MacBook Pro 15 Retina : need advices !

[pepper_john]

well if you love mac, then by all means go for it. I will not, though, after spending several hours with a retina mbp in an apple store. The display simply does not impress me that much.

[willard]

Just to make you know that, out of many Mac users I've discussed with, you are the first one which switched back from Apple to PC.

Make that 2 of us.

After my nightmare of reinstalling my Late 2011 Macbook Air with the pre (ya right) installed OS X Lion. I am finished with Apple notebooks.
Apple support was a joke (comment was; that is a new one I have not seen that before, try taking it to an Apple store).
I have had Apple notebook for the last few years as well as Mac mini's etc.


I now have a 2012 Sony S 15 series. 4.4 lbs Matte screen 1920x1080 IPS screen, etc.

I am not a Windows fan boy as the M4600 in my sig dual boots with OpenSuse.

I do think there are better options out there. Being stuck with a 256 gig hard drive for some people will not work. Either will a non upgradable memory config. The 512 gig SSD is a premium as well and I am not sure that it is worth the upgrade for the price.

Yes the Retina screen is amazing, but the resolution is WAY to high for a 15" notebook and an odd size.

But people will buy them, and as you sound like it is what you really want, then go for it. Like any OS, when it works it is awesome. When it does not get ready to take it to the Apple store.

[Karamazovmm]

To reinstall OSX (after lion) is just a matter of using the recovery partition.

Im OS agnostic, but I have my doubts that I will buy a notebook from them after the support experience that I had (2 problems), in the end its down if you have an apple store near you, which I dont, or if you value NBD and ACD in your warranty, which I do. But the RMBP is just too tempting, Im waiting for next year to purchase one, and hoping that nvidia and amd release something more interesting.

[Kuroi-Tsubasa]

Make that 2.5(?). My second-to-last semester in high school (I'm a rising college sophomore now), I was stuck in the school's iMac lab since I completed all of my credits I needed to graduate (though I couldn't skip senior year and go to college, for financial reasons).

After playing around with OSX and the iMacs for those few months, I didn't see what was so special about it all. They're just computers to me, just another all-in-one. Didn't like the keyboard (though everyone's getting island-stye these days, so I'm ranting at a brick wall here), mouse (this was the one before the Magic Mouse, another gimmick imo), the display was only so-so (21.5" 900p, iirc), and the way OS X itself is laid out didn't make sense to me. As KTech1 said, it's pretty dumb down if you ask me.

Sure, but this is tempoary problem since all the future Mac laptops and computers will have Retina display...

And yes, I admit, the hardware is about the same as other laptops...

So according to what you wrote, you would recommend me not to go with Mac, even with all the stuff I do with a computer ?

The main interest I have in the Apple computers is that they wonderfully support virtualization. More and more programers develop their code in VMs (I do) and more and more programers adopt the OS X environment.

Sure, you'll tell me not to follow them just to follow them, but I think there is real advantages of going to a MacBook ...


But you are wrong at something :

This is mainly why I must change my laptop, since a need a dedicated CUDA-capable GPU. This is the triggering event of my problematic.



I read too many horror stories with HP. They seem to get the worst reliability on the market. And sincerly, I've never sold a HP, and probably won't. Just a quick look to the user rating of this laptop made me feel sorry for them....

Sure, they might all have Retina displays, but it depends on how the market reacts to the current one. Just like how ThunderBolt was suppose to be the "wonder port" (it's not, still), you just have to sit back and see where it goes. The rMBP doesn't actually even use the native 1880p; it scales down to a 900p-like resolution (4 physical pixels act as one, iirc), since reading text at full 1880p would be near impossible (Apple understands this, hence why they changed the default).

KTech1 has some quality posts about the difference between Macs and business (workstation) laptops. considering that she does a *lot* of professional work on her laptops, I'd listen to her.

Any OS (Windows, OSX, Linux) will support virtualization; it's a common thing these days like you said. If you want better-than-average support, you need to look at the hardware itself; for example, the i7-3270QM (common upgrade from the i7-3610QM) has Intel VT-d instructions to help with virtualization, for example.

Ah, well I wasn't sure what sort of virtualization you meant. I had no issue running a VM or two with my old notebook (Toshiba Satellite L505, Pentium T4200, GMA 4500), though I did notice a slight improvement in my laptop with Linux and OSX VMs. KTech1 is right about the 650M and other Kelper GeFroce cards: nVidia intentionally screwed up CUDA support in those cards since they want you to buy their (more profitable) Quadro GPUs.

Even with 3 macbook and with all the details of my first post you would recommend me to get a HP or business class laptop?

I have difficulty to understand why lol. Sure, the warranty doesn't cover accidental damages, but in 3 laptops, I never had any accident or physical damage. Sure you will say that we are never aware of such a danger, but I can take the "risk" in exchange of a better product.

I've had in the past a Dell laptop. I know the support is great. But again, I only had to call them once, so my experience is limitated.

Never had a HP laptop. But keep in mind that I'm used to have a thin and light laptop. No HP (nor any other pc laptop) is as thin and light as the macbook.

The more I read and explain my usage, the more I consider Apple to be the best solution for me ... I need strong advice and details about NOT getting a Mac.

Thanks a lot.

Yep, still would.

I only brought up the accidental warranty to highlight price differences between AppleCare and other OEM warranties; of course you could also just buy a 3yr factory warranty if you wanted for a Thinkpad and it'd be even cheaper.

False, HP does sell thin-and-lights. Right off the top of my head, the Envy Sleekbook 4t-1000 has similar dimensions and weight as a MBA. The Folio 13 is also another small and light laptop from them. Other OEMs have notebooks that compare to hatever Mac you can think of. Apple may make certain styles popular, but they're hardly the only ones who sell said styles (examples: Sony was the first to have island style keyboards; MBA influenced Ultrabooks).

What would you like me to say to convince you to get something else? If you want better hardware in a reasonable weight/size, you need to look at workstations from Lenovo or Dell (HP workstations are heavy, though). 6lbs for a 15.6" is *not* heavy at all, I don't understand why you'd imply that. They're also much more durable than a MBP; I've dropped my laptop several times (both on and off) onto the bottom or the display itself, no damage whatsoever. I even dropped my ~2lbs power brick onto the palm rest from a few feet up and only got a small (<1cm) dent in the body. Drop a MBP and if you're lucky it'll be dented badly, if not completely broken.

If you'd like to think of malware, remember that OSX has it too. As for the display, 1880p won't help you much for what your planned uses are. Maybe if you were doing professional vidoe/photo work maybe, but you're doing mostly text-based work and some people find it hard enough to read text at 1080p and 100% DPI; 1880p will be nigh impossible to read. Since Apple scales it back to 900p, you're basically paying for nothing. Apple also uses the same hardware as everyone else, ever since they switched to Intel CPUs. All the OEMs use similar motherboards/logicboards (Foxconn, Asus, MSi, etc.), same RAM, same hard drives or SSDs, same displays (the 16:9 versions, at least), same trackpads (on newer Wintels, for example the Ideapad U310 uses the same exact glass trackpad), and obviously the same CPUs. With Apple, you're basically paying for the logo (commonly referred to as an "Apple tax").

With a workstation, you can basically buy a beast of a computer for $2700. Highest Quadro GPU (K2000M for a 15.6"), an XM (or next-to XM) CPU, 32GB of RAM (very, very important to have lots of RAM for VMs), dual- or triple-SSD setup, whatever. Or you can get the same (or better) specs than the rMBP for a lot less and pocket the rest of your budget to either buy other nice things, maybe have a great nice out with your special someone, or just put it in the bank. Who doesn't love that?

The only reason I'd recommend a Mac is if someone must use an OSX-only program for their work (like FCP or XCode).

[willard]

To reinstall OSX (after lion) is just a matter of using the recovery partition.

You are so wrong on that one.

If you delete the Mac HD in the tools it is not that easy. it is a two step process from there requiring you to redownload the entire recovery partition from Apple, once that is done then yes you can use it.
total time on a Fiber 50 meg connection was 3 hours.

I would hate to see it on something slower.
as well on a poor connection, if you loose service partway through the download, the system does not have any error control and will fail, causing you to do this again.

I just did this and it was not easy task. Apple support was a total waste when the original error came up oh and as I did not have my Apple Care my 1 year warranty did not cover the call to Apple and it cost me $49 bucks (which i got back). The Apple store was not much better and the employees there pissed me off with the comments and look I received from the "Genus".
I found the solution in an obscure place and managed to complete the task myself.


Back to the topic. My only worry on that screen like others is replacement cost, resolution to high and myself I am NOT a glossy screen guy.
the MBA is about as glossy as I like (it is more of a semi-gloss)

[Karamazovmm]

I did it several times in a 10mbps cable connection. Never saw the need for a higher speed connection, though if you want you can pay it for me, it costs U$150 for a 100mbps connection.

Basically I will say that I installed a SSD in this mbp. Thus there is no recovery partition, just press alt, it will get me to download everything, leave it a few hours to download, and there you are, click click, you are done. I cant see the hassle, aside to download everything, which to avoid this I made a thumbdrive installer, which can also be downloaded from apple, or you can follow one of the guides around.

Granted to press alt to show the boot options is not for everyone, usually people that know this, have bootcamped.

[willard]

I did it several times in a 10mbps cable connection. Never saw the need for a higher speed connection, though if you want you can pay it for me, it costs U$150 for a 100mbps connection.

Basically I will say that I installed a SSD in this mbp. Thus there is no recovery partition, just press alt, it will get me to download everything, leave it a few hours to download, and there you are, click click, you are done. I cant see the hassle, aside to download everything, which to avoid this I made a thumbdrive installer, which can also be downloaded from apple, or you can follow one of the guides around.

Granted to press alt to show the boot options is not for everyone, usually people that know this, have bootcamped.

That is the issue. MBP vs MBA
This is not as easy on the MBA. As a matter of fact almost all the fixes were for a MBP.
The Air is a differant animal due to everything being built in. It will be interesting if this will be the case with the we ones

By default booting into the recovery partition is the recovery tools.

To even get to be able to download Lion after deleting the Mac HD under the hard drive tools, you need to go into a differant recovery option.
I think it was alt, option and power key on Power on.
You need to see the blue grey screen and then the spinning globe.
One that comes up and download the recovery partition again.
Then you boot into this an recover Lion.
This Appe tech support does not seems to know.

[R3d]

Why are you guys so against the Mac? Obviously it's not the best value but it's a luxury item and OP has the money to spend.

It suits OP's needs more than fine and does it in a very attractive package. imo it's more fun to carry around a "premium" computer and enjoy the design.

[Kuroi-Tsubasa]

Not so much against as I am difficult to justify it financially. If we were talking about a MBA or an iMac, they are priced very close to their Wintel counterparts. And I don't see it as a luxury thing; I'd expect it to be radically different in a meaningful way to call it that. Like how BMW builds their own engines for both their regular cars and M series, or something like a Lambo; that'd be luxury. A MBP to me is more like an Avalon: it looks good and feels good, but truth be told it's just a nice-looking Camry (my family actually has an Avalon, and I've been in several Camrys).

I forgot to mention that once the warranty is up on the rMBP, he'll be SOL when something breaks. If so, he'll have to buy a new laptop again since repairs will be stupid expensive.

[Karamazovmm]

how much is the mobo in your w520? yeah very expensive.

interesting basically you have to press some more buttons in the case of the mba.

however even the alt would give you the booting options, since this is in the ''bootmgr'' for the mac, dont remember the name right now