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Waiting for Anand's Haswell rMBP Review Megathread
- Thread starter Wishbrah
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What exactly are you expecting his review will tell/not tell you about the new rMBPs? Is there one thing and one thing only that only Anand can answer? I'm not trying to call you out in particular, and I am also eagerly awaiting his review, but I don't understand exactly what people are waiting for.
Is it just to make the "right" decision of 13" vs. 15" or 2.3 CPU vs. 26? Based on what I can tell and what Anand has mentioned on Twitter, it seems like the review will boil down to, "Apple continues to perfect an already near-perfect portable powerhouse, albeit with a price tag steeper than some Windows competitors." Better battery, lower CPUs with the same performance, WAY better iGPU and the option of adding a dGPU, slightly faster storage, and marginally faster WiFi.
If you're somebody who's upgrading from a previous-gen rMBP or even the first-gen, let me tell you, save your money and don't buy. No matter what Anand or Gary or Sally tells you, no matter what improvements Apple has claimed to make with this "revolutionary new product," you probably won't notice a tangible difference in day-to-day performance. As a user who upgraded from a 2006 MBP to a 2013 Haswell 15" rMBP, it is a world's difference in performance/portability/battery/design/etc. I don't personally care how much money anyone here makes, and you can spend it however you wish, but I think our culture's growing obsession and need to upgrade their iPhone, iPad, MacBook, you name it, every damn year is ridiculous! No matter how environmentally conscious or eco-friendly the manufacturer is, disposing of your one-year-old, two-year-old phone/tablet/computer just to have the "latest and greatest" is absurd!
For me, it's benchmarks and commentary on the PCIe storage. That alone will decide whether I order a base Haswell (which otherwise I think is inferior to the base Ivy Bridge) or another base Ivy Bridge.
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I think you're under a number of mistaken impressions. First, upgrading every year is not wasteful; in fact, economically speaking, it can be cost effective. Second, those of us who use this strategy sell our machines on the secondary market. There's no environmental waste involved because the "disposition" of the product is simply putting it in the hands of someone else.
Thanks, you raise a valid point. I didn't consider the resell value of the machine or assume that everyone who's upgrading is putting their older MBP up on eBay. Although that may be the case for you, I think it's safe to assume not everyone does this. Especially in the iPhone-universe.
Regardless, my comments might be a bit exaggerated or out of place, but what really concerns is me the consumer's constant desire for new. If everyone replaced their phone or laptop every year with the newest generation from Apple or Samsung of Google or whatever, there would be a stockpile of those old machines. There would be environmental waste. And maybe not immediately, but in 4-5 years, yes. Does anyone honestly know what Apple (or any other company) does with their old devices? Obviously I don't have a better solution or know if one even exists, but I bring this all up because the other day my family bought a new HDTV and got rid of our Zenith-beast from 2001. We tried to find a place that we could donate it to have it recycled, but no such place exists. It's completely out of my reach to effectively argue against Apple's business model or the consumer's desire for the newest tech (or offer any alternative), but it really disgusts me to think these chunks of metal, glue, and lithium ion batteries are just sitting in a landfill somewhere in the world, never decomposing, never being reused.
I re-sell all my Apple products before I buy the next model (or shortly after upgrading). I upgrade my iPhone every major revision: iPhone 3G, 4, 5, (6 next year), so every two years and sell the old phone for half of it's original value. I usually get around 60-70% of the cost of my Macbook's back at resale 1.5-2 years later. Try to make back some of what you put into it, even if it's 40% of the value, that's a lot at these premium prices.
Anyone who doesn't resell their Apple products if it's 2-3 years old or newer is crazy in my humble opinion
unless you're giving it to a friend or family member.
There are specifications and "grades" for this. Companies usually have recycling values, stuff does not simply go to waste on a yard. Here's a link which you can use to recycle your Mac:
http://www.apple.com/recycling/
Apple specifically is very conscious on this and the parts are built so that they may be de-assembled and recycled.
The battery on a 2 year old phone is virtually unusable for even an average user. YMMV...
Until he finishes. Anand doesn't half-ass his stuff. It comes out when it's ready, complete, and thought out.
while NOT the review y'all are waiting for, this might help pass the time...
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013...ch-macbook-air-vs-13-inch-retina-macbook-pro/
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013...ch-macbook-air-vs-13-inch-retina-macbook-pro/
I am waiting (well, trying to wait) for the Anand's review on the issue of which 15" MBP I should get. It's not that I think he is the only one who can answer it, it's just that I haven't found much helpful information elsewhere. I'm hoping he will help me make that decision.
As I said, I'm stuck in a vortex between two 15" MBP's. I definitely want the 15". I also want the 512. I'm not sure what to make of all of the arguments on the 8GB versus 16GB issue. However, once you take the low end 15" and add to 512, you are now looking at $300 to double the RAM, upgrade the processor (2.0 to 2.3) and get the dedicated GPU. As many have noted, you can pay the same $$$ for a 15" with a dedicated GPU as without.
Anyway, my current MBP is from 2008, so I'm more of a buy and hold investor.
Thanks for the last line here. A lot of people leave this part off, and it's actually a really important determinant in the purchasing decision calculus.
I'm of the opinion that if you're going to get the 512 for sure, and you're even 50/50 on the memory, that you should go ahead and spring for it. At that point, you're getting pretty reasonable bang for your buck.
The tax implications also matter here. 2.0/8/512 is a BTO, which means definitely paying sales tax. 2.3/16/512 is a stock configuration, which means possibly not paying sales tax if you use a reseller. That can further trim that gap.
For people who aren't planning to buy and hold, but definitely want either the RAM or the disk space for whatever reason, you're essentially asking yourself three questions:
A) What's the depreciated residual value on resale from adding that $300 upfront? I think for people who would sell in the next 3-ish years, you can expect to command around $100 on it, almost all due to the "other" feature you didn't care about (RAM or SSD).
B) Would you use that other feature at all?
C) See above for the tax side of things.
To be fair, places like B&H stock most imaginable configurations to where you can avoid tax. A quick search of "retina macbook" lists well over 100 different possibilities (including non-haswells).
If you have already ordered your rMBP, you shouldn't worry too much about Anand's review now. It's not like you are going to return your rMBP if Anand gives it a poor review anyway right?
I can't imagine he'd give it a poor review, as it is so similar to last year's model (he has the one with a 750M). The only negative things I can think of are that the cost is too high, and crystalwell isn't doing much to help in real world scenarios on the CPU side.
Well, if people already know Anand will be giving this new rMBP a good review, then why are we bother waiting for the review? Why are people who already bought/ordered the new rMBP so eager to see this review anyway? So to reassure themselves that their purchase is a good purchase and they can masturbate themselves over their new rMBP?
Maybe it takes so long because the whole thing is so buggy.
Bootcamp install is a pain (with oddly random bugs) as many who have the new models have experienced.
750M doesn't allow for driver updates (331.65).
750M clocks are set below standard at 926Mhz and refuse to boost which makes a 750M kind of pointless as opposed to a 650M with one more gig VRAM.
3dMark crashes after the first strike bench with some weird error.
It also reports 405 Mhz core clock and 2600Mhz memory clock. The nvidia performance tools report the same. GPU-z report it right but still something seems off.
I am thinking about sending it back. I will do more tests this week and hopefully get some more input from other people. I want to know what bugs are mine and which are general.
In OSX most things seem fine but yesterday there was serious performance decline and all scrolling got really choppy for some reason. My old 2010 1680x1050 with Intel HD Graphics scrolls smoother than the 750M on the retina screen. Though flash based websites are light years faster on the new model.
Bootcamp install is a pain (with oddly random bugs) as many who have the new models have experienced.
750M doesn't allow for driver updates (331.65).
750M clocks are set below standard at 926Mhz and refuse to boost which makes a 750M kind of pointless as opposed to a 650M with one more gig VRAM.
3dMark crashes after the first strike bench with some weird error.
It also reports 405 Mhz core clock and 2600Mhz memory clock. The nvidia performance tools report the same. GPU-z report it right but still something seems off.
I am thinking about sending it back. I will do more tests this week and hopefully get some more input from other people. I want to know what bugs are mine and which are general.
In OSX most things seem fine but yesterday there was serious performance decline and all scrolling got really choppy for some reason. My old 2010 1680x1050 with Intel HD Graphics scrolls smoother than the 750M on the retina screen. Though flash based websites are light years faster on the new model.
Update your 750M drivers in Bootcamp using this guide: http://sleep.dontexist.com/2013/11/...idia-drivers-on-late-2013-retina-macbook-pro/
Sigh. Because it's more than just, "LAPTOP GOOD," or "LAPTOP BAD." The devil is in the details for many of usespecially when we still have the choice to purchase one of the older models on close-out or refurbished.
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