The new Retina MBP is lovely but...

I'm looking to buy a new MBP in the next few weeks, and yesterday I finally made it to an Apple store (I live miles from anywhere, so it's a major jaunt) where I was able to test the Retina and non-Retina machines side by side - after the hordes of students and local undesirables had finished checking their emails and tired of social networking courtesy of Apples laid back approach to store management.

Costs aside, I'm a web designer/developer, so the decision is a tough one. On the one hand the retina would be perfect for Photoshop work, but on the other, designing on a machine with a resolution 99% of the World currently don't enjoy is not a great plan for compatibility.


Anyway, as far as I could see the Retina Macbook Pros (for me) were:

Gorgeous (absolutely stunning) screen and resolution.

Very fast start up of apps thanks to SSD (though the comparison model had more RAM and faster processor than the non-retina MBP we were comparing it to).

Higher resolution output for a large external monitor.

Lower heat generation.


And the Retina Macbook Cons:

Everything's soldered in, so not going with Applecare cover would be suicide (I probably wouldn't bother with the non-retina).

256gb of disk space is way too small for me, and the cost of upping this to 500gb puts it out of my price bracket.


I was hoping I wouldn't fall in love with the new screen and make my choice harder, however the £2,500 price tag for the machine I'd need puts it completely out of my price bracket.

On the plus side, going from the Retina, back to the standard MBP wasn't an issue for me. I could appreciate the new resolution, but it didn't mean that after looking at a retina I couldn't face working on a standard machine.


Standard Macbook Pros:

Screen was perfectly usable for my needs. Not stunning, but still better than the HP laptop I'm using now.

It runs Mac OSX, which is my whole reason for switching back to Macs. I hate Windows 7 with a passion, and Windows 8 looks even worse.

I can upgrade the RAM cheaply, maybe add an SSD at a later date for a speed increase, and will probably take a chance on not having an extended warranty as most of the issues seem to be with parts that can be replaced.

The body seems to be improved over the version I had for a few weeks three years ago - no flappy battery cover - the back is all one piece now.


Standard Macbook Cons:

It felt a big sluggish after the Retina.

It gets hot.

Concerned that resolution isn't going to be great when using a 1920x1200 monitor.


The big deal for me is OSX, it looks perfect for my work and moving from Windows will be a big relief. I loved the Retina but I can't justify spending an extra £1000 on a nice screen, it's not a viable option for me so that decision has been made for me.

I'm looking forward to ordering my new MBP (didn't buy one in store as it was full of kids mucking about and they hadn't updated their old stocks OS), any feedback or corrections on what I've just written welcome though!

Looks like you're going in 'eyes open' which is good.

Just a couple of things/thoughts

The MBP non-retina you tried will have been a particular spec - most likely the off-the shelf spec. You can spec the MBP to the same internals as the retina bar the design and screen.
So you're concerns about external monitor resolutions and performance can be put aside so long as the spec accordingly.

I'd suggest rethinking Applecare too. You can buy it anytime within the first 12 months.
The soldered on components are not the ones I'd be concenred with as a failure point. I'd be more concerned with the screen, logic board, trackpad, keyboard etc. While none are known issues I wouldn't use this rational to skip applecare.

Thanks for the reply

mrplow said:

The MBP non-retina you tried will have been a particular spec - most likely the off-the shelf spec. You can spec the MBP to the same internals as the retina bar the design and screen.

Click to expand...

I did that on the online store but the costs were high. £400 for an SSD was very steep when I can buy one for about £120. It would be cheaper just to buy the retina.

I'll be adding some extra RAM, and probably in a years time adding an SSD for a performance boost. The one Apple upgrade I was considering though was the higher resolution option for £80 - still mulling this one over.

mrplow said:

I'd suggest rethinking Applecare too. You can buy it anytime within the first 12 months.
The soldered on components are not the ones I'd be concenred with as a failure point. I'd be more concerned with the screen, logic board, trackpad, keyboard etc. While none are known issues I wouldn't use this rational to skip applecare.

Click to expand...

Hmmm...yes I have been thinking about this as an option. Talking to the guy in the Apple store he said 90% of the repairs they had were hard drive failures, which is something I could replace with the standard MBP. However he did mention logic board failures so maybe going without the warranty is a false economy.

Two other negative points with the retina for me that I forgot to mention above are:

No optical drive - most of my clients still provide content on disk, and so I'd have to factor this into the costs and it'd be another thing to lug around when visiting clients.

Single audio input - I like to make a bit of music and not having separate input and outputs would mean I'd have to buy an audio splitter, which is a pain.

I agree entirely.

The retina MBP is a tech demo of what's possible and a toe dipping exercise for Apple (as was the first gen MB Air). Don't get me wrong, its a great machine, but in it's current incarnation it doesn't offer the flexibility you have with the remainder of the MBP line up.

From what you've said an MBP non-retina sounds like the workhorse you need.
You could always hang back and wait on retina displays across the range but who knows when that will be and what other changes will come.

Only you can make the choice, obviously, but you seem to have made a pretty watertight argument for a mid-range MBP with room for future upgrades

mrplow said:

Only you can make the choice, obviously, but you seem to have made a pretty watertight argument for a mid-range MBP with room for future upgrades

Click to expand...

Thanks, I wanted to see the Retina machine before making a decision, as I thought after seeing one it would make going back to a non-retina screen impossible. That wasn't the case for me - they were just different. In my case the important bit is the OS, and so the better screen of the retina was outweighed by missing hardware options and cost.

I have been slightly worried about some of the comments on here regarding the standard model, I didn't want to be choosing a machine that would be out of date as soon as I'd bought it, but it didn't feel like the poor cousin when I tried it in the shop. It's still a cracking machine that provides a different set of options for those that need them.

If money was no object I'd get a top of the range retina and all the external hardware I needed - unfortunately I'm not that rich!