Swapping Old Glossy for Old Antiglare Display in 2012 cMBP

[steiney]

Hello All!

I am considering buying a refurbished 2012 cMBP. It's the bottom of the line model, and I'm going to max out the RAM and swap out the HD for an SSD and put a second SSD in the optical bay in a striped RAID with the main one. The processor is the same as the one in the current cMBP.

The only problem with this is that refurbished model comes with a glossy display, which I hate.

My questions is: would it be possible for me to buy a replacement or old regular pixel density anti-glare LCD panel from somewhere and put it in the refurbished Mac and remove the glossy display, or would that not work for some reason?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

steiney

 

[Brian Y]

The old normal density antiglare screens won't fit the 2012 models, since the connectors are ever so slightly different.

Your best best would be to buy new with AG, or wait for a refurb with AG - even if the new one is more expensive (it's $300 more than a refurb with a regular screen), you'll never find the AG display for < $300, so the refurb + display will cost you more overall.

 

[steiney]

Oh wow. That's a great point. I didn't think an old antiglare panel would cost that much, but if so, then you're right about it being cost-prohibitive.

This refurbished mac has the HiRes Antiglare for only ~$150 more, but it's a 2011 model vs. 2012, and I don't believe the 2011 models were using eSATA 3, so I would be limited to an internal data speed of 1.5Gbits X 2 because of the RAID configuration, which is still a lot slower than two eSATA 3 SSDs in striped RAID, which can get close to 1GB/s.

And there aren't any other 2012 cMBP refurbs currently for sale, so like you said, I guess I'll have to wait until the next gen of MBPs comes out and the current cMBPs go to refurbed sales.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Brian Y]

Oh wow. That's a great point. I didn't think an old antiglare panel would cost that much, but if so, then you're right about it being cost-prohibitive.

This refurbished mac has the HiRes Antiglare for only ~$150 more, but it's a 2011 model vs. 2012, and I don't believe the 2011 models were using eSATA 3, so I would be limited to an internal data speed of 1.5Gbits X 2 because of the RAID configuration, which is still a lot slower than two eSATA 3 SSDs in striped RAID, which can get close to 1GB/s.

And there aren't any other 2012 cMBP refurbs currently for sale, so like you said, I guess I'll have to wait until the next gen of MBPs comes out and the current cMBPs go to refurbed sales.

Thanks for your help!

The 2011 ones have SATA 3 in the main drive bay. As for the ODD bay, it's a mixed bag.

Early machines shipped with SATA 2 on that port, later machines shipped with SATA 3 - with a refurb you have no idea how old the MLB in there is, so you could get one which has 2 SATA 3 ports, or you could get one of each.

I have the same config in my iMac - 2 840 pros get just over 1GB/s

 

[steiney]

Oh true. I forgot about the fact that they didn't update ODD to eSATA 3 until after they updated the main drive. That's kind of a deal breaker then because I have to have eSATA 3 in the ODD for the dual SSD setup. I guess I'll wait for the next gen to come out, and then get a current gens with guaranteed dual eSATA 3 at the current refurbs prices.

That's pretty sweet that you are able to pass 1GB/s. I can't effing wait to get my next MBP. I currently using the first one I ever bought - a 2007 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo MBP. It's gotten pretty slow recently, so this last few months waiting for the next MBPs to come out is going to be agonizing. I was actually think about putting an SSD in my current MBP in the meantime, but decided against spending the extra ~$150 on something I'm only going to use for another 3-9 months.