When are the revamped 2012 Macbook Pros coming? (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

That is true. But it's in the neighborhood of a decade's daily use. Trust me that you won't outlive your SSD.
http://lifehacker.com/5802838/how-to-maximize-the-life-of-your-ssd
http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Sam,

Thank you for the detailed information with links.

With the reading I have done thanks to the information
you provided, I am going to stick with Apple's prices no
matter how much it hurts my wallet.

 

[Sam Posten]

You bet. I encourage you to get other opinions but this is how I feel about it at this time, and strongly.

 

[Sam Posten]

RMBP owners should be aware of this issue:
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/17/retina-macbook-pro-users-still-complaining-of-image-persistence/

 

[Sam Posten]

Spec bumps and Price Drops, oh my! http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/13/3983962/apple-lowers-13-inch-macbook-pro-retina-price-1499

 

[Carlo_M]

Nice! For me, the retina displays will be compelling once the Intel GPU can properly drive the pixels. I know the 15" rMBP's discrete GPU can push the pixels, but I'm of the belief the HD4000 which is part of current Intel chipset cannot (and the verge mentions it too in their review). The new chipset that is supposed to come out with Haswell is benching at 50%+ better than the HD4000, so perhaps the next generation of rMBP will be my purchase.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I grew tired of cheaply made laptops and Windows 8. Took the plunge on Presidents Day and bought a 13" MBP, non-retina. That's it... I'm NEVER going back to a PC, although I did create a Bootcamp partition and install Windows 7 for work purposes only.

 

[Sam Posten]

Cool, let us know if you have any Qs!

 

[Ronald Epstein]

That's it... I'm NEVER going back to a PC, although I did create a Bootcamp partition and install Windows 7 for work purposes only.

Clinton,

I love to hear stories like these.

I was a power Windows user for years. In 2007 I switched to Mac and I have never looked back. Not only do they make quality computers but the overall user experience is leaps and bounds above windows. The more Apple products you buy (iPhone, iPad, iMac, iPod) the more you see how well they all integrate together.

Welcome to the Mac family here. It's a good group and we look forward to your contributions.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Thanks Sam and Ron!

For years, a good friend of mine preached Apple every chance he got and I didn't get it. I thought it was a bunch of hokum and could not figure out why anyone would pay 4x the price I was paying for a laptop. They must be clinically insane. It was madness.

Then I got an iPhone 3GS and was really impressed with the way iOS worked. How clean and user-friendly it was. Then I got an iPhone 4S and was more impressed.

A couple years ago, my WinXP laptop died and I got an Acer with Win7 (or as I call it, Vista SP3). It was ok, but I was plagued by BSOD on a regular basis... something I rarely saw with XP, SP3. Then came the driver compatibility issues and the inability to create a cold image of the HDD for backup using both Acronis and Ghost. I grew bitter and I was resigned to the fact that I was going to have to use a buggy OS until Win8 was released. Some time later, I saw the Win8 beta and that completely turned me off to Windows. It looked like MS changed their entire OS just for the sake of doing it. What a mess. That's when I seriously started looking at an Apple solution and listening to what Apple users had to say.

The Friday before Presidents Day, I drove to Best Buy after work and played around with a 13" MBP. That was it. I was hooked. I had been a loyal user of Windows OS since 3.11 when I was in junior high and had stayed loyal through 7 more (mostly bad) versions of Windows. They were running a good deal for $999 18-month SAC if I used my Best Buy card so I pounced on it. Over that weekend, I ordered 16GB of RAM from OWC and installed it the following week when it arrived. Holy cow! This little thing became an absolute beast.

It's really hard to put my thoughts towards the MBP into a coherent string of words. OS X is simple. Really really simple. Once I learned the general layout of things, I saw a vague similarity to Windows but that's where it ended. The integration, as Ron pointed out, is absolutely seamless. I use iTunes to manage my mp3 collection and had always suffered from slowness and weird problems using it in Windows. No more. Every time I plugged my iPhone in to my Win7 laptop, I was only about 50% sure it would sync and then be able to eject without locking up the OS. No more. The processors of previous laptops suffered from being overwhelmed by all the bloatware Dell, Acer, HP, et al preinstalled on them. No more. I was performing weekly AV scans and anti malware scans. No more. I was defragging my HDD monthly to gain a slight performance bump. No more. Program installs and updates often took longer than I felt they shoud and uninstalling and removing programs and all the litter of .dll files and bits they leave about which the uninstaller could not dispose of properly was irritating. No more. There's no guessing with apps from the app store or installing a new printer. It's very simple and things just work.

That's the only real way I can relate my Mac experience to others. Things just work. Unfortunately, I have to use Windows 7 for work purposes and for DVD Profiler, so I got my hands on a copy of Win7 and created a Bootcamp partition. I may only boot into Windows once every 3 weeks or so. The rest of the time is OS X.

I finally got what my friend was going on and on about. I understand now. I love it.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Clinton,

You hit the nail on the head. There is about a 15 minute period where, just coming into OS X, that you don't quite know what to do. However, soon thereafter you realize that Mac is very similar to windows. Everything basically works the same way. No registry to deal with. No crashes.

If you think Bootcamp is cool, you should try Parallels. It lets you run Mac and Windows at the same time seamlessly. That's how I run DVD Profiler. If you already have bootcamp set up, I believe Parallels will install that setup without you having to supply another copy of Windows.

Any questions, let us know.

 

[Sam Posten]

Clinton, honestly Mac advocates are the worst part of the Apple experience =) I enjoy the OS and the ecosystem and can point out what makes it so great for me, but I recognize that what makes ME love it doesn't translate to others who have wildly different goals and desires (specifically things like customized looks, which I eschew). But others can get quite bully like with their enthusiasm. So no pressure here but any questions you have fire away please!

 

[Carlo_M]

You know I've got to be one of those that prefers the OS because I've had less than perfect experiences with my Macbook Pros. Both of the builds I purchased (late 2006 and late 2010) have had issues with freezing (long threads in Apple Support Forums). Both are mostly ironed out (and I don't use my 06 much at all now that I have the 10).

But I really do find the OSX experience much more compelling than even W7 which I think is MS's best effort today and a solid OS. I love Apple exclusive programs like Logic Pro. Even cross-platform programs like Pro Tools run better on Mac. So I stick with it.

The irony is that while no hardware/software is perfect, the two revs of MBPs I just happened to buy are the ones that had the most problems with freezing. Seemingly every other revision are way more stable, problem-free.

 

[Sam Posten]

Pretty decent sale this week;
http://gizmodo.com/the-retina-macbook-pro-is-more-than-300-off-at-best-b-920832463?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

And the inevitable refresh is on the horizon:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/26/rumor-haswell-powered-retina-macbook-pros-to-ship-in-october?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

At this point I would value Haswell refresh over a cheaper Mac Book Pro from last year, but YMMV.