Hi guys,
Thought I would share my thoughts on the updated rMBP now that I have had it for a little while. I am upgrading from a Late 2010 MBA 13", which has been my sole computer for the last four years, and has - until now - been the best computing experience I have ever had.
I was worried that the rMBP would be too heavy, and so I was holding out for the new MacBook, but the leaked benchmarks convinced me I'd be better off with the Pro. The Pro is heavier - but only very slightly. It's only noticeable when I'm manipulating it one-handed. When it's on the desk or on my lap or in my backpack or satchel the small amount of extra weight is unnoticeable.
The rMBP is a beautiful shape. I do miss the taper of the Air when typing lying down - but the blunt front of the Pro is not as annoying as I had feared.
The main reason to choose the rMBP is the screen. It is amazing. The best screen I have ever had on anything ever. I run at the scaled 1440x900 resolution to match my old Air, but I cannot see any blurriness and I cannot see any pixels. Text is super-sharp and letters have clear shapes without any visible antialiasing or jagginess at all. I use my machine mostly for software development and so I spend my days staring at screens of source code. This is the perfect display for that.
But not only that! It also looks amazing when I watch videos on YouTube. I don't know if YouTube has noticed the faster processor or what, but on the same internet connection YouTube is defaulting to 1080p HD, whereas Air gives me SD 90% of the time. Everything is crystal clear and beautiful.
I run everything in its own space, and have had zero lag with Mission Control animations or anywhere else.
The screen is actually slightly dimmer at the same brightness setting than the screen on my Air, which is the only slightly disappointing thing about it. It's glossy - but I haven't had any reflections bother me yet. The fact that's it's a solid panel rather than a flexible plastic film is actually quite reassuring - my Air's screen picked up a few marks from the keyboard pretty quickly, but I haven't had any marks that don't wipe straight off so far (touch wood).
The wifi appears to cope slightly better with the terribe wifi in my house - on the Air I sometimes have to force it to reconnect by disabling and re-enabling, but this machine will recover the connection on its own.
Force Touch is awesome. I hate clicking on the 'diveboard' trackpads, and so I'm a tap-to-click, double-tap-drag person. I still am, even with Force Touch. But if I ever feel like I want to do a real click I can click anywhere on the pad with the same feel, and drag freely around. I cannot tell that the click is 'fake' - it feels just like a real click.
I got a 16Gb model, and it's great not to have to worry about how much memory to assign to virtual machines and just give them the full whack. Memory really makes a big difference when you are running VMs. Windows 7 under Parallels was a bit choppy on my Air, where I would only give it 1 or 2Gb of RAM. On the new machine I can give it a full 4Gb and there is no lag at all.
The machine is quiet. Under normal use it's completely silent. I do get fan noise when installing things, when compiling large projects, and I had a low-level hum once which I tracked down to some background Windows process and fixed by restarting Parallels. But normally the fan is not a worry at all.
The battery feels much more solid than my aging Air. Not sure if I would get 10 hours, but it will certainly do a full 8 hours with my usage.
I think the machine is actually kind of overkill for my needs. I haven't done much to really push it. It's still new enough that I am hyper-careful of it - I actually mostly still carry my Air with me and have been switching between machines depending on where I am and how much battery my Air has left! The Pro has only left the house once in the two weeks I've had it. I'm sure this will wear off as it gets a few scratches and the newness rubs off. I am hoping it will last me another four years and be as good to me as the Air has been.
My main complaint so far is actually that the headphone jack is very stiff - it's rather hard to unplug my headset and takes quite a bit of force applied at the right angle. So you can see how little there is to complain about!
I haven't tried gaming - but I reckon it's bound to be more capable than my old machine. I've heard rumours that it can't play Cities: Skylines - but I think we should probably blame the way games are optimized for desktop GPUs rather than the MacBook itself for that worry.
Really, really pleased with my purchase so far. Still want to take a look at one of the new MacBooks but I think I should probably wait a while before I can afford any more toys!
Thought I would share my thoughts on the updated rMBP now that I have had it for a little while. I am upgrading from a Late 2010 MBA 13", which has been my sole computer for the last four years, and has - until now - been the best computing experience I have ever had.
I was worried that the rMBP would be too heavy, and so I was holding out for the new MacBook, but the leaked benchmarks convinced me I'd be better off with the Pro. The Pro is heavier - but only very slightly. It's only noticeable when I'm manipulating it one-handed. When it's on the desk or on my lap or in my backpack or satchel the small amount of extra weight is unnoticeable.
The rMBP is a beautiful shape. I do miss the taper of the Air when typing lying down - but the blunt front of the Pro is not as annoying as I had feared.
The main reason to choose the rMBP is the screen. It is amazing. The best screen I have ever had on anything ever. I run at the scaled 1440x900 resolution to match my old Air, but I cannot see any blurriness and I cannot see any pixels. Text is super-sharp and letters have clear shapes without any visible antialiasing or jagginess at all. I use my machine mostly for software development and so I spend my days staring at screens of source code. This is the perfect display for that.
But not only that! It also looks amazing when I watch videos on YouTube. I don't know if YouTube has noticed the faster processor or what, but on the same internet connection YouTube is defaulting to 1080p HD, whereas Air gives me SD 90% of the time. Everything is crystal clear and beautiful.
I run everything in its own space, and have had zero lag with Mission Control animations or anywhere else.
The screen is actually slightly dimmer at the same brightness setting than the screen on my Air, which is the only slightly disappointing thing about it. It's glossy - but I haven't had any reflections bother me yet. The fact that's it's a solid panel rather than a flexible plastic film is actually quite reassuring - my Air's screen picked up a few marks from the keyboard pretty quickly, but I haven't had any marks that don't wipe straight off so far (touch wood).
The wifi appears to cope slightly better with the terribe wifi in my house - on the Air I sometimes have to force it to reconnect by disabling and re-enabling, but this machine will recover the connection on its own.
Force Touch is awesome. I hate clicking on the 'diveboard' trackpads, and so I'm a tap-to-click, double-tap-drag person. I still am, even with Force Touch. But if I ever feel like I want to do a real click I can click anywhere on the pad with the same feel, and drag freely around. I cannot tell that the click is 'fake' - it feels just like a real click.
I got a 16Gb model, and it's great not to have to worry about how much memory to assign to virtual machines and just give them the full whack. Memory really makes a big difference when you are running VMs. Windows 7 under Parallels was a bit choppy on my Air, where I would only give it 1 or 2Gb of RAM. On the new machine I can give it a full 4Gb and there is no lag at all.
The machine is quiet. Under normal use it's completely silent. I do get fan noise when installing things, when compiling large projects, and I had a low-level hum once which I tracked down to some background Windows process and fixed by restarting Parallels. But normally the fan is not a worry at all.
The battery feels much more solid than my aging Air. Not sure if I would get 10 hours, but it will certainly do a full 8 hours with my usage.
I think the machine is actually kind of overkill for my needs. I haven't done much to really push it. It's still new enough that I am hyper-careful of it - I actually mostly still carry my Air with me and have been switching between machines depending on where I am and how much battery my Air has left! The Pro has only left the house once in the two weeks I've had it. I'm sure this will wear off as it gets a few scratches and the newness rubs off. I am hoping it will last me another four years and be as good to me as the Air has been.
My main complaint so far is actually that the headphone jack is very stiff - it's rather hard to unplug my headset and takes quite a bit of force applied at the right angle. So you can see how little there is to complain about!
I haven't tried gaming - but I reckon it's bound to be more capable than my old machine. I've heard rumours that it can't play Cities: Skylines - but I think we should probably blame the way games are optimized for desktop GPUs rather than the MacBook itself for that worry.
Really, really pleased with my purchase so far. Still want to take a look at one of the new MacBooks but I think I should probably wait a while before I can afford any more toys!
) so it's good to know they meet expectations. I'm coming from a mid-2010 Core i7 15" MBP - five years old and it's still mostly working, but it's about time I got something newer and faster.