Trying to decide MBP 13", 15" or Air 13" or nothing

[hectorvs]

I read this thread through and there are some very good comments gotta love the macrumors community.

I'd like to throw in my situation into the mix and see what you think.

I'm upgrading to the new 15" mbp, but I can't decide wether to get the base 2.0ghz model with the high res screen or the 2.2 model with the regular screen.

The reason for this is that I can get either model for the same price. Macmall is running a memorial day sale on the 2.2ghz at around $2050, changing the config to the high res screen brings the price up by $250... I don't think the high res screen is worth that.

However, I could get the base model with the upgraded screen for around the same price (~$2050), but I would be sacrificing some performance, specially on the GPU side.

I currently have a 2008 mbp with the standard res, I don't particularly find anything wrong with it, but I'm curious if the high res screen will make me more productive.

I'm a software developer so I'm basically looking at text all day, and I've read that the high res display can get a bit uncomfortable because of the higher pixel density. I tried it at the store and didn't see anything wrong with it, but looking at the screen in the store for a few moments is not the same as real world usage.

I would love to hear the opinion of some programmers on the high res screen

I'm not a "hardcore" PC gamer, but I do play Starcraft 2 and maybe some MMO like Rift or an FPS style game like Portal 2 (definitely gettin me some of that diablo 3 action once its released). So maybe having the better GPU in the 2.2ghz model is better than a hi res screen?

Ok, so this got a bit long winded.

TL;DR: Is the extra horsepower on the 2.2ghz mpb worth not getting the hi res screen? or would the hi res screen be worth more for a programmer than the horsepower?

thanks!

 

[Kafka]

If you're going to game on it I think you should look at it the other way:

I high resolution screen will require a better graphic card (2.2ghz model), and the 2.0ghz model with its lower than average GPU will do better at a lower resolution.

It's all or nothing I would say.

 

[dragonev]

Congrats! Why did you the i7 instead of the i5?

I found a big benchmark test. All of the tests show that i7 is greater than i5. Here is the test = http://www.macworld.com/article/157893/2011/02/2011macbookpro_benchmarks.html

This thread is seriously awesome.


I am thinking the same thing but leaning toward the 15" due to the available video card.

Thanks everyone, now to sell these three POS laptops I have at the moment!

15"... you now just before checkout a checked again. Actually, 15" is good, but only the second one with 1Gb Radeon. But the price is far more than my 13". Thus, I decided to get 13".

 

[dragonev]

To developer: As for me, I would rather get MBP 2.2 with regular screen.

 

[dragonev]

Hi everyone again. Almost 3 days I'm a happy Mac user. But I got a problem. As you probably remember I took SSD 128GB. But now its only 76 left (actually when I get it was already 120Gb). I do not know where did all of this place gone actually (I just uploaded some photos and sync my iPhone and iPad). How can I find out where did the space gone?