I'm leaning towards getting a retina 13', but what would you say is the performance drop off between the 13 and 15; would I notice much improvement between the two? I do not do much video editing. My day to day tasks will be mostly using vmware fusion to run virtual studio, email, internet, excel functions etc, as well as some light gaming. Also, which model gets the better battery life? The apple website is pretty vague.
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The rMBP 15 isn't THAT much more expensive ($2200 versus $1700...perhaps a 30% price increase) but is a vastly superior machine performance-wise in addition to giving more screen real estate. Quad-core CPU instead of dual-core, and dedicated GPU instead of integrated graphics. I'd go with the 15 if you're even considering it instead of the 13.
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I must admit I'm not very supportive of macs, but imo given your use of the laptop, why not going for a windows laptop ? It'll save you a lot of money, and you'd get, as they say, "more bang for your buck" (seriously this expression is just gross xD). Especially if you wanna play a few games...
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The 15" reportedly provides at least an hour more battery life. For lighter tasks, the base 2.3 GHz 15" can get 2-3 hours more than the 13". Unless the 15" is just too big, it's easily the better choice.
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kornchild2002 Notebook Deity
The 13" MBP (standard) is grossly overpriced though. The 13" rMBP is OK mainly because of the display and stock inclusion of SSD. That being said, the extra money spent for the 15" rMBP is really worth it as the unit is better all around. It has a better CPU and GPU configuration (and an actual dedicated GPU), baseline 256GB SSD instead of 128GB, and the battery life is a bit better for general performance. The price difference between the two is really slim if you configure the 13" rMBP with a 256GB SSD. At that point, the 15" rMBP is only $100 more. You should buy the most notebook that you can afford. The 13" rMBP would have been alright if Apple at least included a dedicated GPU and quad-core CPU (though it would have been a tight fit due to the cooling systems). That would have made its premium cost a bit easier to swallow. Instead they are essentially offering a standard 13" MBP with a high resolution screen missing an optical drive. -
4.4 lbs (same as rMBP 15)
Magnesium alloy case
Quad-core Ivy Bridge i7
640M with 2 gb video memory (a step down from the rMBP 15's, but they're both midrange GPUs)
8 gb ram
Optical drive with available Blu-Ray player (a step up in my opinion)
256 gb SSD
1080p IPS (lower resolution than the rMBP but still good resolution, and before you mention Orangegate, it's been fixed).
With the SSD (an upgrade; everything else is stock on the S15 Performance), it comes in at $1329. Price difference of roughly $900, or roughly a 75% price premium for the rMBP 15. The rMBP 15 is the better machine if cost is no object, sure, but it's not in an entirely different league than the S15 Premium so that you can't compare price and specs back-to-back (in my opinion). -
Too bad some of us were not given a choice for a retina 17. I sure hope some manufacturer brings out a retina 17 inch in the near future. With no or optional choice for a optical drive, USB 3.0 ports, Thunderbolt ports and a nice SSD drive.
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The S15 is a great value, but the numeric keypad is a deal killer.
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great disussion guys.
To Thundercat:
I do agree with your point, and to be honest, I am more partial to windows. However, I just feel like with every windows pc, there is something missing, either screen, keyboard, trackpad or performance. Also, I won't be running primarily in Windows, I will only be using Visual Studio, SQL Server and some stat analysis tools on it. For everything else I will of course be running in OSX. I first bought a dell xps 14, and it just wasn't cutting it for me in terms of preformance. I purchased a 13 Retina Pro and was blown away by the screen, but running it at highest resolution, it would not even comfortably run skype and firefox without hickups. So today I went back to the apple store and exchanged for a 15 retina. So far, I am very satisfied. I miss the smaller form factor, but I think the performance gain outweighs the drawbacks. The screen real estate also allow me to not run max res, as I can have more windows on the screen with a lower resolution.
Once again, Thanks everyone for the help. Now its just a matter of getting used to OSX (really miss being able to scale 2 windows side by side)
ps. watching a Ted BR rip and omg the retina screen is just amazing -
Karamazovmm Overthinking? Always!
you can still do that, download better touch tools and enable windows snapping
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I'm not saying "don't buy an rMBP 15." I'm not saying "there's no reason someone might choose an rMBP over an S15." I'm just responding to the assertion that there's nothing comparable to an rMBP 15 on the OEM front, i.e., an ultraportable midsize multimedia performance machine. -
There is a razer laptop that is a nearly exact copy of the mbr under windows. I think it's the blade, but as you may see it's not very appreciated since it's rather expansive and not very powerful (the funny thing however is that it's the same tier of performance as the mbr, but I guess most people expected raw power from razer instead of mobility). AnandTech - The New Razer Blade: Thoroughly Reviewed for a review, but yeah I expect anandtech to do the reproach I just stated.
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For me the gfx was the dealbreaker, even if i ain't gaming much i still want do have decent fps when i do.
And one point many ppl are missing is that running windows steam in os x works great, most games run totaly fine.
And for the 13" vs 15" MBPr i would pick the 13" if i did't need the dedicated GFX and 15" if i do. -
saturnotaku Notebook Nobel Laureate
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I am talking about running windows steam client under wineskin.
retina 13 or 15
Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by hookem14, Dec 7, 2012.