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Some thoughts about the 13" rMBP Base Model

J

james010101

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 11, 2013
26
8
Hey guys,

Just purchased a 13" base rMBP lately - haswell / 4gb ram / 128gb ssd. So I've been testing out the effectiveness and power of this machine just by opening up 7-8 native Mac apps (iTunes, iPhoto, the entire iWork suite safari and Safari with 5-7 tabs), and I gotta say that I'm quite bewildered and not very impressed by the apparent UI lag - such as using gestures to scroll back and forth on safari when those apps are in the background, especially when I thought those apps are supposed to be optimized!!! Not sure if it's the ram or the gpu being the bottleneck, but I can't help but consider returning this machine for the next tier model. Any input from anyone experiencing the same issues??
 
The 13" rMBP isn't really a beast but few people complained about lags.
The 4GB RAM is a shameless offer by Apple in my opinion, and it seems much less than enough for anyone these days, specially with a retina display.
I'd advise you to return the machine and buy one with 8GB RAM if possible.
 
I have the 8gb model and whilst I can't comment on the 4gb I can say that the 8GB flies even when running a couple of virtual machines under parallels. A lot faster than my i7 iMac presumably due to the SSD!
 
PedroCst said:
The 13" rMBP isn't really a beast but few people complained about lags.
The 4GB RAM is a shameless offer by Apple in my opinion, and it seems much less than enough for anyone these days, specially with a retina display.
I'd advise you to return the machine and buy one with 8GB RAM if possible.
Click to expand...

Agree, 4gb is too little, at least would say 8GB
 
fskywalker said:
Agree, 4gb is too little, at least would say 8GB
Click to expand...
8GB seems to be (more than) enough for years to come if you're not a power user.

sheareb said:
I have the 8gb model and whilst I can't comment on the 4gb I can say that the 8GB flies even when running a couple of virtual machines under parallels. A lot faster than my i7 iMac presumably due to the SSD!
Click to expand...
Absolutely due to the SSD. Also the 256GB one is a tad faster than the 128GB.
 
james010101 said:
Hey guys,

Just purchased a 13" base rMBP lately - haswell / 4gb ram / 128gb ssd. So I've been testing out the effectiveness and power of this machine just by opening up 7-8 native Mac apps (iTunes, iPhoto, the entire iWork suite safari and Safari with 5-7 tabs), and I gotta say that I'm quite bewildered and not very impressed by the apparent UI lag - such as using gestures to scroll back and forth on safari when those apps are in the background, especially when I thought those apps are supposed to be optimized!!! Not sure if it's the ram or the gpu being the bottleneck, but I can't help but consider returning this machine for the next tier model. Any input from anyone experiencing the same issues??
Click to expand...

Do you get the lag if you use only Safari with other apps closed?

And why do you test like that? Do you actually ever use all those apps at the same time? If not, why should it work?? I don't get it. Use the apps like you would normally use and THEN test the lags and performance.
 
I read some posts about people with the 8gb/256 model who also complained of UI lag and returned the machine for either a cMBP or MBA.

I had the 4gb/128 and returned due to UI lag. I read through lots of large pdf's and even with nothing but preview and a pdf open, scrolling was SUPER choppy. Compared side by side with a 4gb/128 2013 MBA which I just bought and it is smooooooth and fast. The retina display on the 13" models just isn't optimized enough yet. I was also bothered that the web does not look cohesive, I would see blurry images and super sharp text and images side by side all the time and it was just confusing for my brain. I"d rather have a 1080p screen with that being the native res.

In the end I returned it and kept my base 13" MBA which I scored for $930 as a refurb!
 
I have last year's base model 13" rMBP and have no complaints about performance... the UI animations are smooth, some un-optimized apps are laggy but Safari is butter smooth.

4GB in the current base model is pushing it though. For general web use it's fine, but for anything like Aperture you want 8GB at least. 3 years from now 4GB is going to be very constraining.
 
Fallingreason said:
I read some posts about people with the 8gb/256 model who also complained of UI lag and returned the machine for either a cMBP or MBA.

I had the 4gb/128 and returned due to UI lag. I read through lots of large pdf's and even with nothing but preview and a pdf open, scrolling was SUPER choppy. Compared side by side with a 4gb/128 2013 MBA which I just bought and it is smooooooth and fast. The retina display on the 13" models just isn't optimized enough yet. I was also bothered that the web does not look cohesive, I would see blurry images and super sharp text and images side by side all the time and it was just confusing for my brain. I"d rather have a 1080p screen with that being the native res.

In the end I returned it and kept my base 13" MBA which I scored for $930 as a refurb!
Click to expand...

I've seen choppy scrolling in Chrome's PDF viewer, but not Preview. The retina screen might take more RAM to load the graphics in 4x the resolution, so did you check Activity Monitor to make sure that wasn't the bottleneck?
 
jz- said:
I've seen choppy scrolling in Chrome's PDF viewer, but not Preview. The retina screen might take more RAM to load the graphics in 4x the resolution, so did you check Activity Monitor to make sure that wasn't the bottleneck?
Click to expand...

Yes my memory graph was always green and never had yellow spikes. Overall OSX animations and scrolling were not as smooth as my 2012 or 2013 airs.
 
I understand what Apple's doing here: they're trying to get the retina price down so more people can afford it. But only 4GB of RAM? 8GB should be minimum in the retinas.
 
james010101 said:
Hey guys,

Just purchased a 13" base rMBP lately - haswell / 4gb ram / 128gb ssd. So I've been testing out the effectiveness and power of this machine just by opening up 7-8 native Mac apps (iTunes, iPhoto, the entire iWork suite safari and Safari with 5-7 tabs), and I gotta say that I'm quite bewildered and not very impressed by the apparent UI lag - such as using gestures to scroll back and forth on safari when those apps are in the background, especially when I thought those apps are supposed to be optimized!!! Not sure if it's the ram or the gpu being the bottleneck, but I can't help but consider returning this machine for the next tier model. Any input from anyone experiencing the same issues??
Click to expand...

There is no difference in the 8gb/256gb model. I tried it out and was quite disappointed by the performance relative to my 13" Air.
 
I hardly post here, but I felt like I had to this time. OP, take the advice given here about RAM with a grain of salt. There was a post here about a month ago that perfectly summed up the bad advice that is spouted by way too many people ever since Apple decided to include 4 GB of ram with the base retina 13. Question about which Macbook Pro to buy? Get at least 8 GB of RAM! The screen seems to have IR issues? Trackpad not working? BUY MORE RAM! I'm being hyperbolic, but my point should be clear.

My advice is the test the laptop according to how you would typically use it; don't be like many here who go looking for issues. If you truly sense an issue, return it and try another model. I've seen the base model tested and stressed on numerous occasions and it handles very well, not with any of the problems you've described. Don't go spending more money without justified reasons. Just my advice...
 
I picked up the base 13" tonight at the nearby Best Buy for 1099 as a back up computer. With at least 8 apps I see no issues at all.

I am sure for some power users it may not be enough but for most it is fine. For many years.
 
I have the 8/256, and it's pretty smooth. PDFs in Adobe are blurry and have choppy scrolling, but in Preview text is clear and scrolls smoothly. I actually uninstalled Adobe reader because of how bad it was.

I think the problem with websites is that they haven't been optimized for retina yet. MR text is clear but the little emoticons can be blurry in the post editor. Same with Word 2011 with the text in the document being clear but the icons and font list are blurry.
 
DHagan4755 said:
I understand what Apple's doing here: they're trying to get the retina price down so more people can afford it. But only 4GB of RAM? 8GB should be minimum in the retinas.
Click to expand...

I agree. I think the minimums should be 128GB/4GB for Air and 256GB/8GB for Pros. Similarly, the maximums should be 512GB/8GB for Air and 1TB/16GB for Pros (which they are). This way it also looks neater.

Ideally, what I'd like to see is this:

12" MBA 2560x1600, ULV dual core i5/i7, 128-512GB, 8GB, IRIS
13" MBP 2880x1800, dual core i5/i7, 256-1024GB, 8-16GB, IRIS
15" MBP 3360x2100, quad core i7, 256-1024GB, 16GB, IRIS PRO optional dGPU
17" MBP 3840x2400, high end quad core i7, 512-1024GB, 16-32GB, dGPU

Price points at $999, $1299, $1799, and $2499
 
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