MacBook.

[b.e-n]

Hey guys,

I have a 2008 aluminum macbook (2.4ghz c2d, 4gb ram) which is pretty old and can be very irritating when trying to leave multiple things open at the same time (I like to leave lecture notes open in preview or ppt so I know where I left off). It often blocks and runs very choppy, and when it gets hot can make quite a lot of noise, which isn't great. approx 1h30 of battery life..

I primarily use

safari

microsoft word and powerpoint

preview

mail

itunes

vlc

should I go for

2.0ghz i7, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd macbook air for 1699$

or

2.5ghz i5, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd retina macbook pro for 1999

doesn't look like there's much of a performance difference btween the two, for me I guess it comes down to:

1: is this retina display really worth 300 bucks more + the extra bulk ?

2: are both these machines fast enough to comfortably last 3-4 years doing the stuff i do ?

3: how shitty are the speakers in the macbook air ?

[TruMoo]

1) NO

2)YES

3) Okay (Use Headphones tho)

If your gonna pay 1999 for a 13' Retina why not just get the Base 15' RMBP?

I have the 12' Base Model Macbook Air (4GB and 128SSD) and its more than enough for what I need. Paid $1079. Worth every penny. I would hold off on the retina. Price will come down in a couple of years. Remember the first generation 08' MacBook Air? It was a total p.o.s ($1,799)

Heres a more in Depth review

Edited December 3, 2012 by Phongables

[b.e-n]

I don't think I'm willing to drop 2k on a retina mac; like you said, it doesn't really look like it's worth 300 bucks more for a pretty screen. and I need something portable.

gonna get the air, thanks for the info bud

[poops]

I just got a 13" 2012 MBA a few weeks ago. Its like most apple things, while the hardware is not always the newest or fastest it is pretty awesome and the software is shit.

My notes:

-Its super thin and super light and looks awesome

-Flash storage is cool and the 4GB 128GB base model is fast enough for what i do

-I hate os x and all that shit

-I dual boot with ubuntu, only use os x to test things in safari

-ubuntu is a little wonky in the beginning, mainly touchpad related stuff, have to modify a few settings to get everything working nicely, had issues with firefox crashing, switched to chrome and have not looked back

-i will be able to sell it when the 2014 one comes out and not get laughed at like you would if you try to sell a dell, or any other computer for that matter, 2 years after you bought it

[yuppie]

OSX is the most memory hungry operating system ever. You need to get a badass (high-end) MacBook Pro in order to really fly.

MacBook Pro with Retina Display

16GB RAM

i7 2.6Ghz

512 SSD.

Solid state drives are the most important things to have your OS running on in this day and age. It will change the way you compute for sure. Never get an SSD under 256GB. Replacing the HDD in your MBP with an SSD is the best thing you could ever do for yourself. Need more storage? Replace the SuperDrive with a 2TB laptop HDD and run the OS on the SSD.

[blm14]

^ I see those large SSD drives fail at an absolutely astonishing rate. We have a supercomputing cluster where I work (40,000 CPU cores, composed of blade-ish servers, 4U units with 8 modules, each module has dual 6-core xeons) with a ton of 256GB SSD's in it and about a third of them have failed in a year. I honestly recommend to people not to go above 128GB if you can avoid it, and ONLY keep your boot data there (I think you can set up MacOS to have a "system" partition on one drive and then basically keep all your data on magnetic).

It's also MUCH easier to recover data from magnetic drives (traditional spinning platters) than it is to recover data from a failed SSD drive. If you keep things you care about on your SSD and it fails and you don't use some kind of backup you are fucked.

And honestly there are some performance tweaks you can do that will give you at least SOME of the benefits of an SSD drive without actually having one. Put your swap on a thumb drive, or an SSD card, for example.

edit: did not mean to rep myself LOL

Edited January 3, 2013 by blm14

[conqueror]

i am gonna buy a 13" air in mid-feb, new models would be for sale in june at the very earliest right? don't think i can wait (have been on this netbook for over a year now).

[jebeebus]

[poops]

i am gonna buy a 13" air in mid-feb, new models would be for sale in june at the very earliest right? don't think i can wait (have been on this netbook for over a year now).

buy now man, you wont regret it. i was in the same position as you and got tired of waiting.you can always resell for a little bit of a loss if the new one is THAT much better, but i doubt there are going to be any major changes.

[qom]

Hello!

 

 

I'm looking for a leather laptop case for a Retina MacBook 13".

Looking for something like the one Our Legacy made a few years ago.

 

Anyone seen anything like this that's made to fit a rMPB? (Even if I got my hands on the Our Legacy one I think it's slightly too large for the current MacBook line).

 

[_untitled]

Joined the Macbook bandwagon, what are some good theme/desktop customization tools to clean it up abit?

[yuppie]

Joined the Macbook bandwagon, what are some good theme/desktop customization tools to clean it up abit?

 

Just make sure you're on 10.10 and use dark mode.  You can get really technical and use something like NerdTool and there is lots of stuff out there to customize your mac, but I'd recommend keeping it as simple as possible.

[xchen]

I'm cracking my wife's old MBP open to try and get it running. If I can get it to power up with a new battery I might try and use it myself.

Edit: got it working without replacing the batt. It's from 09 so I put in 8 gb of ram and an ssd and its performing pretty well. Definitely pleased with the performance for only ~$175 when we'd completely written this Mac off as dead

Edited February 9, 2015 by xchen

[po_boy_fuuma_hatesbargerz]

I'm cracking my wife's old MBP open to try and get it running. If I can get it to power up with a new battery I might try and use it myself.

Edit: got it working without replacing the batt. It's from 09 so I put in 8 gb of ram and an ssd and its performing pretty well. Definitely pleased with the performance for only ~$175 when we'd completely written this Mac off as dead

 

My friend just had her MBP from 2006 die. In 2015. 

   I think a logic board bake could save it, but the fact that it worked great for 9 years is insane.

[netw0rth]

what stickers does everyone have on theirs 

[aso2004]

You don't have to ask that do you ??

Plaster it with preme stickers son..

[Mr.Sander]

I just keep it clean aint time to put 'preme stickers on it like 99% azn kids

[CASSAVA PIECE]

it would've taken you less time to put a supreme sticker on it than it did to make that post

[lesteel]

Design is one of the best things about Mac, why would you ruin it with preme or any other sticker?

[bfan]

^ I see those large SSD drives fail at an absolutely astonishing rate. We have a supercomputing cluster where I work (40,000 CPU cores, composed of blade-ish servers, 4U units with 8 modules, each module has dual 6-core xeons) with a ton of 256GB SSD's in it and about a third of them have failed in a year. I honestly recommend to people not to go above 128GB if you can avoid it, and ONLY keep your boot data there (I think you can set up MacOS to have a "system" partition on one drive and then basically keep all your data on magnetic).

It's also MUCH easier to recover data from magnetic drives (traditional spinning platters) than it is to recover data from a failed SSD drive. If you keep things you care about on your SSD and it fails and you don't use some kind of backup you are fucked.

And honestly there are some performance tweaks you can do that will give you at least SOME of the benefits of an SSD drive without actually having one. Put your swap on a thumb drive, or an SSD card, for example.

edit: did not mean to rep myself LOL

 

have you seen the same thing with hybrid ssd/hdd ? considering upgrading to 500 gb for my mid 2009 mbp

[xchen]

SSDs have come a long way in two years. I think you'll be fine. It's worth the upgrade.

Edit: see a few posts above. I just did this with my 2009 MBP and it's now really fast. I'm super pleased with the performance.

Edited February 17, 2015 by xchen

[bfan]

ware 2 kop? looking at crucial.com right now

[xchen]

Amazon, newegg, local retail. I got a cheap SSD at micro center for $72. Pretty sure I got crucial but any sata SSD will do. There's a vid on cnet how to change it out.

[ProfMonnitoff]

Does anyone use their Retina MBP at a scaled resolution? I'm thinking of getting this new Macbook, but only if it doesn't look like crap while running in scaled 1440x900.

[Charts]

So how easy do you think it'll be to unintentionally break the new MB.

[dimmak]

Does anyone use their Retina MBP at a scaled resolution? I'm thinking of getting this new Macbook, but only if it doesn't look like crap while running in scaled 1440x900.

I have the 15" MBP and I use it at full resolution. I've tried running it scaled to get more screen space, but it's just not worth it once you're used to using retina at full res. If screen real estate is your issue, I'd suggest just getting the 15", you'll be disappointed running at a scaled resolution.

[Jokez]

Canadians got fucked with how weak the Canadian dollar is. The price increase on the new retina MacBook Pro is brutal. $1299 -> $1549 for a base 13" rMBP. $1149 for a base 13" Air. Held off buying a laptop til the Spring Forward event too. Might just buy a refurb.

[frankie_four]

$1540 / $1168 in Germany

[Kasper]

Canadians got fucked with how weak the Canadian dollar is. The price increase on the new retina MacBook Pro is brutal. $1299 -> $1549 for a base 13" rMBP. $1149 for a base 13" Air. Held off buying a laptop til the Spring Forward event too. Might just buy a refurb.

I noticed the same thing with the watch. Fucking CDN prices (not just from Apple, but from every company) are so sticky when the C$ appreciates, but way too quick to increase the the C$ depreciate......

[Charts]

Gotta love that USD ramp up.