I hardly think the majority of consumers will buy a laptop based on its user-upgradability. Upgrading is a one-time thing, and you can do that at the Apple when you buy it. And if something malfunctions, most consumers will just take the laptop for repair. That's how most people would do it, and I'm glad Apple is the first company to realize that and design products that suits people's needs.
This buisiness of soldered/non soldered RAM does not make much sense to me I have an iMac with two slots of 2 GB giving 4 GB RAM there are no slots left and the two soldered slots can take no other RAM. I can take them out and play with them as they are not soldered but I cannot have any more RAM.
If the max RAM you can have is 8GB the it makes no difference if it is soldered or stuck in with chewing gum.
i am not happy with a battery i cant swap, and a hd and ram i cant upgrade . All those points will prevent me extending the life of my machine. gone are the days of buying a cheap mbpro and pimping it beyond the available specs on apple store. Apple is starting to suck hard!
The cheapest MacBook Pro is still customizable, except for the battery. The RAM and HDD are easily replaceable.
If this is your goal, simply don't purchase the Retina model.
I hardly think the majority of consumers will buy a laptop based on its user-upgradability. Upgrading is a one-time thing, and you can do that at the Apple when you buy it. And if something malfunctions, most consumers will just take the laptop for repair. That's how most people would do it, and I'm glad Apple is the first company to realize that and design products that suits people's needs.
This isn't just a consumer machine though, it's a Pro model.
My MBP has been upgraded several times as technology has improved, increasing the HDD size and the amount of RAM. The low upgradability isn't a deal breaker for me but I know that a lot of pro users are disappointed.
The lack of a dedicated GPU with the Retina display makes the 13in not very Pro and a non starter IMO. You can kind of get away with it in the 'standard' Pro, but HD4000 is not very future proof. Glad I have the 15in.
"Not very Pro" is a particularly narrow point of view. There are lots of people who use MacBooks for their livelihood (jobs) that will never make heavy use of the GPU, because the applications they use do not require a GeForce chip. DJs, recording artists, sound engineers, Photoshop or Final Cut Pro users. Sure, there are folks that run Cinema 4D, Maya, or do OpenGL/CL programming, but one type of user isn't more "very Pro" than the other.
Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display isn't just a shrunken-down version of its 15-inch counterpart, as a teardown of the device has found key changes to its design, including a rearrangement of the battery cells.
The 13" MacBook Pro apparently never was a "shrunken-down" 15" model. From Wikipedia's "MacBook Pro" entry:
Quote:
At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8, 2009, it was announced that the 13-inch unibody MacBook would be upgraded and re-branded as a MacBook Pro,[38] leaving only the white polycarbonate MacBook in the MacBook line.
i am not happy with a battery i cant swap, and a hd and ram i cant upgrade . All those points will prevent me extending the life of my machine. gone are the days of buying a cheap mbpro and pimping it beyond the available specs on apple store. Apple is starting to suck hard!
This is the way the entire industry is moving. Deal with it. The important and relevance of upgrading specs is also much less than it used to be. There's a very small number of people who feel the need to do it, and Apple would rather cater its design and engineering decisions to the majority. Yes, those days are gone. But that doesn't mean Apple 'is starting to suck hard'. It's something thats been inevitable, and fits in their core philosophy. For 95% of people the advantages of having a thinner, lighter, more reliable device outweigh the cons.
"Not very Pro" is a particularly narrow point of view. There are lots of people who use MacBooks for their livelihood (jobs) that will never make heavy use of the GPU, because the applications they use do not require a GeForce chip. DJs, recording artists, sound engineers, Photoshop or Final Cut Pro users. Sure, there are folks that run Cinema 4D, Maya, or do OpenGL/CL programming, but one type of user isn't more "very Pro" than the other.
This is kind of misleading.
First off, having a dedicated GPU would seem even more important with a retina display -- pushing 3k+ pixels isn't easy. But a number of professionals also use an external second monitor, which is also heavily benefited by a dedicated GPU.
This is a pro model. I was generally ok with it when the MB Air had soldered ram, etc. That is the line for individuals who are more casual users.
Clearly the standard MBP line is a stop-gap that is on the road to phase-out as soon as the price of the retina displays comes down to earthly levels (think 12-18 months). Once the current MBP line is removed, Apple is left with pro models that do not permit upgrading. And the smaller pro models have no dedicated GPU option.
In perspective, this is a diametric switch from the pro models of 3-6 years ago. Those tended to actually be designed for professional use. They could be upgraded. They had rugged GPUs. They offered disk-based HDDs (many professions still require bulk file storage).
It's one thing to push the MB Air to the limit as far as making it slim, etc., but the pro's primary goal should be productivity and adaptability. The new retina pros have none of this. I am not saying that they aren't fantastic machines -- because they are! But as a "pro" model, they leave a lot to be desired.
But this may just be a natural shift in Apple's intentions and product orientation. With mainstream users buying (probably) 99.5% of all "pro" models, making them "professionally equipped" has probably fallen as a priority.
The answer is obvious. If the fact that you *can* do those things was making you happy previously and that happiness has now been taken away, then building your own laptop from scratch or making a hackintosh laptop will obviously make you even happier.
In other words, go make your own laptop and stop whining about something that isn't going to change.
If everyone just takes what Apple gives us without complaining, we'll never get anything better. You think Apple would now talk about non-reflective screens (the new iMacs) if everyone had just shut up about it?
First off, having a dedicated GPU would seem even more important with a retina display -- pushing 3k+ pixels isn't easy. But a number of professionals also use an external second monitor, which is also heavily benefited by a dedicated GPU.
This is a pro model. I was generally ok with it when the MB Air had soldered ram, etc. That is the line for individuals who are more casual users.
I don't know why you answered my post with more generalities about what you personally think "pro" means.
I was being very specific: there are many "Pro" applications used by people who get real work done that do not benefit from a dedicated GPU over the Intel HD 4000. If you're using Logic, FCPX, Photoshop, XCode, or heck, even Microsoft Office. They don't need a GPU for one reason: these applications aren't making heavy (or any) use of OpenGL/CL. A GPU is for running pixel and vertex shaders. You don't need a dedicated GPU to display "3k+ pixels" or even 4 million pixels. Show me that the HD 4000 is inadequate for these applications.
Depends on what you want to call acceptable capacity. A terabyte SSD existed in… gosh, when was it. Maybe 2009. You may guess the price, however.
Spinning drives just hit 4TB (Seagate only, external only, soldered into the case like an idiot), so we'll call that the goalpost. I figure a 4TB SSD in… early winter 2014 for… again, guess the price.
Good news is they can only really move that goalpost once. 5TB is the theoretical maximum for perpendicular recording, isn't it? So once we have drives with 5 1TB platters, it's over.
I agree, the progress should speed up now, the demand for SSD is getting higher & higher.
we have seen capacities move up & price drops in USB drives & HDD.
Hopefully SSD is cheap enough & have the capacity when the HDD hits the wall on upgrade-ability.
PS on a different note, someone needs to update the dictionary on the spell check here, doesn't have basic works like USB or ones commonly used here like iPhone or iPad.
[...] my previously held personal view that I couldn't really tell a retina from a non retina display took a hit last night when I found my iPad 2 was out of juice so I used my wife's retina iPad to watch Netflix! OMG what a difference. Now I am ticked off as I was considering a non retina MBP so I could customize it myself!
It's not quite an even comparison with the Mac because some apps are not yet resolution independent. That means they actually look considerably WORSE on a Retina display due to scaling. Take a look at any Adobe product on a Retina Mac. It's so bad I don't think I could stand to work that way.
Obviously if all you're using is Apple software it doesn't matter, and eventually major apps will be updated, but for now we're in that awkward, yucky transitional phase.
SSDs have come down in prices, in March I bought a 256GB for 300, and now I can get a 512GB for 300, so hopefully by next march we should be able to get a 512GB for 150 or 768GB for 300.
None of that helps the owner of a Retina MacBook Pro though, because they don't USE the otherwise universally adopted and standardized 2.5" format that benefits from that kind of economy of scale. No, instead, in order to achieve that oh-so-important goal of shaving one-eight of an inch off the thickness of the machine (a characteristic that will yield a benefit of 0.0% to my productivity) they elected to use a custom format flash memory card. Those are NOT widely available, and the few you CAN buy are NOT cheap -- like $600 for 480GB.
As an aside, where the hell did you find a 512 for $300? Best I can find around here is $400 for a Crucial.
The answer is obvious. If the fact that you *can* do those things was making you happy previously and that happiness has now been taken away, then building your own laptop from scratch or making a hackintosh laptop will obviously make you even happier.
In other words, go make your own laptop and stop whining about something that isn't going to change.
Complaining HERE won't do any good, but complaining to Apple might. Might not, but at least then you've had your say:
Funny that you bring up the "DIY" idea. I was thinking today that we should ask Apple to let someone else have OSX, please. It's obvious they've lost interest in it (for perfectly understandable reasons), but we still really like it and would like to be able to use it on "pro" grade hardware. If they don't want to build workstations, and that's fine, it would be nice if they would let someone else supply us. One business operator I know has given up on waiting for new towers and just bought a Hack.
Comments
This article states there is an unusual space that will fit a single-platter HDD, hence my comment.
I've been using a "poor man's" version of this for years in my 13" MBP. I don't think is consider buying another one unless it had that capability.
This buisiness of soldered/non soldered RAM does not make much sense to me I have an iMac with two slots of 2 GB giving 4 GB RAM there are no slots left and the two soldered slots can take no other RAM. I can take them out and play with them as they are not soldered but I cannot have any more RAM.
If the max RAM you can have is 8GB the it makes no difference if it is soldered or stuck in with chewing gum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcel655
i am not happy with a battery i cant swap, and a hd and ram i cant upgrade . All those points will prevent me extending the life of my machine. gone are the days of buying a cheap mbpro and pimping it beyond the available specs on apple store. Apple is starting to suck hard!
The cheapest MacBook Pro is still customizable, except for the battery. The RAM and HDD are easily replaceable.
If this is your goal, simply don't purchase the Retina model.
Quote:
Originally Posted by capoeira4u
I hardly think the majority of consumers will buy a laptop based on its user-upgradability. Upgrading is a one-time thing, and you can do that at the Apple when you buy it. And if something malfunctions, most consumers will just take the laptop for repair. That's how most people would do it, and I'm glad Apple is the first company to realize that and design products that suits people's needs.
This isn't just a consumer machine though, it's a Pro model.
My MBP has been upgraded several times as technology has improved, increasing the HDD size and the amount of RAM. The low upgradability isn't a deal breaker for me but I know that a lot of pro users are disappointed.
I feel sorry for that poor computer being torn apart.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thataveragejoe
The lack of a dedicated GPU with the Retina display makes the 13in not very Pro and a non starter IMO. You can kind of get away with it in the 'standard' Pro, but HD4000 is not very future proof. Glad I have the 15in.
"Not very Pro" is a particularly narrow point of view. There are lots of people who use MacBooks for their livelihood (jobs) that will never make heavy use of the GPU, because the applications they use do not require a GeForce chip. DJs, recording artists, sound engineers, Photoshop or Final Cut Pro users. Sure, there are folks that run Cinema 4D, Maya, or do OpenGL/CL programming, but one type of user isn't more "very Pro" than the other.
Originally Posted by majortom1981
Any specific reason why they went with the core i5 3210 and not say the core i5 3317?
Is there a difference in TDP on those?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display isn't just a shrunken-down version of its 15-inch counterpart, as a teardown of the device has found key changes to its design, including a rearrangement of the battery cells.
The 13" MacBook Pro apparently never was a "shrunken-down" 15" model. From Wikipedia's "MacBook Pro" entry:
Quote:
At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8, 2009, it was announced that the 13-inch unibody MacBook would be upgraded and re-branded as a MacBook Pro,[38] leaving only the white polycarbonate MacBook in the MacBook line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcel655
i am not happy with a battery i cant swap, and a hd and ram i cant upgrade . All those points will prevent me extending the life of my machine. gone are the days of buying a cheap mbpro and pimping it beyond the available specs on apple store. Apple is starting to suck hard!
This is the way the entire industry is moving. Deal with it. The important and relevance of upgrading specs is also much less than it used to be. There's a very small number of people who feel the need to do it, and Apple would rather cater its design and engineering decisions to the majority. Yes, those days are gone. But that doesn't mean Apple 'is starting to suck hard'. It's something thats been inevitable, and fits in their core philosophy. For 95% of people the advantages of having a thinner, lighter, more reliable device outweigh the cons.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Is there a difference in TDP on those?
The 33xx series has the same tdp. The only thing I can think of is it gives them more profit vs performance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
"Not very Pro" is a particularly narrow point of view. There are lots of people who use MacBooks for their livelihood (jobs) that will never make heavy use of the GPU, because the applications they use do not require a GeForce chip. DJs, recording artists, sound engineers, Photoshop or Final Cut Pro users. Sure, there are folks that run Cinema 4D, Maya, or do OpenGL/CL programming, but one type of user isn't more "very Pro" than the other.
This is kind of misleading.
First off, having a dedicated GPU would seem even more important with a retina display -- pushing 3k+ pixels isn't easy. But a number of professionals also use an external second monitor, which is also heavily benefited by a dedicated GPU.
This is a pro model. I was generally ok with it when the MB Air had soldered ram, etc. That is the line for individuals who are more casual users.
Clearly the standard MBP line is a stop-gap that is on the road to phase-out as soon as the price of the retina displays comes down to earthly levels (think 12-18 months). Once the current MBP line is removed, Apple is left with pro models that do not permit upgrading. And the smaller pro models have no dedicated GPU option.
In perspective, this is a diametric switch from the pro models of 3-6 years ago. Those tended to actually be designed for professional use. They could be upgraded. They had rugged GPUs. They offered disk-based HDDs (many professions still require bulk file storage).
It's one thing to push the MB Air to the limit as far as making it slim, etc., but the pro's primary goal should be productivity and adaptability. The new retina pros have none of this. I am not saying that they aren't fantastic machines -- because they are! But as a "pro" model, they leave a lot to be desired.
But this may just be a natural shift in Apple's intentions and product orientation. With mainstream users buying (probably) 99.5% of all "pro" models, making them "professionally equipped" has probably fallen as a priority.
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
I'm thinking $100 a TB is a price I like
OK. See you in 2016.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
The answer is obvious. If the fact that you *can* do those things was making you happy previously and that happiness has now been taken away, then building your own laptop from scratch or making a hackintosh laptop will obviously make you even happier.
In other words, go make your own laptop and stop whining about something that isn't going to change.
If everyone just takes what Apple gives us without complaining, we'll never get anything better. You think Apple would now talk about non-reflective screens (the new iMacs) if everyone had just shut up about it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by SchnellFowVay
This is kind of misleading.
First off, having a dedicated GPU would seem even more important with a retina display -- pushing 3k+ pixels isn't easy. But a number of professionals also use an external second monitor, which is also heavily benefited by a dedicated GPU.
This is a pro model. I was generally ok with it when the MB Air had soldered ram, etc. That is the line for individuals who are more casual users.
I don't know why you answered my post with more generalities about what you personally think "pro" means.
I was being very specific: there are many "Pro" applications used by people who get real work done that do not benefit from a dedicated GPU over the Intel HD 4000. If you're using Logic, FCPX, Photoshop, XCode, or heck, even Microsoft Office. They don't need a GPU for one reason: these applications aren't making heavy (or any) use of OpenGL/CL. A GPU is for running pixel and vertex shaders. You don't need a dedicated GPU to display "3k+ pixels" or even 4 million pixels. Show me that the HD 4000 is inadequate for these applications.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Depends on what you want to call acceptable capacity. A terabyte SSD existed in… gosh, when was it. Maybe 2009. You may guess the price, however.
Spinning drives just hit 4TB (Seagate only, external only, soldered into the case like an idiot), so we'll call that the goalpost. I figure a 4TB SSD in… early winter 2014 for… again, guess the price.
Good news is they can only really move that goalpost once. 5TB is the theoretical maximum for perpendicular recording, isn't it? So once we have drives with 5 1TB platters, it's over.
I agree, the progress should speed up now, the demand for SSD is getting higher & higher.
we have seen capacities move up & price drops in USB drives & HDD.
Hopefully SSD is cheap enough & have the capacity when the HDD hits the wall on upgrade-ability.
PS on a different note, someone needs to update the dictionary on the spell check here, doesn't have basic works like USB or ones commonly used here like iPhone or iPad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
[...] my previously held personal view that I couldn't really tell a retina from a non retina display took a hit last night when I found my iPad 2 was out of juice so I used my wife's retina iPad to watch Netflix! OMG what a difference. Now I am ticked off as I was considering a non retina MBP so I could customize it myself!
It's not quite an even comparison with the Mac because some apps are not yet resolution independent. That means they actually look considerably WORSE on a Retina display due to scaling. Take a look at any Adobe product on a Retina Mac. It's so bad I don't think I could stand to work that way.
Obviously if all you're using is Apple software it doesn't matter, and eventually major apps will be updated, but for now we're in that awkward, yucky transitional phase.
Quote:
Originally Posted by superjunaid
SSDs have come down in prices, in March I bought a 256GB for 300, and now I can get a 512GB for 300, so hopefully by next march we should be able to get a 512GB for 150 or 768GB for 300.
None of that helps the owner of a Retina MacBook Pro though, because they don't USE the otherwise universally adopted and standardized 2.5" format that benefits from that kind of economy of scale. No, instead, in order to achieve that oh-so-important goal of shaving one-eight of an inch off the thickness of the machine (a characteristic that will yield a benefit of 0.0% to my productivity) they elected to use a custom format flash memory card. Those are NOT widely available, and the few you CAN buy are NOT cheap -- like $600 for 480GB.
As an aside, where the hell did you find a 512 for $300? Best I can find around here is $400 for a Crucial.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
The answer is obvious. If the fact that you *can* do those things was making you happy previously and that happiness has now been taken away, then building your own laptop from scratch or making a hackintosh laptop will obviously make you even happier.
In other words, go make your own laptop and stop whining about something that isn't going to change.
Complaining HERE won't do any good, but complaining to Apple might. Might not, but at least then you've had your say:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
Funny that you bring up the "DIY" idea. I was thinking today that we should ask Apple to let someone else have OSX, please. It's obvious they've lost interest in it (for perfectly understandable reasons), but we still really like it and would like to be able to use it on "pro" grade hardware. If they don't want to build workstations, and that's fine, it would be nice if they would let someone else supply us. One business operator I know has given up on waiting for new towers and just bought a Hack.