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Urgent advice for MacBook Pro

conamor

conamor

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 27, 2013
365
21
Hi everyone,

I am now counting on you to help me with my choice. I have this 2011MBP, 8GB/256SSD,i5. It works great but gave up and I want the retina.

I decided that I will buy a new MacBook Pro. I will be doing basic stuff, amateur photography/aperture and some iMovie and might jump on Final Cut if iMovie doesn't satisfy my.

I will also be doing VMware. (some distro in Linux and might have a Windows 10 image also).

I simply can't decide between these choices and I need advices in order to choose properly.

Yes the less $ is better but again it's better to be future proof than be dissapointed.

... quick note, I like to have the french canadian keyboard... but again it doesn't stop me to type french characters on a US kb but I don't want to regret...

1- Refurbished MBP 2015 with 8GB/256SSD (English keyboard) - 1711$

French KB 2015 with 16 RAM
1.1 - 2015 rMBP 8/256 - 1911$
2- 2015 rMBP 16/256 french - 2140$

These new 2016 but I havee to buy 100$ of accessories since it's missing SD, USB ports...
3- 2016 MBP 16/256 french - 2742$
4- 2016 MBP 16/512 french - 3030$

There is a big price difference between the 2015 and 2016. 2016 lack of ports... 2015 all ports available.
2016, known graphic, battery issues, should I be stepping away?

Anyway, many questions here and I think your advices will make it clearer!

Thanks a lot!!!

...quick edit: Maybe I should be waiting for boxing day? Does Apple do anything for that day? or wait for August/september for the back to school?
 
I just dropped by an Apple store. This new 2016 is very sleek but! I hateeee the magic bar!!!!Keyboard feeling is great... So there is that new model with the buttons instead of the magic toolbar BUT the mbp only has 2 USB-C!!!! and 1 has to be use for power! So only 1 remaining port + an extension to plug an SD or normal usb 3.0...

I guess the choices are the 2015. How much ram and SSD is the question... does CPU do anything?...
 
I dunno; 8GB RAM seems low, even with decent RAM management in new OS. I'd go 16 if you're doing media work.

And yes, the CPU matters. It makes a different in Photoshop adjustments, Lightroom adjustments, and the like. Or transcoding video. But whether that matters depends on your work. If you've been getting by with a 2011, then you might not care.
 
Merci!
Brand new out of the box with 8GB, MacOS takes up to 4GB ram... I do not edit that much photos or video with the MBP, I usually do it with a 27imac, i7, 32gb ram, 3tb fusion...

I might simply be picky and the 8/256/refurb English should do it... I don't look at the keyboard anyway so typing the french characters won't really matter...

I think I made the choice now!

Refurb, 8GB/256GB/English should last a big 4 years. :)

Thanks so much rob.
 
Conamor, I have a rule- as much memory and storage as you can afford. There is no such thing as too much of either. If I had to pick between more RAM and more disk space, I'd hit the RAM because I can always extend disk storage by adding external drives. And the CPU will indeed make a big difference if you work with video.
 
conamor said:
Hi everyone,

I am now counting on you to help me with my choice. I have this 2011MBP, 8GB/256SSD,i5. It works great but gave up and I want the retina.

I decided that I will buy a new MacBook Pro. I will be doing basic stuff, amateur photography/aperture and some iMovie and might jump on Final Cut if iMovie doesn't satisfy my.

I will also be doing VMware. (some distro in Linux and might have a Windows 10 image also).

I simply can't decide between these choices and I need advices in order to choose properly.

Yes the less $ is better but again it's better to be future proof than be dissapointed.

... quick note, I like to have the french canadian keyboard... but again it doesn't stop me to type french characters on a US kb but I don't want to regret...

1- Refurbished MBP 2015 with 8GB/256SSD (English keyboard) - 1711$

French KB 2015 with 16 RAM
1.1 - 2015 rMBP 8/256 - 1911$
2- 2015 rMBP 16/256 french - 2140$

These new 2016 but I havee to buy 100$ of accessories since it's missing SD, USB ports...
3- 2016 MBP 16/256 french - 2742$
4- 2016 MBP 16/512 french - 3030$

There is a big price difference between the 2015 and 2016. 2016 lack of ports... 2015 all ports available.
2016, known graphic, battery issues, should I be stepping away?

Anyway, many questions here and I think your advices will make it clearer!

Thanks a lot!!!

...quick edit: Maybe I should be waiting for boxing day? Does Apple do anything for that day? or wait for August/september for the back to school?
Click to expand...
I think your prices are off. A 2015 rMBP 8/256 is selling for around $1200-$1500 tops.
 
If you want to be doing anything else while running a virtual machine, I strongly suggest you go with 16 Gb memory if at all possible. It's not a must-have, you can get by with 8 Gb, but both you and the VM will be happier at 16.
 
A refurbished Retina model in which I can put RAM upgrades in, to take it to 16 GB eventually. And, I would do an SSD eventually too if the one you buy doesn't have it. I do VMWare Fusion, and I agreed that a bigger drive is better to have once you start loading multiple OSes.
 
Unfortunately, with the 2015 and 2016 models, the ram is soldered on, which means you can't upgrade the ram ever after the initial purchase.
[doublepost=1482413618][/doublepost]But if you're doing VMs (which I use 2 right now) on my 2009 MBP which has 8GB of ram, the ram gets sucked up quick and it's slow at times because of it but that's also due to that fact that the processor is a C2D. But on my customs built PC, I have 16GB with a max capacity of 64GB, it works fantastic. I can run 2 vms at a time. But do I? Not really. Don't need to.
 
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