3 ms·

Thank you so much for writing this. I've been on the fence (fences?) deciding on the right model for a laptop upgrade. The portability of the Air? Features of t

by mccolin 14y ago

Thank you so much for writing this. I've been on the fence (fences?) deciding on the right model for a laptop upgrade. The portability of the Air? Features of the "basic" 13" Pro? The screen of the 13" Retina? The much better performance of the 15" Retina? This is the first review I've read that adequately addresses the real-world performance issues of the newest member of the lineup. I find the pricing of the current Mac laptop lineup to be out of whack with the feature steps between each level, which makes picking the best performance and value difficult.

anotherbadlogin 14y ago
Not to mention Apple's making the same mistakes over and over. Same shitty glossy screen. Same idiotic mania to make products thinner at the expense of battery life (especially stupid from the company that swears you never need to change a battery). Same keyboards with no real Delete keys. Now glued-in batteries. Soldered-in RAM. This entire decline of Apple's product line reflects massive failure to recognize what Apple has helped prove: a lot of people don't need a computer. Computer users and tablet users are DIVERGING, so the last thing the devices should do is CONVERGE. If someone fires up a computer now, he needs a COMPUTER and not a crippled gimmick. Why would I buy a computer if it's just a tablet with a keyboard? I can buy... A TABLET WITH A KEYBOARD. People are finally realizing that Apple is sadly detached from real-world usage, but they've been getting a free pass on it for decades. Literally decades. They capitalized when the competition simply showed greater stupidity than they did: 1. Creative Labs utterly blew the design and marketing of MP3 players. 2. Everyone blew the UI and functionality of cell phones, which pretty much fell off a cliff after the StarTAC. 3. Microsoft became moribund, lost, and increasingly irrelevant as the only things a lot of people needed to do were surf the Web and play media. The sheen is off. It may be fiascoes like Maps that started some critical thinking, but there are many more fundamental problems that reveal Apple's dire need for a common-sense overhaul of its product line. Stuff like this: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/will-apple-ever-fix-iphones-biggest.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/will-apple-ever-fix-i...
evanmoran 14y ago
If you code and/or game I'd recommend the 15" retina, it is the best computer I've ever owned and worth every penny. The screen size is useful for putting terminals next to your code editor, etc. And for gaming I was recently playing Natural Selection 2 (through boot camp) and I found I was loading new maps MUCH faster then other people. We are talking 5-30 seconds faster and in several hours of play not a single person loaded the game faster. Pretty amazing. Lastly if you do go the Apple route get max RAM as these newest computers aren't upgradable. Good luck!
- mccolin 14y ago
  Thanks for the info. I code and also use the machine for laying out documents, web browser, and lightweight design, etc. Mostly coding. I'm normally desk-bound, however, and am weighing the value of the Retina screen if I'm going to spend most of my time looking at an external monitor. I have, however, not heard a bad review of the 15"r. I'm surprised to learn the machines are not RAM upgradeable. That's a major negative.
  - aes256 14y ago
    > I'm surprised to learn the machines are not RAM upgradeable. That's a major negative. Between that, the glued-in batteries, the on-board storage, and the lack of an optical drive (i.e. a slot for a second hard drive), I'm really put off the new retina MacBooks.
- Gigablah 14y ago
  > I found I was loading new maps MUCH faster then other people This is most likely due to your SSD -- if you had a regular disk drive, you'd see the same performance hit as the others.

by mccolin 14y ago

anotherbadlogin 14y ago

Not to mention Apple's making the same mistakes over and over. Same shitty glossy screen. Same idiotic mania to make products thinner at the expense of battery life (especially stupid from the company that swears you never need to change a battery). Same keyboards with no real Delete keys. Now glued-in batteries. Soldered-in RAM. This entire decline of Apple's product line reflects massive failure to recognize what Apple has helped prove: a lot of people don't need a computer. Computer users and tablet users are DIVERGING, so the last thing the devices should do is CONVERGE. If someone fires up a computer now, he needs a COMPUTER and not a crippled gimmick. Why would I buy a computer if it's just a tablet with a keyboard? I can buy... A TABLET WITH A KEYBOARD. People are finally realizing that Apple is sadly detached from real-world usage, but they've been getting a free pass on it for decades. Literally decades. They capitalized when the competition simply showed greater stupidity than they did: 1. Creative Labs utterly blew the design and marketing of MP3 players. 2. Everyone blew the UI and functionality of cell phones, which pretty much fell off a cliff after the StarTAC. 3. Microsoft became moribund, lost, and increasingly irrelevant as the only things a lot of people needed to do were surf the Web and play media. The sheen is off. It may be fiascoes like Maps that started some critical thinking, but there are many more fundamental problems that reveal Apple's dire need for a common-sense overhaul of its product line. Stuff like this: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/will-apple-ever-fix-iphones-biggest.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/will-apple-ever-fix-i...

evanmoran 14y ago

If you code and/or game I'd recommend the 15" retina, it is the best computer I've ever owned and worth every penny. The screen size is useful for putting terminals next to your code editor, etc. And for gaming I was recently playing Natural Selection 2 (through boot camp) and I found I was loading new maps MUCH faster then other people. We are talking 5-30 seconds faster and in several hours of play not a single person loaded the game faster. Pretty amazing. Lastly if you do go the Apple route get max RAM as these newest computers aren't upgradable. Good luck!

mccolin 14y ago
Thanks for the info. I code and also use the machine for laying out documents, web browser, and lightweight design, etc. Mostly coding. I'm normally desk-bound, however, and am weighing the value of the Retina screen if I'm going to spend most of my time looking at an external monitor. I have, however, not heard a bad review of the 15"r. I'm surprised to learn the machines are not RAM upgradeable. That's a major negative.
- aes256 14y ago
  > I'm surprised to learn the machines are not RAM upgradeable. That's a major negative. Between that, the glued-in batteries, the on-board storage, and the lack of an optical drive (i.e. a slot for a second hard drive), I'm really put off the new retina MacBooks.
Gigablah 14y ago
> I found I was loading new maps MUCH faster then other people This is most likely due to your SSD -- if you had a regular disk drive, you'd see the same performance hit as the others.