retina 13 or 15

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.

 

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.

 

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...

 

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.

 

I would somewhat agree with this post if the OP was going to use Windows to do all of their tasks (e-mail, internet, Excel, virtual studio, and gaming). I see absolutely no point in buying a Mac if your day-to-day activities are all going to be done in Windows. That's like spending extra money to get a Shelby instead of a V8 Mustang only to never take it above 15 MPH. However, the old saying that you quoted is becoming less and less when it comes to Macs. Apple has almost always put their Macs up at higher prices. However, they have been coming down a lot. The MacBook Air is extremely competitive with other ultrabooks, the iMac is also getting there, and I have yet to see an all aluminum Windows notebook as thin as the 15" rMBP that offers that high of a resolution along with all the I/O ports, battery life, and trackpad. So you are paying a little premium for the 15" rMBP but there really isn't a Windows alternative out there yet.

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.

 

The closest there is is the Vaio S15 Performance.

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.

 

The S15 is a great value, but the numeric keypad is a deal killer.

 

There are things certain people won't like about it. That's as subjective as they come (though not invalid for you youself, of course). The main thing is I was trying to refute the assertion that there's "nothing like" the rMBP 15 from a Windows OEM. Numpad versus no numpad may be a matter of strong personal preference for a particular buyer, but it doesn't mean the laptops are in two different classes. Both are high performance, extremely lightweight 15" machines with nice screens.

 

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

 

you can still do that, download better touch tools and enable windows snapping

 

Except it suffers from orangegate issue and keyboard ghosting horror issue.

 

"Orangegate" was fixed. Models shipped since October have red reds, not orange reds. As for ghosting, some rMBP 15 owners had the same complaint, and the complaint isn't what I'd call widespread in either camp. EDIT: I see you were talking about keyboard ghosting not screen ghosting. Still, the point remains that some owners in both camps have made some complaints, but both are well-respected machines overall.

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.

 

Thanks a lot! This is an awesome tool!

 

Vaio S15 was one of the notebook i did check before buying the MBPr, the 640M LE gfx in the sony is youst to week (635M is also faster) for me, the 650M is 40-65% faster in all tests.
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.

 

The 640M can overclock to get within a couple percentage points of the 650.

Are you talking about running the Mac Steam client, running Steam via Boot Camp, or running the Windows Steam client in a virtual machine (aka Crossover, Parallels, VMWare Fusion, etc)? The Mac Steam client is buggy and Valve has done little to fix it, and there aren't nearly as many games. I do have to say it was nice to see Borderlands 2 become Steamplay in a relatively short space of time. Running Steam in Boot Camp is just like doing it on a normal Windows machine, so that's fine. Playing games in a virtual machine or with a wrapper is hardly an ideal solution. If you want to take the time to mess with it, more power to you. IMO, it's faster and easier to simply boot into Windows.

 

Overlock notebook gfx, no thx...already hot enough, and remember there is a big difference between 640M and 640M LE.

I am talking about running windows steam client under wineskin.