rMPB 15" Owner Feedback wanted

[Adgeman]

Hi

I'm in the mood to buy a Retina 15" so I've been reading a lot of reviews and playing with the machines in the local Apple store. Each time I use one I really like it and think it would work well for me but somethings just stop me pressing the button to purchase.

I just wonder if the machine is ready for the retina tech yet. I was using Aperture full screen yesterday while in More Space display mode and I noticed the UI would sometimes slow down when shifting back from full screen to desktop. Moving open folder windows around the screen seemed like it wasn't as smooth as I've come to expect.

I'm going to be using it to work with Lightroom and Photoshop for photography work (semi-pro) and then a Win 7 partition for gaming.

I was thinking of the 2.7 16GB 512GB machine.

I'd love to get the thoughts of owners of the machine to see what you think about the machine and the UI experiences.

Thanks for reading.

 

[cstm]

it is. I love it.

The one after haswell will propably bring touchscreen, so if you're gonna wait, broadwell is the way to go

 

[leman]

My opinion is that is hands-down the best and fastest laptop I ever had the opportunity pleasure to work with. There are some UI problems - full-screen mode, resizing certain application and most of all Mission Control can be rather sluggish. I blame it at suboptimal algorithms, e.g. when resizing App Store window it would recompute and reconstitute all the components each time the window size changes even a bit, resulting in very sluggish experience.

Luckily for me, I do not use any software or workflow where these problems would be noticeable. Your usage might vary of course.

 

[swerve147]

What you'e experiencing is general UI lag, which is a known issue with the rMBP. You can do a search on those terms both here and Apple communities and some threads will definitely show up with similar concerns. Anand also talks about it in his review of the notebook last year. He generally observes the same thing you do in his review, and concludes that it is not perfect.

Ultimately it depends on your tolerance level for UI lag. Some users generally tear their hair out if they don't get buttery smooth 60fps everything, others aren't really bothered by it (I'm in this camp). As software gets optimized for Retina (like Webkit) this issue should also be further mitigated.

The bottom line is: are you bleeding edge? If so, expect hiccups like this. If not, if this lag bothers you to the point that you can't bear it, get a classic or wait for the next Retina iteration to see if it's improved at all (more than likely yes). It's all give and take for anything you buy.

 

[JeffiJers]

Best laptop out. (coming from a newly OSX guy that had his 15R replaced a number of times within a month)


I think there are more issues with this machine then other apple computers in the past BUT its not because the retina tech.. seems like its apple quality control. I had three computers all with separate problems. BUT apple stood behind it and made me happy as you can see.

 

[tmagman]

wouldn't trade my rMBP for anything. Best laptop on the market. Unless you're going with some massive SAGER notebook (which is really just a desktop shoved into a brick and a screen added)... you won't find a laptop with as much performance. This thing runs anything i throw at it... Screen is beautiful and the connectivity is fantastic for high speed data transfer and multi-monitor setups.

Edit: The machine you're looking at is exactly what I have. I'm doing the same sort of things as you with LR and Photoshop (which run flawlessly), plus a Win7 partition for other things like the occasional game and windows specific apps.

 

[Lexical]

I've had mine for about 3 weeks now and its hands down the best piece of tech I've ever owned. There are a few niggles here and there but the pleasure you get out of using it far outweighs anything else. Its beautiful, super fast, so nice to use. Everything just feels perfect to me, even down to the keyboard which i think feels better than my previous MBA.

Just buy it, you won't regret it a single bit.

 

[Asuriyan]

If the UI issues bother you that much, what you're waiting for is OS X 10.9, not Haswell. The issues stem from the way the OS handles scaling, and it's much less noticeable in apps that have been optimized, but there is yet work to be done. Safari is due

It's the best machine I have ever owned. A bit of UI framerate jitter doesn't change that, nor does it affect the apps I use most (Photoshop, Illustrator or anything at all in Bootcamp Win7).

 

[robvas]

People will find things to complain about with the next one.

 

[Adgeman]

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to reply to this; good know the 'issues' aren't signs of any larger problems with the mac.

I had a second question. I was thinking of picking up a refurb 2.6 16GB 512GB as it's about $250 cheaper than buying the current 2.7 version. I figure the .1 upgrade along with 2MB reduction in the cache should make their performance almost identical.

Sound about right?

 

[Jasonx82]

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to reply to this; good know the 'issues' aren't signs of any larger problems with the mac.

I had a second question. I was thinking of picking up a refurb 2.6 16GB 512GB as it's about $250 cheaper than buying the current 2.7 version. I figure the .1 upgrade along with 2MB reduction in the cache should make their performance almost identical.

Sound about right?

Yea should perform about the same, so probably better to save the $250.00
The only difference is the new 2.7 core i7 has a higher clock on the Intel 4000M GPU, But probably doesnt matter since they both have the discrete Geforce Cards.