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rMBP = brilliant

A

agaskew

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 3, 2009
416
253
Since September 2012 I've been the fortunate owner of a maxxed out 15" rMBP - 2.7Ghz, 16Gb RAM and 750Gb SSD.

Yes it cost me a small fortune, but its a total beast :)
Never had a single issue - no ghosting, slow downs, stuttering etc. Never reinstalled OS X or anything like that.

Uptime is currently:
0:22 up 70 days, 4:45, 2 users, load averages: 2.54 1.02 1.03

I use it for work, to test 3rd party enterprise software that needs windows or linux servers, hosting databases like Oracle or MS-SQL. It can run 4 or 5 VMWare server machines concurrently, without lag or issues. Its like having a beefy workstation that goes in your bag, and weighs not much.

Of course I also use it for fun stuff and the retina screen sometimes makes reality look a bit lo-res ;)

So in my experience, and YMMV of course, its a no brainer - if you can afford one I say go for it.
 
I agree. I was really wowed by the retina screen when I first got it. Love it. And this is also my first SSD-driven Macbook, so it's awesomely fast at everything. Couldn't be happier. Mine is about the same specs as yours.
 
calderone said:
Good work blowing cash on the 2.7 and 768GB SSD!
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His load averages are 2.54 1.02 1.03. That means he's using that 2.7 quite a bit to it's full potential! (I have a 13", base Dual core, and my load averages right now are 0.32 0.46 0.44. Now look at where his are on a MUCH quicker chip!) I can't imagine running multiple VM's without a decent amount of storage, even WITH a 768GB SSD I BET he has some stuff stored externally.

Not everyone needs a lot of performance, and for them it might be a waste of money, but not everyone. My grandma replaced her computer with an iPad, first gen, she got for $300 some time ago. It does everything she needs, e-mail, basic web browsing, watching YouTube videos, etc. So, yeah, a 2.7/768 Retina might be a bit much for her.. but not for the kind of stuff he's doing.

I hate seeing these "What on earth does anyone need 16 gigs of RAM for" or "You wasted money on the retina" or "Mac Pro's are a total waste of money who needs two processors" and so on and so forth you see on MacRumors. Not EVERYONE is using their computers for nothing but facebook and YouTube and the occasional iMovie project.

RealEyes said:
never turn it off, just sleep it
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Years and years ago that used to be one of the big advantages we used to spit out to the PC users. It's still true now, but not AS true, Windows has gotten a lot better. But we always kept our Macs on, 24/7. You just couldn't do that with a Windows machine, memory leaks and crashes were too common. I remember having a Mac with dual monitors and leaving it on 24/7. Man that was high tech! Windows didn't support multiple monitors until Windows 98 and even that required special software and was really difficult.

I still never shut my Mac off though, just sleep it. Mac OS doesn't require restarts as often for software installations and the like like Windows does. That's an inherit advantage of most Unix based OS'es. The individual services can easily be restarted, and the lack of DLL's, a registry, and other bloated system components means that most applications can be installed without restarting (Or without even installing! Just placing the file somewhere where you know where it is, like the Applications folder, and launching it!)
 
el-John-o said:
His load averages are 2.54 1.02 1.03. That means he's using that 2.7 quite a bit to it's full potential! (I have a 13", base Dual core, and my load averages right now are 0.32 0.46 0.44. Now look at where his are on a MUCH quicker chip!) I can't imagine running multiple VM's without a decent amount of storage, even WITH a 768GB SSD I BET he has some stuff stored externally.

Not everyone needs a lot of performance, and for them it might be a waste of money, but not everyone. My grandma replaced her computer with an iPad, first gen, she got for $300 some time ago. It does everything she needs, e-mail, basic web browsing, watching YouTube videos, etc. So, yeah, a 2.7/768 Retina might be a bit much for her.. but not for the kind of stuff he's doing.

I hate seeing these "What on earth does anyone need 16 gigs of RAM for" or "You wasted money on the retina" or "Mac Pro's are a total waste of money who needs two processors" and so on and so forth you see on MacRumors. Not EVERYONE is using their computers for nothing but facebook and YouTube and the occasional iMovie project.
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Look, my 2.6, 16GB, 512GB gets a work out as well, but the OP started off touting that it cost a small fortune.
 
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yes indeed, it is a great machine. I like the fact that it looks like one of the Macbooks Air, it's so thin but SO powerfull.

It's a good feeling to have presummably the best laptop currently on the market :)
 
anarti said:
yes indeed, it is a great machine. I like the fact that it looks like one of the Macbooks Air, it's so thin but SO powerfull.

It's a good feeling to have presummably the best laptop currently on the market :)
Click to expand...

The whole MacBook pro line is an excellent sweet spot for performance and portability. Apple is doing a really good thing here.

There are some better performing laptops, I've seen them with desktop i7's, dual GPU's and dual Hard Drives.. but those are incredibly thick, heavy, and no battery life!

Apple's doing some good stuff for sure. I hope they keep it up. Alot of folks don't realize, the prices have actually been steadily FALLING for quite a while. If I remember right the first Intel MacBook sold in two configurations for $1999 or $2499 (for base configurations, that's not including any upgrades or options!). It's a far cry from as low as $999 for the 11.6" Air and about $2,200 for a Retina 15".

Keep it up Cupertino!
 
agaskew said:
Since September 2012 I've been the fortunate owner of a maxxed out 15" rMBP - 2.7Ghz, 16Gb RAM and 750Gb SSD.

Yes it cost me a small fortune, but its a total beast :)
Never had a single issue - no ghosting, slow downs, stuttering etc. Never reinstalled OS X or anything like that.

Uptime is currently:
0:22 up 70 days, 4:45, 2 users, load averages: 2.54 1.02 1.03

I use it for work, to test 3rd party enterprise software that needs windows or linux servers, hosting databases like Oracle or MS-SQL. It can run 4 or 5 VMWare server machines concurrently, without lag or issues. Its like having a beefy workstation that goes in your bag, and weighs not much.

Of course I also use it for fun stuff and the retina screen sometimes makes reality look a bit lo-res ;)

So in my experience, and YMMV of course, its a no brainer - if you can afford one I say go for it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's awesome. I go to the store to play with them once a month. Have the money set aside for mine. Just waiting for the 2nd generation. Haswell or not. Waiting with baited breath

I'm looking at it this way, I wait a few months for the 2nd Generation, which means undoubtably some bugs will be worked out. There will be the new processor, Haswell, with the benefits that will bring, big or small, there is the possibility of the new Wifi technology I've been reading about- the Broadcom 802.11ac chips known as 5G Wifi that will deliver 1.3 Gbts, maybe they bump the base model SSD to 512 or anything above the measly 256, and perhaps they will definitively go one way or the other with the display, either Samsung or LG, so I don't have to agonize about returning it after the purchase. If all this happens, then I made the right decision in waiting. As a bonus the price may drop 100 bucks or so.
 
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agaskew said:
Since September 2012 I've been the fortunate owner of a maxxed out 15" rMBP - 2.7Ghz, 16Gb RAM and 750Gb SSD.

Yes it cost me a small fortune, but its a total beast :)
Click to expand...

Yeah!

I want one too, but currently my income level does not allow for one.
OTOH, I also want a car which is roomier, faster, more comfortable and more energy efficient than my current 2004 Citroën wagon.

I sometimes think whether the retina's general impact on mac users' satisfaction level has been positive or negative. When I bought my current MBP (early 2011) I had a beast. Now, it's not only "not the newest model", it's effectively "previous decade technology".

Damn - give me that winning lottery ticket.

RGDS,
 
the thing is that buying laptop this year, we know that there will be another revision a year later, with faster this, faster that, better this and better that.

I don't think that second revision of retina will be THAT much better to be honest.

Buying this sort of computer is an investment for a good 3, maybe 4 years.
 
Yep :)

Dock it at school with 3 monitors for 3D and video / photo editing

Carry it around everywhere i go.. great battery life.

When i get home i dock it to my gaming monitor and play games online with my friends.. it's a great all-round computer.. but it will cost you a hell of a lot of money :D.
 
i got so used to the screen already that i dont even notice it anymore unless i look on my old mbp screen and all i see is pixels :eek: my eyes have been spoilt over the last month.

128GB SSD is enough for me, i store most of my music in the iTunes Match cloud and videos etc. on one of many external drives. i try to keep it above 50GB at all time. another "OCD" factor of mine ^^

i turn it off every night tho, idk i'm weird like that. i dont like having it "on" 24/7. i rather let it take a breathe from me :) i dont even use it unplugged (maybe once every few weeks to let the battery work a little). i want to maintain my awesome battery life like i still have on my 3,5 year old mbp
 
Sorry, been busy...

I'm in the UK so the laptop cost very nearly £3k, that's what I call a fairly large amount of money.

I keep a tight reign on VMs - all the ones I'm actively using are on the internal SSD. This is simply because virtual machine startups/shutdowns/sleep is so fast. Now using VMWare Fusion (after trying and failing to get along with Virtualbox for a while).
Any VMs that I might need one day get moved off to external storage. Any that outlive their usefulness are deleted.
Other data like the many gigabytes of movies are kept externally. Sometimes I grab an AVI and re encode it through Handbrake to MP4, that usually gets the fans going but the encoding goes at 400-500 FPS.

One of the great things is flexibility. You can sit by the TV surfing and doing not much one day, and the next day can be on a client site demonstrating some enterprise stuff on a 4 server virtual environment.
 
A bit funny that we have two threads close to each other in this forum where one states buying the rmbp 15 was the biggest mistake of his life and the other one say it's amazing .

A question, why is uptime interesting with a laptop?
 
AndreasM said:
A question, why is uptime interesting with a laptop?
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Well the better question is why do you need to restart a computer?

1)Installing software. That's rarely needed with OSX, so someone coming from Windows will find that welcome relief.

And more importantly;

2) A crash, glitch, or bug/etc. The number one reason for me restarting my Windows PC's (which just sleep usually) is some sort of a crash, or a weird graphics glitch after waking from sleep, etc. Doesn't happen with my Mac. Just works.

So 70 something days of uptime demonstrates a pretty rock-solid platform!
 
anarti said:
the thing is that buying laptop this year, we know that there will be another revision a year later, with faster this, faster that, better this and better that.

I don't think that second revision of retina will be THAT much better to be honest.

Buying this sort of computer is an investment for a good 3, maybe 4 years.
Click to expand...


Yeah but here's the thing. Yes, there's alway a new better thing coming up next, always will be. But I need a new computer pretty much now. I'm not waiting a year and a half. But I can wait 5 months. And regardless of what people say, it is Apples history that a 2nd generation product is a improvement over a first generation. And from all that I've been reading, as awesome as the retina is it seems somewhat half baked, just like the first iPhone and the first iPad. I'm not even talking about Haswell.

At this point June is right around the corner, and by that time, what with the convention, we will know when I can get my paws on that puppy
 
adjeff8 said:
Yeah but here's the thing. Yes, there's alway a new better thing coming up next, always will be. But I need a new computer pretty much now. I'm not waiting a year and a half. But I can wait 5 months. And regardless of what people say, it is Apples history that a 2nd generation product is a improvement over a first generation. And from all that I've been reading, as awesome as the retina is it seems somewhat half baked, just like the first iPhone and the first iPad. I'm not even talking about Haswell.
Click to expand...

If you can wait 5 months, then my suggestion would be to wait. We all know Haswell is coming, and it will bring better battery life, better GPU performance, and slightly better CPU performance. For all we know, Apple will introduce a lower priced model or bump up the storage on the base 13", particularly if they decide to drop the cMBP.

My guess is that the 15" cMBP will be dropped in 2013, but that the 13" cMBP will stick around another year, perhaps limited to certain markets like the white MacBook. The 13" cMBP is still Apple's best seller, more than 2 years after the Air went mainstream, so unless Apple is planning to release an $1199 or $1299 version of the rMBP, we may well see the 13" cMBP continue to be available.
 
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