rMBP or cMBP?

[stevebakh]

I've had my rMBP for about a week now. I love the hardware, it's a gorgeous looking machine and it feels solid. I can't really add any more praise than it's already received from pretty much all the major reviews out there.

I'm fairly disappointed with the software, however. The UI feels laggy/jittery and not smooth at all. I have a regular MBP (for work) with Snow Leopard that is super smooth, but the new rMBP is sketchy when it comes to any kind of animation (especially scrolling web pages and maximising/restoring windows). For such an expensive and premium machine, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that the previous generation runs smoother.

My friend just upgraded his rMBP to Mountain Lion and informs me that there's still a fair amount of UI jitter/lag, so I'm half tempted to return it and buy myself a regular MBP with the higher res screen, then simply upgrade the memory and HD to an SSD myself. Same price, better performance?

The only thing holding me back is how lovely the machine feels in every other way. Tough decision...

 

[Dahkot]

There's also the uses/needs of the ports to consider.

For me , I've decided to get a cMBP because as an IT engineer I often need ethernet , have several FW800 storage drives with varying VM's on them and yes , often a specific switch or new VOIP /SIP print device we have to install comes with some goofy proprietary CD//DVD that has some software to install to connect to it.

Last thing I want to do in a telephony closet or server room is have a ethernet dongle adapter , and possibly a FW adapter , and an external DVD drive going all at once.

Would love to have a retina display , just I do actually need ethernet far more than wireless , use FW800 often in addition to USB 3 , and still need optical often enough.