not struggle a lot for the retina. i use it for 2 months and this is the best laptop i ever had.

i suggest everyone especially after the price change. it has more reasonable price now
 
Thanks all. It is interesting that every now and then someone does still bring up the delay and stuttering. While others say that it is overblown.

The Air is clearly good enough since all my more difficult computing stuff is going to be done on my iMac. I only use the laptop for when I want a change of pace and I take it to a cafe to work. But then I'm just writing and sending emails. Anything will work for that. And the GF doesn't push the computer except that she likes to leave about fifteen browser tabs going as well as Word and Excel and whatever else she has opened. Then she looks at me and says the 2007 Macbook is running slow. :) So for us obviously any new computer is going to be a huge upgrade and both will be awesome.

I will try out the Retina in an Apple store and see if I can detect any real stuttering. My real hope is that Macbook makes it another six months or so, so I can get the Haswell laptops.
 
TallManNY said:
Thanks all. It is interesting that every now and then someone does still bring up the delay and stuttering. While others say that it is overblown.

The Air is clearly good enough since all my more difficult computing stuff is going to be done on my iMac. I only use the laptop for when I want a change of pace and I take it to a cafe to work. But then I'm just writing and sending emails. Anything will work for that. And the GF doesn't push the computer except that she likes to leave about fifteen browser tabs going as well as Word and Excel and whatever else she has opened. Then she looks at me and says the 2007 Macbook is running slow. :) So for us obviously any new computer is going to be a huge upgrade and both will be awesome.

I will try out the Retina in an Apple store and see if I can detect any real stuttering. My real hope is that Macbook makes it another six months or so, so I can get the Haswell laptops.
Click to expand...

Good luck, I couldn't wait any longer :)
 
I'm trying so hard to resist purchasing a rMBP right now. It'll be my first mac and I plan on going all out and getting the 15" with 16gb RAM and 768gb storage.

I'm an IT consultant and do a lot of development work on windows machines so the plan is to get the most storage/memory/proc upfront and partition using bootcamp.

This is going to be the most souped up/expensive machine I would have purchased, but I just want it. Maybe, by the time the haswell is released I would come to my senses and purchase the 2.7 processor.
 
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