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Which MPR for first-time Mac owner?

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blopez6279

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 8, 2015
5
0
Hello! First time poster, and future first time Mac user!

I am heading off to college in the fall and am currently looking at the Macbook Pro models for my college laptop. Although I have decided on using a MPR, I'm a little lost on which model to get and I am looking for input/advice from others with more experience.

I am currently looking into getting the non-retina version with some upgrades. Because of future college expenses, I don't have the money to splurge, which might rule out the retina unless I am convinced otherwise I want a MPR that would last me through college and even afterwords before upgrading. Should I go with the base model and base 1.5ghz i5 or bump up to eh i7? 4gig or 8gig of ram? Is it work upgrading to the 1TB drive? Should I still look into the rMBP? What combinations would you recommend?

For the some background info on uses
-Typical college work: word processing, browsing, presentations, etc
-I store a lot of my physical media on my computer (Which makes the disk drive a must)
-I plan on using windows 7 in bootcamp to run some light gaming
-Use school package including Adobe CC (focusing on light photo/video editing)

Although I would like to get this all into one computer, what or other options you would recommend? Saving money would be a plus!

Edit: I'm looking at the education prices for the $999 MBP and $1199 and up rMBP!
 
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If money is an issue I strongly suggest looking at the refurbs, the retina models are much better IMO. See if you can find a 2013+ 13in rMBP and if it fits your price range, 2013+ due to upgraded iGPU and PCIe SSD

The non-retina is cheaper but you already talked about upgrading it so factor in that cost too. Plus you are going to live with the thing for a few years



If you game is the 13in screen big enough? May consider a base 15in
 
Fifteen20s said:
If money is an issue I strongly suggest looking at the refurbs, the retina models are much better IMO. See if you can find a 2013+ 13in rMBP and if it fits your price range, 2013+ due to upgraded iGPU and PCIe SSD

The non-retina is cheaper but you already talked about upgrading it so factor in that cost too. Plus you are going to live with the thing for a few years



If you game is the 13in screen big enough? May consider a base 15in
Click to expand...

My only dislike on the rMBP is the lack of space on the SSD (and the price in upgrading the space) and lack of a disk drive. Though it may be obsolete to some, I usually buy physical copies of CDs and DVDs and then import them onto the computer (It may be soooo old school but I love having a physical collection!). I'd would have to invest in an external disk drive and hard drive, which might not be too expensive in total depending on refurbished price for rMBP. As for gaming, 13 inches is fine, and if i ever need to I can always connect to a monitor!

I will make sure to keep an eye out on the refurbished store!
 
I can appreciate personal preference. Do keep in mind that external storage is cheap. You can get a 4gig Western Digital USB3 drive for less then $200 and that's without shopping around.
 
Fifteen20s said:
I can appreciate personal preference. Do keep in mind that external storage is cheap. You can get a 4gig Western Digital USB3 drive for less then $200 and that's without shopping around.
Click to expand...

True, and I'm still hung up on drive speed. Is the difference between 1TB hard drive and 128g SSD that important?
 
I'd be looking at some kind of NAS instead of storing everything on my Mac.

I have a 1TB SSD in this Mac (not something I specified - this was a replacement under AppleCare for a 2012 rMBP) and have used approximately 300GB (includes my Windows 10 tech preview boot camp partition).

Without the Windows partition I could get away with a 256 GB SSD. The reason being, I have 4TB of networked storage.
 
blopez6279 said:
Should I reconsider the rMBP then? I am now thinking about buying the base rMBP model and investing in the external disk drive/HDD...
Click to expand...

The non retina model has been out, and unchanged, since 2012. You'd be paying a premium price (even as a refurbished unit) for outdated technology.

Your call. I'm not the one spending the money.

With that said, it is also the last model to be fully upgradable by the user. You could buy the base model, plop a SSD in there and upgrade to 16GB of RAM down the road.
 
I'd strongly recommend looking at an rMBP over the cMBP. I have the late-2013 13" with 8gb of RAM and the 256gb SSD, and the difference between it and my mid-09 13" MBP that I started college with is amazing. My 09 had several unexplainable issues while my 13 at the same age still runs like almost new. Battery life is great. You'll be able to go all day without charging until you get back to your dorm room. I can understand wanting to keep your media around, but the compromise is worth it. I keep all my music (30gb) and photos (15gb) on my rMBP and keep my movies on an external 1TB drive and and still have plenty of room for Word docs each semester. Plus if you buy newer movies with digital copies, you usually just have to enter the code and download it into iTunes or an Ultraviolet app. It doesn't cost anything extra.

So I'd look at the 2015 with education discount or the 2014 refurb. The late-2013 is also good too and is practically the same as the 2014. 8gb RAM minimum and probably at least a 256gb SSD.
 
Another benefit of a refurb is full warranty .. the standard year plus you can get AppleCare
 
Well I've done a 180 and am definitely leaning more towards the 256gig retina! Hopefully I can find it refurbished when it comes time to buy, and might even push for the 512gig! Thank you!
 
blopez6279 said:
Well I've done a 180 and am definitely leaning more towards the 256gig retina! Hopefully I can find it refurbished when it comes time to buy, and might even push for the 512gig! Thank you!
Click to expand...

That's great. No one ever complained about having too much SSD. Good luck!
 
blopez6279 said:
Should I reconsider the rMBP then? I am now thinking about buying the base rMBP model and investing in the external disk drive/HDD...
Click to expand...

In my opinion the retina Macbook is a must buy. The refurbs are a great deal and there just isn't really a need to buy the cMBP. There are some awesome external storage devices that you could get and save money on storage. however buying the 128GB would still be pushing it, especially after new versions of OS X are released.
 
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