Macbook with retina worth it now or wait? looking for best deals out there?...

any good deals if any?

and are retina laptops selling like pancakes?

or hsould i wait till a newer model comes out? but i dont know when that will be...

 

No.

Yes.

If you're not primarily going to use the machine with OS X, don't bother at all.

 

The best deal on new is the student discount with the $100 gift card or you can wait until Best Buy has open boxes one guy on macrumors said he got one for $1600 but those cases are rare Best Buy only discount 10% off open box apple products unless they have missing parts or scratches

retinas seems to be selling pretty well not like ipads or iphones but I was surprised how until last week the EDD changed on apple to 7 days

newer model wont be to different is going to be a revision with ivy i7-XX40QM CPU's and maybe they overclock the 650M a little more or they just use the same clocks

 

do they give bonuses to military? and what about student discounts?

also the 650m is mid range card...why dont apple include high end cards? :/

 

Thermal and power limitations. Apple picked a powerful GPU for the form factor.

student discount on retina mbp is currently: $200 + $100 app store credit

 

yea but can it even max out diablo 3...?

 

at what Res? at 2880x1800, is a bit rough, but at like 1080p it runs fine.

 

If you're not heart set on OSX then don't bother... I have one though, and I'm happy, my config is fast as hell, faster than my Elitebook. But I personally really like OSX. Obviously you can get a lot more power for the price.

 

I should add that I can run Win7 in parallels about as fast as my Elitebook would run Win7.... lol I'll never be able to upgrade past 16 GB ram though. So keep future upgrades in mind.

 

The term is "Selling like Hotcakes". . And the answer is yes they are but hold on and slow down. The Retina MBP is not selling because everyone "needs" it, it's selling because it's the one and only notebook of it's kind. There will always been tons of "gotta have it, gotta have it" people and "First on the block for bragging rights" types of people and I would bet most of the immediate buyers are these types of people.

Only buy this Mac if you honestly see a real need for it. It's expensive, it's in it's early stages and the second version might be a much better buy. If you need a new Macbook then get the standard Macbook Pro and opt for an SSD in it or install one yourself if possible but right now you'd be just wasting your money if you're buying it just because it's "out there".

 

I had the m18x R1 with 6990m CF and I enjoy playing games on the macbook pro retina.
games like mass effect 3 and dead space 2 run smoothly on 2880 x 1880 res.
diablo 3 runs smoothly on 1920 x 1080 with all settings set to max , on 2880 res it gives about 25-30 fps all set to high.
games like BF3 run smoothly on high and can run smoothly on ultra if u turn off anti anailising.

I used to be a hardcore gamer, but then I realised I had the m18x just to run a game on max fps and then uninstall it... most good games out there that i enjoy playing are not so much graphic demanding... like diablo 3 , world of warcraft , mass effect 3 etc... even BF3 can be runed on high on the macbook pro retina and its more than enough for me.

in other words... if u desire to have a REAL laptop and not a 6kg weight ( dont get me wrong , i think the m18x is a wonderfull machine) that still able to run all games out there then the macbook pro retina is just fine.

I remember getting the Razer blade laptop when razer said "its the worlds first true gaming laptop" , I sold it after 2 weeks because its a piece of ...
heats up like a toaster oven (feeling 80 degree celsius on my legs), the GT555m cant run any games, speakers are ty , battery sucks etc...
After saying that and owning Asust g53jw , aliewanre m11x , two alienware m18x , in my opinion... macbook pro retina is the first gaming laptop...
enough performance , amazing portability and sound and great screen...

 

Exactly the same way I feel with the M18X was running benchmarks instead of playing games all the time and with the retina is totally different because firing up a game and finding how amazing it looks at 2880x1800 is like my first PC game experience even old games look gorgeous so I don't want to stop playing and I don't even care if I get 40FPS because is already to impressive for a 1/2 of an inch laptop

comparing my wife's macbook pro at stock resolution vs the retina at scaled 1440x900 the retina still looks better so playing games that require a lot of horse power at 1440 is not an issue either so yeah this is the best ultra portable gaming laptop eyes closed

now talking about OSX and productivity is the best also because you get all the battery life and basically do everything you can do in windows but playing games of course

P.D. you kind of trolling the Razer Blade

 

I suggest to wait. There is very few applications that takes advantages of the retinal display. There were a few comments on this forum saying how good it is for games and I disagree. PC games depends on graphic cards and CPU to run and none of them gives you such a high resolution of more than 720p. Puting 1800p in a 15 inches laptop is a waste at this time.

 

I can hardly agree with this. Games are going for higher resolutions, including multi monitor setup. Basically in the end what you experience at console gaming, doesnt translate necessarily to pc gaming.

 

And I can't agree with your statement in context of this thread - since you can't play modern at max resolution and max settings with the 650M, even overclocked. It is 'tolerable' for some games at medium settings. Your statement is only for desktops, which can support those resolutions. MY GTX 680 has trouble pushing 2560 by 1440 with Skyrim on Max. This is preference only, but I rather lower resolution and max graphical settings than max resolution on lower graphical settings.

In regards to gaming, rMBP is not the worth it.

 

AnandTech - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown

88 FPS at 1600p with everything completely maxed out (4*MSA + 16*AF) is having trouble playing Skyrim? The 680 runs Battlefield 3 at 1600p with absolutely everything maxed at 65 FPS too. If you bump it up to 5760*1200 it runs it at 40+ FPS.

Also the way the laptop works you can still run games at 1440 by 900 in OSX and have it look great. I guess if you wanted you could buy a 1080p monitor and run your games on that just fine too.

 

Sorry for not specifying - I take for granted that Skyrim does not come with Hi-Res textures to begin with. I also use those created by players and improves graphics/physics/environments immensely.

Once you start considering 1440x900/1080p resolution - doesn't the retina display become a tad meaningless? Sure it still looks good, but so would any high quality IPS panel.

Not bashing the retina and its gaming prowess. It is an excellent machine. I'm just responding to some of the responses revolving around "is it worth it not."

 

Well, the point is that if you say game 10% of the time you are only affected by that 10% of the time, the retina screen comes into use at all other times.

I don't think there are any laptops that can "max" BF3 at 2880*1800 that don't weigh more then 10 pounds. In fact I don't think there are many laptops that can do that at all.

You can run a lot of modern games on high settings at high res with the 650m. If gaming is your main purpose, don't buy the retina, buy a gaming laptop. If gaming is secondary the retina can deliver. To be honest if gaming is your main purpose and portability does not matter, just buy a desktop.

Also you must be running some inefficient things if your dropping 58 FPS in Skyrim off mods.

 

I agree completely. I just wanted to put some counterweight to some of the statements that make it seem like gaming on a retina screen is a magical heavenly experience for gamers. My uATX - GTX 680/27" IPS screen combo cost less than the retina by about $800-900 - to put things into perspective for some people (that said, I have the rMBP).

In regards to Skryim, interestingly enough, when I just used the official Hi-Res pack, FPS plummeted at max. I was extremely confused and utterly sad that the 680 could not handle it (Skyrim was the first game I played with it). I then installed
player-made and higher res textures, and it became super smooth. The lag occurs when I'm outside under a beautifully rendered starry night, as well as a heavily wooded area. And sometimes when a billion things are happening on the screen. My original statement of "trouble pushing" might be to strong, as it is great 95% of the time, but I was - perhaps optimistically - hoping for a completely flawless experience when purchasing a $500 card.

 

I see the problem was how you worded it, thus my reference to console games that are 720p. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The point stands that you can and you should put higher res panels on notebooks, I dont only game, actually thats something that I rarely do now. The added res would be god send for me that since I use 6 screens at work, plus my notebook. And given that I dont own, and probably never will own a desktop again, it improves my usable area.

And I think only the m18x with 2 680m can handle games maxed at that res, since you can overclock the 680m to the 670 levels.

 

Hello

I'am thinking about to buy the new retina macbook pro with the same config as You.
What is Your experience when gaming? I mean the temperature issues, and the battery performance ( doesn't it dramatically reduce it's performance if the charger is on 5-8 hours per day? )

 

Still on rMBP?? Wow, you must be in love with the beast

 

I am not going to lie is hard to go back to low res screens after trying retina same with my iPad

 

You might want to consider waiting a bit then.

There are many more apps iPad apps with Retina-support than there are HiDPI OS X programs. A lot of programs will look muddy and pixelated until they are upgraded with new art assets. Apple's own iWork programs look good, but beyond that it's generally a more paltry showing.

 

everything looks perfect on my Retina... of course I run 2880x1800 no HiDPI stuff...

 

Heating wise , I will link you notebookcheck.net review of the rMBP , in mid review page they give 2 picture with the top and buttom side of the laptop along with tempetures under load. For me when I game ( in bed on my lap or on the desk) heat doesnt bother me, and I have long game session of 4 hours or so... even though keyboard / mid buttom part can get a little hot around the 40-50 degrees celcius...
comparing to other machines I used same way, its a night and day difference...

battery wise, it is a good question, but Im afraid I have no answer. and to be honest , when I do long gaming sessions I tend to leave the power adapter hooked in because it doesnt bother me much...
the power brick cord and the power brick itself are so small and thin that it has no weight effect while using the laptop (another great thing about it). the mag safe connection doesnt force the laptop to lean over in a certain angle when not using it on a desk etc... unlike the asus g53jw, the razer blade 17 inch or the alienware m18x...

the rMBP performance dont drop if u play on battery... ( unlike the other models i owned).

in other words , very happy

notebookcheck review : Review Apple MacBook Pro 15 Retina 2.3 GHz Mid 2012 - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

believe it or not, thats a joke my friends adapted to themselfs
when i tell them " its a great machine , im keeping this one", they start laughing

 

it's true that the rMBP is one of a kind, and I can't find a similar windows offering that has a good screen, good looks, <5lbs, <1", & 650M or higher. I really want to buy it now, and get the 768GB SSD but it seems that would bump me into the $3000 range and I can't justify that if I'm going to spend the majority of my time on Windows 8 and not OS X.

I'm thinking of buying a $1000 ultrabook for the moment and wait till Apple upgrades the GPU and retina support expands for bootcamp if it's within a 1 year time frame. I want to be able to run some games at medium-high at 1800p (unless the scaled 1200p looks just as good with no blurriness, I haven't seen it yet but my old G53 running games at 720p on the 1080p display looked terrible), so any predictions on if that will happen next year? I can wait it out a year from now, but if Apple is not going to adopt the nvidia 7x0 series for 2-3 more years, I think I will just get the MSI GE60, the closest competitor (though twice as thick...).

 

It's probably safe to say that there will be an update some time next year, but what form it will take will only be known when Apple makes it public. There's no point in speculating any further than that.

 

Yeah, I've been trying to compare 2009 vs 2010, 2010 vs 2011, and 2011 vs 2012 releases to see the general trend of what they do with the GPU, and it's gone '09 - 9600M GT to '10 GT 330M to '11 ATI 6770M to '12 GT 650M. I think we should see a new GPU next year.

I'll probably stick with a decent ultrabook for the next 1-2 years so when better retina support + better components come, it'll have been worth the wait. Hopefully it doesn't cost +$1000 to go from 256GB SSD to 768GB SSD in the future as well...

 

I decided to wait on the rMBP purchase. On one hand, the rMBP has just about every improvement I want over my current uMBP — USB 3, IPS, good stock SSD, better cooling. On the other hand, the retina tech is not mature. The software isn't ready for it, and from what I've read, current GPUs don't perform well enough at the maximum scaling settings (e.g. 1920x1200 = 3840x2400 HiDPI scaled onto 2880x1800 panel). Both of those issues should be resolved simply by waiting out this (and perhaps the next) product cycle.

It also helps that I already have an early 2011 uMBP 17 that is working fine.

 

I'm extremely happy with my not-retina-but-still-high-res 2011 uMBP.

The performance is strong, scaling is not a factor, size of elements on the screen is good, display is very good (matte), which isn't available on the rMBP at the moment.

That said, it's an amazing piece of kit. I'll probably get one when they come out with a matte display.

 

i think wait for the price to get lower is the best solution, it is too pricey now, just like ssd