rMBP15 to rMBP13 - Significant Downgrade?

[cherishzm]

I have a base rMBP15 that I might replace with a base rMBP13. I've used rMBP15 for about 5 months and it serves my purpose very well (mostly office work - Office for Mac 2011 Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Adobe Acrobat while running Windows 7 via Parallels, web browsing and watching video files via VLC). I like it but I just want to try something else.

I have a chance to buy a new rMBP13 for a very good price so am thinking about selling the rMBP15 and replace it with rMBP13, but my only concern is the base rMBP only has 128GB SSD which will be not enough (I'm using about 200GB now).

Will I feel any slowness from using rMBP13 based on my usage? How difficult and costly is it to replace the 128GB to 256GB SSD in rMBP13?

 

[robvas]

How difficult and costly is it to replace the 128GB to 256GB SSD in rMBP13?

The upgrade is very simple. Just a few pentalobe screws on the case of your Mac and then 1 tiny torx screw on the drive itself.

See if you can find a 15" owner who has upgraded and will sell you their drive. You can put your old 128GB drive in an OWC housing if you can find one, or just buy a $12 2.5" SATA converter on eBay and then use it in any old USB enclosure.

 

[maflynn]

The biggest difference is moving from a discrete GPU to a fully dedicated integrated GPU and moving from a quad core to a dual core CPU. you'll also have a 128gb SSD (stock) compared to a 256gb sad (stock)

 

[xShane]

I have a base rMBP15 that I might replace with a base rMBP13. I've used rMBP15 for about 5 months and it serves my purpose very well (mostly office work - Office for Mac 2011 Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Adobe Acrobat while running Windows 7 via Parallels, web browsing and watching video files via VLC). I like it but I just want to try something else.

I have a chance to buy a new rMBP13 for a very good price so am thinking about selling the rMBP15 and replace it with rMBP13, but my only concern is the base rMBP only has 128GB SSD which will be not enough (I'm using about 200GB now).

Will I feel any slowness from using rMBP13 based on my usage? How difficult and costly is it to replace the 128GB to 256GB SSD in rMBP13?

Why would you downgrade?

You probably won't notice much difference, if any, due to the fact that it sounds like you don't have any use for the discrete GPU.

 

[Queen6]

Wouldn't even consider it, as the 13" Retina is a massive downgrade in hardware compared to the 15". The next generation of 13" will also be far superior thanks to Intel's Haswell iGPU which is not too far away. All in all this will leave you with a base model, with limited storage and lacklustre graphics.

If the 13" form factor is important I would wait on the late 2013 or 2014 systems as they will have significantly better graphics performance. The 15" will age better thanks to its discrete GPU and better hardware in general.

 

[Moshe1010]

I would wait for the new processors.