Looking at Mac Book Pro Retina

glenimp617

glenimp617

glenimp617

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Hi all,

I've just been looking at the following laptop

Mac Book Pro Retina
13" Screen
i5 Processor
8GB Ram
128GB SSD

The price after using various discount codes etc etc comes to £990inc VAT

Been a while since I've had a mac, and told they are one of the best even if you put windows on.

Has anyone got the 13" model? Just thinking it's a little small. Plus, any issues if I did say install windows 8.1 (or even dual boot for a while)

Thanks
 
Depends what you're using it for, but if you can sacrifice a little portability the 15" will be more comfortable to use I would say.

I have a 15" model, but did consider the 13" at the time.

As said above, they are due a minor spec bump to the latest gen of processor, so hold fire for a month or so unless you're desperate.

Unless you need windows for work, I'd personally stick with OSX, especially if you only have 128GB SSD. If you do need windows for work, there are a number of VM products out there rather than dual booting also.
 
I'm also waiting on the Macbook Pro refresh - After reading a lot of forums and rumours - It sounds like either next Tuesday (I highly doubt this) or on week commencing the 21st Oct. But no one really knows :p
 
Will be interesting to see what GPU the 13" gets. Wonder if they'll stick with the HD5000 from the Air, or move up to the GT3e.
 
If you're going to primarily use Windows there are some great high res ultrabooks in the pipeline worth keeping an eye on.
 
I can't give you specific models, what I can say however is that the Windows experience on the Mac will be no better than a comparable high-end Windows machine. The trackpad may even be worse (poor trackpad drivers and software from Apple), and the battery life you get in Mac OS X will not be easily obtainable under Windows (though Windows 8 should be better). So unless you're considering moving to OS X, I wouldn't say that purchasing a Mac is necessarily worth it.
 
I was waiting for the Retina 13" refresh but my Dell XPS died on me so grabbed a 13" Air.

The Pro models should be here soon, and I'm guessing the 13" will switch to a Haswell + Iris Pro graphics. You aren't going to game at Retina levels with laptop graphics.
 
First of all, the refreshes are all based on rumours. Its been talked about for months without any announcement so don't get your hopes up thinking itll come out this week etc.

ALso, I have to agree with lamboman and theheyes. There are some excellent ultrabook on the market at the moment. I just recently purchased one from the states via the bay and I dont regret it at all. Minus the customs wait and import charges, I absolutely love the thing. Its the ASUS Q501. Haswell, 1080p IPS touchscreen and a brilliant backlit keyboard, not to mention 12GB of RAM that I dont need! The actual price of the laptop was £600 but with shipping and taxes, it bumped it to £800.

Obviously, youll be missing out on the retina display, but with 1080p at 15" (forgot to mention), i seriously can't justify the extra money for the retina. DOnt get me wrong, it looks gorgeous, especially since im a multi iPhone owner, but no way in hell could i distinguish the pixels from using a 15" 1080p laptop.

The trackpad isnt known to work well with Windows so finding a ultrabook that is natively built for windows, would definitely work best. My trackpad does practically everything the MBs do and it does it brilliantly! Feels exactly the same, without none of the "glass".

Seeing as I have Haswell at the moment. I have good battery life as well. With a game session on Warcraft III, I was able to play on Powersaver for 6 hours straight. Web browsing, word documents and watching videos on lowish brightness yields almost 10 hours.

Worth a thought. There are competitors out there thatll match the MBP and MBA now adays.
 
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glen8 said:
My options are open

Do you know of any upcoming models I could Google?

Thanks
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The Toshiba Kirabook comes to mind, and the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus just eclipses the Retina display in terms of resolution if that's your thing. Similarly the upcoming Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 as well.

Personally I'm not sold on these super high res screens because you get diminishing returns very quickly after a certain point, but hey you might not agree. :)
 
Valid point. You need more processing power for the higher resolutions which might cause problems with what you do with your laptop.
Id stick with 1080p at 15" or lower. Like i said, no way can I see the pixels from a normal distance.
 
glen8 said:
Thanks,

I've just actually been looking at a Sony Vaio Pro 13 (i7, 8GB, 256GB) for £1,130

Will look at the Asus now
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Ive read mix views about the build of the Vaio pro 13. I feel the Asus Zenbooks are better built, also take a look at the Yoga 2, Samsung Series 9 and Acer S7. Not sure of any of the prices but their the best windows ultrabooks Ive seen.

Outside of that I would recommend waiting for the 13" retina, its an amazing machine, only issue now is the hardware is under powered and most of OSX runs on a single core. Mavericks goes a long way to fixing this along with much better GPUs in Haswell.
 
I've read that there are a lot of problems related to DPI scaling running Windows at super high resolutions. Metro style apps and the OS itself should be fine, but a lot of existing apps are going to look pants / be unusable. I know for instance that Unity (the tool, not the games) has problems.
 
I had a look at the Vaio Pro 13" just to see what it was like. There was a lot of flex in the chassis (which unfortunately is just the way it is with the carbon fibre etc). The little plastic pieces that lifted the machine up by its display were questionable too.

I'm sure that the Samsungs and Acers will be better built, and would be the ones I'd go for.

This said, the prices are comparable between the Air and the competition, so if you want to go Mac and still want an OK Windows experience (as above, I personally think that the Windows experience on the Mac is OK but not quite as good as it could be), then you won't be losing out financially if you bought a Mac.
 
Surely you either want a Mac or you don't? Completely pointless buying a mac, especially such a high end model like the retina MacBook Pro, if all you're doing is sticking windows on it!

The main attraction in switching to Mac is the OS, surely?
 
Turbo-G said:
Surely you either want a Mac or you don't? Completely pointless buying a mac, especially such a high end model like the retina MacBook Pro, if all you're doing is sticking windows on it!

The main attraction in switching to Mac is the OS, surely?
Click to expand...

I agree, though I can see why people would want to buy a Mac purely for the hardware. But yes, agree that there isn't much point (maybe from the perspective of residuals, though I don't think that will swing it for most).
 
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