MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro (1 Viewer)

[Carlo_M]

Agreed about SSD being a game changer. I literally gave my 2010 Macbook Pro new life with a 960GB Crucial SSD. Even without TRIM being enabled, it's been a godsend. Startup went from 2 minutes to 20 seconds. And I've got so much media on my SSD that it constantly fluctuates between 75-90% full (and then I offload the projects I'm working on to an external HDD).

The only reason I want a new laptop is for retina. Now having an iPad Air for work, it seems like the pixels on my MBP are even more pronounced than before! And being part of the Yosemite beta, it's easy to tell that the fonts and UI have been tweaked to really take advantage of very PPI displays. Yet I also want a light form factor for my next laptop. I read that the MBPs will be slightly refreshed with the recently refreshed Haswell chips, but that the bodies will stay largely the same, which is still a pound less than my current MBP, but nowhere near the Macbook Air. Ideally Apple would have come out with that rumored 12" MB Air/Pro combo, which was supposed to fall between the lines in terms of power and size/weight, but also have a retina screen. I think that's been pushed back to wait for the oft-delayed Broadwell chipsets.

 

[Clinton McClure]

The only thing I have against the Retina MBPs is the soldered-in RAM. I've seen unconfirmed reports that a standard configuration of the new MacBook Pros will be 16GB RAM across the board, so that will become a non-issue.

 

[Sam Posten]

That seems to be the rumor, yeah. Major thumbs up to ?Apple for finally doing that.http://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/28/retina-macbook-pro-update-july-29/

 

[Clinton McClure]

As long as Apple doesn't solder an additional $500 to the price for the RAM bump.

 

[Thomas Newton]

The only thing I have against the Retina MBPs is the soldered-in RAM. I've seen unconfirmed reports that a standard configuration of the new MacBook Pros will be 16GB RAM across the board, so that will become a non-issue.

With the latest update, "stock" 13-inch Retina MBPs have 8 GB of RAM, and "stock" 15-inch Retina MBPs have 16 GB of RAM.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Thanks for the update Thomas.

 

[Sam Posten]

8% speed bump, more ram standard, minor price drop good.Last year's GPUs bad.http://www.loopinsight.com/2014/07/30/geekbench-3-benchmark-numbers-for-new-retina-macbook-pro/?utm_source=loopinsight.com&utm_campaign=loopinsight.com&utm_medium=referral

 

[Carlo_M]

Yeah Sam I was tempted for a second (as Data would say, for an Android, nearly an eternity), but the more I read about Broadwell, the more I'm convinced to wait for it. Not only will it bring a fairly significant jump in terms of power savings, but apparently the new Intel built-in GPU will be significantly better than the Iris Pro that is currently part of Haswell. And I'll be buying the one with the discrete GPU option, and I'm not about to spend $2.5K on last model's discrete 750M GPU which is getting a bit long in the tooth for a premium priced laptop.

I'm very intrigued by the rumors of a "mid 2014" Mac Mini that popped up on a cached version of an Apple support page (which was then taken down), as reported by Macrumors. My home desktop, which I rarely use, is a 2008 home-built PC--surprising that its still kicking, I must have built it well -- And I don't have the funds to do both a MBP and a Mac Pro. At first I was going to wait for a 4K iMac, but if they have a compelling upgrade to the Mini soon, and if it can drive a 4k monitor, I may buy that and one of those budget 4k monitors that are hovering around $600 on sale (thus spending about $1400 total on it). That will tide me over until the Broadwell refreshes of the MBP, and the rumored 12" Macbook version that is supposed to come out (lighter than the MBP more power than the MBA, with a retina screen).

 

[Carlo_M]

Just an online pat on my own back...went with a friend to a mall yesterday which contained an Apple store, and yes I played around with a new MBP. Ran Logic Pro with multiple tracks and yes it's faster than my 2010MBP with 1TB SSD, but what really tempted me was the beautiful display.

But then I thought through the history of Apple releases, and it's clear that this model is the last of the current generation with a new redesign due likely with the Broadwell chipsets in 2015. I liken it to the last model year of a car before a major redesign. Now there are benefits to buying this last version: you know it's a stable, proven design and most bugs have been worked out of it, and a brand new 2015 design may exhibit growing pains. Though Apple has come a long way since my old mantra "never buy a 1st gen Apple product refresh" which I held on to until probably about 2010. I think it's going to be worth the wait for a 2015 MBP, it will be a significant step up to this latest refresh, in comparison to what this was to the previous Haswell-based MBP.

Hopefully Apple will refresh the Mini or release a 4K iMac within the calendar year to give me something to tempt me...