# Macbook pro retina advice



## Sith Zombie (Jul 5, 2012)

Sooooo, I'm in the market for a new macbook to do my editing on and general computer stuff. I'm on a tight budget! 

I wanted to wait to see how much the 13 Inch macbook pro Retina [can't afford the 15inch] will cost [prob shipping oct] and more importantly, what size SSD the 'cheaper' version will ship with because I can't have less than 250G. but now I'm leaning towards getting 13 inch mbp without retina because it comes with enough space, is fast enough, within budget and can be upgraded at a later date when I have saved a bit of money. The only thing that really puts me off is the screen, its glossy [reflective] and is the lowest rez of the macbooks, even the macbook airs have a higher rez screen.

I have seen the 15inch mbp retina screen [twice] and I have to say it's pretty damn fine, for photos it's stunning. Yet there are a few drawbacks, websites look like crap atm because of the higher rez. Apps that haven't been upgraded yet have blurry text, I loaded up photoshop and imported a pic that looked amazing in aperture and it looked pretty bad. I guess apps will be updated soon enough though but some websites might even take a few years to be optimized for retina/hi rez. 
Another problem is that people have reported screen burning and other faults, how long will it take before initial problems are sorted? Also the machine is non user upgradeable and difficult to repair, leaving you at the mercy of apple and the really reasonable prices they charge you to fix stuff 

So is it better to future proof with the retina display and hope I don't need to add any upgrades and pray it doesn't break?
Or get the regular 13inch, put up with the display, enjoy cheaper repair bills and the ability to upgrade RAM and HD? 

Thanks in advance for your advice.


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## The_Arsonist (Jul 5, 2012)

I own a 2011 15" pro. While I haven't seen a retina screen yet, I will say that the difference between 13" and 15" is huge for making sure programs have adequate space to display all the interface elements. I would also say the "normal" LED macbook pro screens are excellent, even without the retina sharpness. If you're going to upgrade to the max, the retina 15" is a good deal. If you just want to max out the ram and have a lot of drive space, get a refurb 15" and save up until retina matures and more apps take advantage of the tech


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## FunPhotons (Jul 5, 2012)

Retina doesn't future proof you, it just gives a slightly nicer screen. And anyhow there isn't any future proofing in computing, it all (thankfully) changes too quickly and too much.


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## adhocphotographer (Jul 5, 2012)

Buy the MBP then buy a larger display for at home??? just another option!


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## Sith Zombie (Jul 5, 2012)

Some good advice already. I'm tempted to wait until the tech 'matures' a bit. Also if I got a hd monitor and hooked that up to a non retina mbp, would it give a retina like output or can they only output to a certain rez?


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## melbournite (Jul 5, 2012)

I can't really offer advice just yet, as my 15" Retina MBP is on order. I know you can't 'future proof' past a couple of years these days but I maxed out the specs on RAM and SSD. I justified the price because it's a work tool. 

One thing I can advise on is SSD. I upgraded my old MBP with SSD and it made a huge difference - don't buy a new computer without SSD or buy an old one and put SSD in it.


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## Sith Zombie (Jul 5, 2012)

melbournite said:


> I can't really offer advice just yet, as my 15" Retina MBP is on order. I know you can't 'future proof' past a couple of years these days but I maxed out the specs on RAM and SSD. I justified the price because it's a work tool.
> 
> One thing I can advise on is SSD. I upgraded my old MBP with SSD and it made a huge difference - don't buy a new computer without SSD or buy an old one and put SSD in it.



Cool, your gonna love it I'm sure! 
Yeah I really wanna get SSD, one plan was to get the 13inch mbp and take out the optical drive and insert a 125G SSD for boot, and have the 500G spinny disk for libraries. Just wondering how much the 13inch retina will be though and wether I should wait.


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## gmrza (Jul 5, 2012)

FunPhotons said:


> Retina doesn't future proof you, it just gives a slightly nicer screen. And anyhow there isn't any future proofing in computing, it all (thankfully) changes too quickly and too much.



My concern at the moment is that it is almost impossible to replace anything in the retina MBP, including the battery. I would probably stick with the conventional unibody 15" MBP, and then get an external monitor for editing.


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## RLPhoto (Jul 5, 2012)

Sith Zombie said:


> Sooooo, I'm in the market for a new macbook to do my editing on and general computer stuff. I'm on a tight budget!
> 
> I wanted to wait to see how much the 13 Inch macbook pro Retina [can't afford the 15inch] will cost [prob shipping oct] and more importantly, what size SSD the 'cheaper' version will ship with because I can't have less than 250G. but now I'm leaning towards getting 13 inch mbp without retina because it comes with enough space, is fast enough, within budget and can be upgraded at a later date when I have saved a bit of money. The only thing that really puts me off is the screen, its glossy [reflective] and is the lowest rez of the macbooks, even the macbook airs have a higher rez screen.
> 
> ...



It will take awhile for the world to ditch the 72DPI resolution of current systems. I dont see the benefit of being an early adopter of this tech just yet.


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## dstppy (Jul 5, 2012)

You missed one thing (that I didn't see corrected), there is no 13" retina (yet), so it seems that's not really a choice in the matter since you said the cost is out.

What you get for the current retina MBP: WOW. You're impressing a viewer . . . so what it's doing is replacing the 17" and it's great for showing a presentation on the road . . . but you're paying for it (for now).

With the iPhone, it was a huge deal to switch, because it was a tiny screen that you look at closer; not a lot of people are chucking their iPad 2 for the new Retina iPad . . .

As for the replacability of items in the laptops, it's a tradeoff for portability. My family's PC laptops are so large, they don't even bring them on business trips. My wife stole my MacBook Pro when I got the air even though she's got a more powerful Win7 laptop. That is also where my S95 went . . .

Back to the retina display, when we get the tech for the 'current price' of the hardware, it'll rock, hard.


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## RunAndGun (Jul 5, 2012)

I've played with the 15" Retina MBP at one of my local Apple Store's. It's nice, BUT it does not replace a 17" screen and it's not THAT impressive if you are used to a 17" MBP. Yes, the screen looked a little better: a little more contrast, punchier, slightly sharper with things optimized for it, but if I hadn't of known it had a "Retina Display", I wouldn't have known it had a "Retina Display"  . Even playing with Aperture with what were tagged as 1DsMKIII images, I wasn't "wowed" and wanting to order one right then and there. That being said, I do like some of the other tech they put in it like the 768GB SSD, 16GB RAM, new quad core processors, USB 3/2, TB, etc. and I will probably be ordering one this fall(I was planning on replacing my current MBP since it will be three, anyway). I do hope they eventually bring out a 17" screen again. I don't care how high they can get the rez, I still want a big screen(I travel with my laptop, so an external monitor isn't a real solution unless I'm at home).


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## melbournite (Jul 6, 2012)

RunAndGun said:


> I've played with the 15" Retina MBP at one of my local Apple Store's. It's nice, BUT it does not replace a 17" screen and it's not THAT impressive if you are used to a 17" MBP. Yes, the screen looked a little better: a little more contrast, punchier, slightly sharper with things optimized for it, but if I hadn't of known it had a "Retina Display", I wouldn't have known it had a "Retina Display"  . Even playing with Aperture with what were tagged as 1DsMKIII images, I wasn't "wowed" and wanting to order one right then and there. That being said, I do like some of the other tech they put in it like the 768GB SSD, 16GB RAM, new quad core processors, USB 3/2, TB, etc. and I will probably be ordering one this fall(I was planning on replacing my current MBP since it will be three, anyway). I do hope they eventually bring out a 17" screen again. I don't care how high they can get the rez, I still want a big screen(I travel with my laptop, so an external monitor isn't a real solution unless I'm at home).



I played with one in store and I have to agree with you that the Retina display was nice but not the deciding factor for me. In order of importance, the deciding factors were; 768GB SSD, 16GB RAM, lighter than it's predecessor, USB3 and faster processor.


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## The_Arsonist (Jul 6, 2012)

Sith Zombie said:


> Some good advice already. I'm tempted to wait until the tech 'matures' a bit. Also if I got a hd monitor and hooked that up to a non retina mbp, would it give a retina like output or can they only output to a certain rez?



The retina in the new MBP just means each pixel is displayed by four real pixels. It still runs at 1440x900, just sharper on optimized programs. If you hook up a high res monitor, it will be no different than a normal MBP. The retina means more pixels for the screen size.


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## psolberg (Jul 6, 2012)

besides the issue of not being able to upgrade, you need to consider that the hardware on this machine is not really up to the task of driving that display as many reviewers have found out.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/8

it is just too many pixels and too little power in the hardware.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 6, 2012)

RunAndGun said:


> I do hope they eventually bring out a 17" screen again. I don't care how high they can get the rez, I still want a big screen(I travel with my laptop, so an external monitor isn't a real solution unless I'm at home).



Ditto. I like the idea of a retina very high-res (let's call it what it is instead of coining new terms) display, but IMO the 15" MBP is a compromise - too big to really be portable for travel, too small when I'm willing to sacrifice portability. Sort of like a G1 X  - if I want to travel light, I take my S100 (aka my 13" MacBook Air), if I give up traveling light, I take a dSLR and lenses (aka my 17" MBP). Fortunately, my 17" is only 1.5 years old, hopefully Apple will bring back that size before I need a new one...


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## nikkito (Jul 6, 2012)

I have to buy a new laptop soon and I was thinking about the 15" with retina display. But...I was on the apple store and checked my website and all the pics look weird. Then checked other pages and same problem... I do not know what to do now.


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 6, 2012)

nikkito said:


> I was on the apple store and checked my website and all the pics look weird.



Define 'weird'...

Have you used a Mac before? Safari (the default browser) respects the embedded ICC profiles, most other browsers do not. You can test yours here.


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## Axilrod (Jul 6, 2012)

You can always get an ssd later from otherworldcomputing.com, it's like $250 for a 240gb and they are much faster than the ssd's that come from Apple.


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## nikkito (Jul 6, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> nikkito said:
> 
> 
> > I was on the apple store and checked my website and all the pics look weird.
> ...



yeah sorry, they were looking like pixelated, i can't remember right now but they were not showing as sharp as you would see them with any other computer. (by the way i have an iMac, but thanks for the link


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## RunAndGun (Jul 6, 2012)

Axilrod said:


> You can always get an ssd later from otherworldcomputing.com, it's like $250 for a 240gb and they are much faster than the ssd's that come from Apple.



I usually take computer reviews with a grain of salt(and prob should here, as well), but I read an interesting review on the new "Retina" MBP. It said the SSD's data transfer rate is much faster than other SSD's out there because in the new R-MBP the SSD's are not going through a SATA connection.

I do understand you are talking about putting an aftermarket SSD in the "old" body style MBP. Just thought this was interesting, though.


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## daveheinzel (Jul 7, 2012)

I've been using my new retina MacBook Pro for a week now, and I can tell you that it is a fantastic machine. I do a lot of video work and photo work, and it's absolutely stunning for both (FCPX and Aperture).

Don't believe the negative stories about its graphics card not being able to drive the screen resolution. There are only a few situations where you'll see that effect, and the computer does not, in any way, feel slow or "stuttery."

I'm coming from a 17" MacBook Pro. The retina's screen is much more clear, but as others have said, it's a smaller workspace (understandably). Is that bad? No. Do I miss the extra room from my 17"? Sure. What I miss more is the battery of the 17". The retina's battery lasts several hours when really pushing it, which is nice. But it does drain faster than my 17".

Anyway, it's a great computer. The screen, the lightness of the machine, the speed, the built-in HDMI port... I just really like it for what I do. Using Safari, most websites look just fine. Yes, images are usually not retina resolution, but some are. Text in Safari is great. Text in Pages... not great. Word processing in Pages is pretty ugly actually. But they'll catch up and update it. Photoshop isn't ideal, but it's not horrible either. Aperture and FCPX are beautiful.

Like I always tell people (and the same is true for cameras): if you need one now, get one now. If you want to wait, wait. But once you commit, commit. Don't feel bad two weeks later when they come out with something faster. Just get a machine that does what you need to do. And then do it.


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## melbournite (Jul 7, 2012)

daveheinzel said:


> I've been using my new retina MacBook Pro for a week now, and I can tell you that it is a fantastic machine. I do a lot of video work and photo work, and it's absolutely stunning for both (FCPX and Aperture).



Ok, I'm getting jealous now.


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## daveheinzel (Jul 7, 2012)

melbournite said:


> Ok, I'm getting jealous now.



You'll love yours. And good tips on going SSD on MacBook Pros. I did the same on my old 17, and it made such a big difference.


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## bornshooter (Jul 7, 2012)

i take it lightroom doesnt look to great on the retina display?i dont think adobe will be quick updating it either


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