About buying a 15 inch MacBook Pro classic ? It's 1700$ and I'm getting a lot of use for it but its heavy! I actually need the power however as I play guild wars 2 and produce dance tracks using Ableton . I'm not weak at all it's just damn heavy carrying this 15" laptop to classes and back home . I also had to save for a long time and I now use it to DJ so it's actually helping me make money but I have no idea why I'm feeling remorse about it . Are MacBooks the top of the line laptops ? Are there no better alternatives for 1700$? Thanks sorry for sounding like such a chick lol
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What would make me feel better
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Its not about being a 'chick'. I understand you completely, its the drag of having to carry it. However, the Retina MacBook Pro isn't that bad (if you can swallow the poor/mediocre GPU performance).
You can get the 15" rMBP for $1800~ (refurb)...it is much lighter (I think 1lb less).
The 15" for me, at least (cMBP 2011) feels pretty light.
If you think it's heavy for you, how about a 13" cMBP? Or a 13" rMBP?
There isn't much you can do to alleviate the situation...
How do you carry the laptop around? You probably need to get a messenger bag and strap it over your shoulder and the weight will go around your chest, thus making it fairly light to carry around.
actually for producing dance tracks in ableton 13" is fine...
I wouldn't know for Guild Wars though, probably not, due to shabby GPU.
Guild wars recommends an ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 series or better. The newest Intel HD4000 should handle it just fine, unless something else is going on here....
It's barely a pound heavier than the 13", and one of the lightest 15" notebooks out there. Invest in a gym membership, not only will it make carrying your notebook easier, it's good for your general health.
Alright well weight aside I am carrying a mixer and cables bag to gigs you know! And to school I have my other books so I might invest in an iPad to take the load of carrying a big laptop around . I just have a sleeve for it so maybe that shoulder bag will help there too . Any links to good bags ? Thanks all
But back to the remorse topic. For this amount of money did I do good getting the latest 15 inch (500gb hdd, nvidea g640m , 1400x900res screen, i7 quad) , or are there other alternatives for me that has the 2 needs of light photoshop, heavy use of music production and mixing software , and the occasional game of guild wars
But back to the remorse topic. For this amount of money did I do good getting the latest 15 inch (500gb hdd, nvidea g640m , 1400x900res screen, i7 quad) , or are there other alternatives for me that has the 2 needs of light photoshop, heavy use of music production and mixing software , and the occasional game of guild wars
if i were you i would up the resolution to 1680 X 1050. Free up some space so you have more to work on with the extra pixels.
and if you think about weight, remove the ODD(if you do not beed it all the time, you can get cases for the OOD so that you can have it external) , move you 500GB HHD over there and get a SSD on 128GB for system and programs.
Had that in my old cMBP before i went retina.
think it on of the best updates to make on a 15" laptop.
And dont think about HHD and Ram, you can change those yourself along the way.
and if you think about weight, remove the ODD(if you do not beed it all the time, you can get cases for the OOD so that you can have it external) , move you 500GB HHD over there and get a SSD on 128GB for system and programs.
Had that in my old cMBP before i went retina.
think it on of the best updates to make on a 15" laptop.
And dont think about HHD and Ram, you can change those yourself along the way.
You'd have to tell us. We have no idea. We don't know you.
Depends on who you ask and what you mean by "top of the line". If you're a spec sheet fanatic, probably not.
Be very clear regarding what you mean by "better". The word is highly subjective and it's fairly meaningless if you don't qualify it. Better in what ways?
I disagree. Anything more than 4lbs is a brick, IMO. I had to think long and hard before stepping up from an 11.6" MacBook Air to a 13" rMBP. It's 50% heavier. I'm not sure I would want even a 15" rMBP, much less a 5.5lb cMBP. I already lug around a 5.5lb HP "thin and light" for work. At least the Ultrabook is finally here (thanks in large part to the MacBook Air).
Of course, this post won't make the OP feel any better.
Timbuk2s are good as well, I regularly have to lug around my 15" personal and 13" work computers... But I would disagree with the notion that the 15" is "heavy" by any means.
Use a MacBook Air for 5 years (and an 11.6" one for 2 of those 5) and you might change your mind. I'm still getting used to the weight of the 13" rMBP.
I don't need to use one for 5 years to know that 2.8 lbs is half the weight of 5.6 lbs, however that still doesn't make it heavy, just heavier than something half it's weight. Seriously, it's 5 pounds, there's no universe where that's an unreasonable amount of weight.
That was the thinking in the market for many years and it held back design. In reality, assuming both devices meet their needs, do you think consumers prefer a) a 2.8lb notebook or b) a 5.5lb device? Heck, at one time, 8lbs didn't seem like an unreasonable amount of weight for a 13" notebook. Things change, and technology gets better. It's a decent use of technology to make notebook computers smaller and lighter.
I wouldn't go that far ... on Stumbos IV, lifting a pillow could easily give somebody a hernia.
Lift with the legs, not the back.
We're talking about different things here, at no point did I say that laptops should be lighter or more compact, I'm simply saying 5 lbs isn't heave by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, when I was in middle school we had to carry 10lb bags of flour around for a month, didn't kill any of us, even the girls.
Ahh, but Lela also clearly warned them about the gravitational effects of the planet, not the same thing unless you're using lead pillows on earth (and have a good girdle).
Me too, i have a 2008 unibody. But I'm so so so looking forward to my retina for getting little more than half a kilo shaved off...
I was actually looking at 13"ers ALL the time. I bought a 15"er just because first unibody 13" didn't have firewire...
Was waiting for a 13" rMBP... hoping it would have QuadCore cpu. Tough luck, keeping the 15" form factor.
Having gone from a 17" MBP to a 15", I find the 15" quite light. It's all relative. I use a backpack bag and try to keep extraneous junk out of it. I don't find it heavy.
an 11 macbook air makes zero sense to me its got the processing power of an ipad id rather get to carry around an ipad than a macbook air. the 13 inch makes sense if i was just using a computer for the most basic tasks but i had to go with something quad core or else it would not have been worth it for me to wait around while photoshop render images or ableton records a song. unless the 13 inch got any better reacently my friends 13 inch 2011 blows it takes forever to load up on boot and it much slower than mine.
does nayone know if the refresh of the 15 inch will be lighter with no optical drive or will they drop it in favor of a retina line only. the macbook inst heavy its just i feel like with my textbooks on my back and my macbook under my arm its a lot since i walk to classes, need to talk and text in between making it even harder. im just trying to see where i fit in the apple world which laptop would benefit me the best. maybe once the good 13inch with hoswell come out that would help me out a lot
does nayone know if the refresh of the 15 inch will be lighter with no optical drive or will they drop it in favor of a retina line only. the macbook inst heavy its just i feel like with my textbooks on my back and my macbook under my arm its a lot since i walk to classes, need to talk and text in between making it even harder. im just trying to see where i fit in the apple world which laptop would benefit me the best. maybe once the good 13inch with hoswell come out that would help me out a lot
The 11" MacBook Air has a 1.7GHz Ivy Bridge Core i5 standard. That's a LOT more powerful than any iPad. It isn't much slower than the 1.8GHz Ivy Bridge Core i5 in the 13". Also, both the 11" and 13" Airs can be equipped with the same 2.0GHz i7. That processor has similar performance to the 2.5GHz i5 in the base 13" MBP. Turbo Boost is a wonderful technology in that regard.As for startup times, I notice no difference between the 2011 Air, 2012 Air, and 2012 rMBP. They are all pretty quick, since it's mostly the speed of the SSD that matters there.
You sir really need to refresh your knowledge. A MBA 11" from 2011 will kick an arse out of an iPad in terms of power. What you do with your computer (from what it sounds like) an MBA would suffice. Yes, there would be a bit slower when encoding and rendering photoshop images but not to the point where it'd hurt your productivity.
Also, you need to talk and text? What's that got to do with having a computer? The rMBP is pretty light in standards of a 15" or a 13" computer. Both are solid choices for you too. Though the 13" MBP would work fine too. Pick and choose, there are pros and cons you just have to weigh them.