Man, I just...there was so much good. Now I'm looking at the site and I don't think I'll go for a mac again.
If they still had a 13" with discrete graphics, maybe. If they updated the resolution of the 13"...maybe. If I could get the 15" retina with a traditional hard drive, maybe.
Nothing fits exactly what I'm looking for, which is wild considering all the options.
This is about where I am. I have a late 2009 13 inch MBP that still had the nvidia chip. I was really hoping to upgrade but I'd like to stick with 13" and there's really nothing compelling at that size.
All I wanted was a 13" pro with a higher-resolution screen, honestly. I guess the 13" air isn't out of the question but...256GB? ew.
Store seems to be up. Yeah, to get the amount of storage I'd want, the thing would cost me 3300 bucks. Even more if I'd upgrade the RAM to 16gb, because it's presumably not user upgradeable (would love to be wrong about that).
I'll happily stick with what I have and give it 3 years or so. All this fancy new tech will be considerably more accessible by then.
Yeah, I can't see myself spending $2,800 for the 15" retina with the 512gb SSD. I think I'm going high 15" MBP sans the retina and buy myself a nice monitor for gaming at home with it.
The 650m? Pretty capable? GW2 and Secret Wars should do ok on it?
Damn that thing looks tempting. Bought a 15" Macbook Pro in January, more or less maximum spec.
I dunno. What's mainly putting me off is two things:
1) Running any games at that retina resolution would be pretty demanding. And, running anything below native resolution always sucks.
2) SSD only. I like them, but I need as much storage as I can get in my laptop. I record music with this thing, which itself takes up a fair bit of space, but also involves hundreds of gigabytes of sample libraries. Not to mention any TV shows I have downloaded, games, my music collection, quite a lot of rather large photos, and a Windows partition for gaming. That shit adds up. And, while it might be possible to get a SSD sufficiently large in there, I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay for it.
Unless the price is amazing, even with a gigantic SSD in there... I'll probably stick with what I have.
That said! I look forward to the tech in this trickling down across their lineup and being further refined in the process. It looks like one helluva laptop. Once again, they've given the industry something to scramble to match.
Yeah if you're going to be playing games on it the old macbook is hands down the better buy imo, especially since in typical apple fashion they skimped on the gpu and didn't even go for the 660 which laptops half it's price have.
So, the only reason to get a retina display is for...?
TBH the only thing i can see it being super useful for is video editing, but that's just my opinion. I mean, it'd be nice to have for general use, but the only time the extra res will be really noticeable/helpful is if you have a bunch of video streams side by side.
Store seems to be up. Yeah, to get the amount of storage I'd want, the thing would cost me 3300 bucks. Even more if I'd upgrade the RAM to 16gb, because it's presumably not user upgradeable (would love to be wrong about that).
I'll happily stick with what I have and give it 3 years or so. All this fancy new tech will be considerably more accessible by then.
Yeah, I can't see myself spending $2,800 for the 15" retina with the 512gb SSD. I think I'm going high 15" MBP sans the retina and buy myself a nice monitor for gaming at home with it.
The 650m? Pretty capable? GW2 and Secret Wars should do ok on it?
Yeah, I hear that. If I went with the retina model, I'd have to carry a cd drive and a hard drive. If I went with the standard 15" pro I'd have to carry...nothing, because they're both baked in.
I wouldn't carry around a DVD drive. I'd just leave it in a drawer at home for the 1 time a year I'd actually use it. But, indeed, I'd either have to spend a shitload of money on a big enough SSD or carry around a few external HDDs. Hell, I already have three external drives for various purposes (backup, more file storage, even more file storage). I don't want to have to add more to that, or actually start carrying it around!
As for the retina display, I'd be quite happy to have it. It would absolutely RULE for photo editing or doing any work in Adobe CS (once it's supported). Though, at this point, I feel like being an early adopter would be somewhat disadvantageous. A lot of raster-based web content would look pretty ugly for a while, until graphics are updated with sufficiently high resolution versions. Finding sufficiently large wallpapers could also be a chore
As for the 650m, I'm sure it's pretty capable. The 6770m in my current 15" is already quite capable. FYI: GW2 is totally cpu-bound still. I tried the beta over the weekend, and it wasn't even touching my graphics card. It wasn't even multi-threaded. It was running on ONE cpu thread (my i7 has 8 available), and was laggy as shit as a result, even on low settings. That said, once it's actually optimized, it should run quite comfortably on my 6770m, and presumably the 650m as well. If I can get 20fps on low settings with just one cpu thread and no gpu at all, then I think it should run quite nicely on high if the other 7 threads and the gpu get into the act.
The prices for Solid State Drives just aren't in my ballpark yet.
That's part of my issue. A 256gb SSD shouldn't command a gigantic premium. I've had a 128gb one in my tower for over a year now, and it was only $200 when I got it. Yes thats a premium, but consider that was over 12 months ago...yeah.
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kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
Store seems to be up. Yeah, to get the amount of storage I'd want, the thing would cost me 3300 bucks. Even more if I'd upgrade the RAM to 16gb, because it's presumably not user upgradeable (would love to be wrong about that).
I'll happily stick with what I have and give it 3 years or so. All this fancy new tech will be considerably more accessible by then.
Yeah, I can't see myself spending $2,800 for the 15" retina with the 512gb SSD. I think I'm going high 15" MBP sans the retina and buy myself a nice monitor for gaming at home with it.
The 650m? Pretty capable? GW2 and Secret Wars should do ok on it?
Yeah, I hear that. If I went with the retina model, I'd have to carry a cd drive and a hard drive. If I went with the standard 15" pro I'd have to carry...nothing, because they're both baked in.
Yeah, i'm confused by this product lineup. It seems like the people who would be drawn to the retina display would want the storage of a traditional HD, and the more casual user would be OK with a smaller SSD. Maybe the thinking is video professionals would use thunderbolt/firewire external storage anyway, but it's a confusing mish-mash of upgrades. I'm not sure who the target user is, besides art students whose parents are paying for a laptop.
The prices for Solid State Drives just aren't in my ballpark yet.
That's part of my issue. A 256gb SSD shouldn't command a gigantic premium. I've had a 128gb one in my tower for over a year now, and it was only $200 when I got it. Yes thats a premium, but consider that was over 12 months ago...yeah.
Yep, right now a 256GB SSD off the shelf will run you around that same $200 that got you 128GB a year ago (with a pretty high price variation based on SSD controller features and brand). Still a premium item, but the $/GB is falling pretty steadily.
Of course, off the shelf prices mean nothing when you are talking about a flash memory board soldered onto a motherboard and sealed in a non-user-serviceable case. Not buying AppleCare with these things is asking for trouble, because the list of things you can fix without getting an apple tech involved is basically nothing.
The prices for Solid State Drives just aren't in my ballpark yet.
That's part of my issue. A 256gb SSD shouldn't command a gigantic premium. I've had a 128gb one in my tower for over a year now, and it was only $200 when I got it. Yes thats a premium, but consider that was over 12 months ago...yeah.
If I wanted to buy a new Mac today, this is what I'd get.
11" Macbook Air:
The most powerful tiny notebook possible.
Thankfully my iMac, which is a circa 2010 model (and a free replacement for a 2008 model via Applecare, should last me throughout 2015. By that time hopefully SSDs will have come down in price.
Of course by the time 2015 rolls around they may not even offer the air anymore.
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
It plays Diablo 3 at retina spec, silky smooth.
You can play high demand games at 1080p, or if your eyes have difficulty with non perfect resolutions, 1440x900, which will give each pixel 4 pixels, and will look just fine.
That GPU running at 1440x900 will smoke any game on the market.
SW-4158-3990-6116
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I asked this a while back but I think I got pushed off during some other discussion in the thread but does anyone know of a way to "hide" OS X software updates? I don't want to update HP drivers or Digital Raw Compatibility on my Air but they keep showing up over and over again when I run Software Update. I know you could hide updates back before Snow Leopard but I can't seem to find anything about how to do on Lion
I'm going to wait until the first round of in-depth reviews rolls out. I'm mostly concerned with heat, since I'll be playing games on something that is basically a graphics chip and cpu strapped onto a gigantic lithium battery, and screen scaling, since the main draw of the screen for me is the potential increased screen real estate, not necessarily sharpness.
It's still a pretty hard price to swallow, since it costs more than what I paid for my two 13 inch macbook(pro)s combined. I'm still content with my current one save for resolution, gaming performance, and battery life.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I'm interested to see that screen in action at the Apple store at least.
I'm hoping that by the time I can afford to dump my current MBP the entire line will be sans Superdrive.
My only disappointment is that they used a pixel-doubled 1440x900, which I don't think is the best use of the 15 inches of screen real estate. I understand you can run 1680 and 1920 via scaling, but I'm not going to spend $2500 for a beautiful screen and then run it on less than native res.
But, y'know, shit. I still want this thing and I have zero practical use it.
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I think we all know that this paves the way for a 27", 4k thunderbolt display around 1000 dollars, that will be announced whenever they actually launch a new mac pro with thunderbolt.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
What's the difference between the entry MBP and the high end Air? From what I see, the Air has a bit less RAM standard (but can be upped) and the same for the processor, while it has better display (1440x900, where the mbp is 1280x800)?
What's the difference between the entry MBP and the high end Air? From what I see, the Air has a bit less RAM standard (but can be upped) and the same for the processor, while it has better display (1440x900, where the mbp is 1280x800)?
I think the non-retina MBPs still have Superdrives and the old form-factor.
What's the difference between the entry MBP and the high end Air? From what I see, the Air has a bit less RAM standard (but can be upped) and the same for the processor, while it has better display (1440x900, where the mbp is 1280x800)?
At this point, I wouldn't even consider a 13" Pro. I'm pretty confident that they're only keeping it around for another year or so, at which point they'll probably give the Air lineup retina displays. They're probably only still selling it because it is their strongest seller. But, given how much it overlaps with the 13" Air at this point, I doubt that will last.
The Air gives you a higher resolution screen, the exact same graphics (which are most definitely a lot better than the old nVidia integrated graphics from a few generations ago, by the way), SSD standard (worth it, unless you need a lot of onboard storage), and finally plenty of RAM to work with (at this point, going beyond 8gb is completely pointless, unless you're working with 5gb Photoshop files and stuff, at which point you'd be looking at a 15" Pro anyway).
If I were in the market for a new computer right now, and I didn't need the additional power my 15" Pro affords me for my DAW stuff, I'd be all over a 13" Air with a 512gb SSD and 8gb of RAM.
If my 15" Pro blew up right now, I actually do think I'd go for the Retina Pro with a 512gb SSD. If the resolution scaled down to 1440x900 looks good for games, I'm happy. And, I hadn't really considered that USB 3.0 and potentially Thunderbolt drives would actually be fast enough to store my samples on.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
so I got a new Air at work a couple of months ago, I knew the refresh was coming but it was just taking so long so I got the maxed 13inch. What I ended up with:
1.80 GHz i7 - 2677M
4gb Ram
256gb SSD
For almost the same price what I could have gotten now:
2.0Ghz i7
8gb Ram
256gb SSD
The extra Ram and slightly better on-board graphics (ivybridge vs sandybridge) would be nice but honestly it's hardly different so I'm not too sad about it. I'm happy it wasn't an entire redesign of the case and what not or else I might have felt a lil bad. (I will say it's kinda a shame apple won't give me mountain lion for free since I bought it so recently but oh well)
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kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
I think we all know that this paves the way for a 27", 4k thunderbolt display around 1000 dollars, that will be announced whenever they actually launch a new mac pro with thunderbolt.
I was thinking about that. I bought the last non-thunderbolt cinema display in 2010. I am thinking if one of those came out, I would then own two 27" displays. For anyone doing video editing work on an MBP, it seems like there's a much better business case for buying a non-retina MBP and then a display rather than a retina MBP.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
well this is interesting, now i'm actually happy i got my air before the refresh.
they replaced the USB -> Ethernet adapter with a Thunderbolt -> Ethernet adapter
the problem is there is only 1 thunderbolt port and it still handled display, so there is now no way to have a DVI monitor hooked up along with a ethernet adapter unless your monitor happens to have thunderbolt
(at work I have my air on a mStand to the left of me next to my 27" LCD, connected through a dvi adapter, in effect I have 3 displays. The monitor has my wireless keyboard and mouse plugged in as well as the USB ethernet adapter (monitor has 2 USB ports). The Monitor's hub is connected to the Air thorugh USB and that leaves the other USB port on the air free for whatever I need to connect to it temporarily.
This setup would no longer work with the new Airs.
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
well this is interesting, now i'm actually happy i got my air before the refresh.
they replaced the USB -> Ethernet adapter with a Thunderbolt -> Ethernet adapter
the problem is there is only 1 thunderbolt port and it still handled display, so there is now no way to have a DVI monitor hooked up along with a ethernet adapter unless your monitor happens to have thunderbolt
(at work I have my air on a mStand to the left of me next to my 27" LCD, connected through a dvi adapter, in effect I have 3 displays. The monitor has my wireless keyboard and mouse plugged in as well as the USB ethernet adapter (monitor has 2 USB ports). The Monitor's hub is connected to the Air thorugh USB and that leaves the other USB port on the air free for whatever I need to connect to it temporarily.
This setup would no longer work with the new Airs.
USB Ethernet adapters still work, and lots of people sell mac compatible ones.
The Thunderbolt one is a true gigabit connection, however, if that is something you care about.
SW-4158-3990-6116
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
well this is interesting, now i'm actually happy i got my air before the refresh.
they replaced the USB -> Ethernet adapter with a Thunderbolt -> Ethernet adapter
the problem is there is only 1 thunderbolt port and it still handled display, so there is now no way to have a DVI monitor hooked up along with a ethernet adapter unless your monitor happens to have thunderbolt
(at work I have my air on a mStand to the left of me next to my 27" LCD, connected through a dvi adapter, in effect I have 3 displays. The monitor has my wireless keyboard and mouse plugged in as well as the USB ethernet adapter (monitor has 2 USB ports). The Monitor's hub is connected to the Air thorugh USB and that leaves the other USB port on the air free for whatever I need to connect to it temporarily.
This setup would no longer work with the new Airs.
USB Ethernet adapters still work, and lots of people sell mac compatible ones.
The Thunderbolt one is a true gigabit connection, however, if that is something you care about.
yes I get that, obviously, but it's still ridiculous they wont let you choose which one to get and are instead trying to funnel you into buying a incredibly expensive thunderbolt apple display along with your Air
Hardtarget on
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EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
edited June 2012
Someone tell me why I shouldn't buy a $1,000 27" Thunderbolt display and instead grab an Asus for much cheaper that connects via HDMI or something.
Esh on
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Someone tell me why I shouldn't buy a $1,000 27" Thunderbolt display and instead grab an Asus for much cheaper that connects via HDMI or something.
How much do you care about resomalutions? Standard 27" HDMI monitors are going to go to 1920x1080; the Thunderbolt (and other top-end monitors with comparable prices) goes to 2560x1440.
Someone tell me why I shouldn't buy a $1,000 27" Thunderbolt display and instead grab an Asus for much cheaper that connects via HDMI or something.
How much do you care about resomalutions? Standard 27" HDMI monitors are going to go to 1920x1080; the Thunderbolt (and other top-end monitors with comparable prices) goes to 2560x1440.
Also, IPS, with thunderbolt, built-in hub, and a charger for your MacBook.
If you want to compare apples to apples (so to speak), the 27" thunderbolt display is most closely comparable to the 27" Dell Ultrasharp that retails for $800 - $1000. And the Dell lacks the built-in MagSafe charger.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
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EshTending bar. FFXIV. Motorcycles.Portland, ORRegistered Userregular
Someone tell me why I shouldn't buy a $1,000 27" Thunderbolt display and instead grab an Asus for much cheaper that connects via HDMI or something.
How much do you care about resomalutions? Standard 27" HDMI monitors are going to go to 1920x1080; the Thunderbolt (and other top-end monitors with comparable prices) goes to 2560x1440.
I should probably stick to a 1920*1080 monitor so that my MacBook Pro (buying the new non-retina one in a month or so) doesn't asplode when I try to game. If only I could find one as pretty as the Apple displays...
Speaking of, anyone know if the Henge docks will work with the new non-retina MBPs?
Someone tell me why I shouldn't buy a $1,000 27" Thunderbolt display and instead grab an Asus for much cheaper that connects via HDMI or something.
How much do you care about resomalutions? Standard 27" HDMI monitors are going to go to 1920x1080; the Thunderbolt (and other top-end monitors with comparable prices) goes to 2560x1440.
I should probably stick to a 1920*1080 monitor so that my MacBook Pro (buying the new non-retina one in a month or so) doesn't asplode when I try to game. If only I could find one as pretty as the Apple displays...
Speaking of, anyone know if the Henge docks will work with the new non-retina MBPs?
Maybe find a used or refurbished 24" Cinema display?
Well, the 24" Cinema Display doesn't have that much going for it over other 24 inch monitors of the same resolution and panel type, other than perhaps aesthetic consistency. The previous gen 27 inch display and the thunderbolt display at least provide a power connector, and docking capabilities in the case of the latter, and it could be scaled down to 720p for gaming.
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
My 24" has a MagSafe connector. And USB hub. And it's 1200p, which is still not super common in 24" panels.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
Someone tell me why I shouldn't buy a $1,000 27" Thunderbolt display and instead grab an Asus for much cheaper that connects via HDMI or something.
How much do you care about resomalutions? Standard 27" HDMI monitors are going to go to 1920x1080; the Thunderbolt (and other top-end monitors with comparable prices) goes to 2560x1440.
I should probably stick to a 1920*1080 monitor so that my MacBook Pro (buying the new non-retina one in a month or so) doesn't asplode when I try to game. If only I could find one as pretty as the Apple displays...
Speaking of, anyone know if the Henge docks will work with the new non-retina MBPs?
I recently bought the hp zr2740w for ~650 and it does 25x14, is IPS and connects with displayport/dvi. It's very, very pretty.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Well this can't be good. I try to start up my MBP 2010 and almost immediately it gives me this every time:
Has anyone seen that before? I'm going to bring it in for service today, I have AppleCare, but I'd like to have some idea of what's wrong and how bad it is.
What's Safe Boot do? (Hold shift while powering on). You probably just need to reinstall the OS or remove some program that's starting up with the system and isn't behaving itself.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I haven't been able to safe boot yet, had to go to work. I'm really kicking myself for leaving my USB boot stick at school over the summer; I was trying to run the Hardware Test a few days ago, and apparently it couldn't find it on the hard drive and my model doesn't support running it over the Internet. Oh well, if I have to reinstall then I can get the Apple store people to do it. Hopefully they don't raise too many eyebrows over my massive porn folder.
I haven't been able to safe boot yet, had to go to work. I'm really kicking myself for leaving my USB boot stick at school over the summer; I was trying to run the Hardware Test a few days ago, and apparently it couldn't find it on the hard drive and my model doesn't support running it over the Internet. Oh well, if I have to reinstall then I can get the Apple store people to do it. Hopefully they don't raise too many eyebrows over my massive porn folder.
Have you booted with Option yet to try and get to the recovery HD?
Turn it on, hear the DING, and hold the option key down until pictures of hard drives appear on your screen.
If you are running Lion, one will be called recovery HD.
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Posts
This is about where I am. I have a late 2009 13 inch MBP that still had the nvidia chip. I was really hoping to upgrade but I'd like to stick with 13" and there's really nothing compelling at that size.
All I wanted was a 13" pro with a higher-resolution screen, honestly. I guess the 13" air isn't out of the question but...256GB? ew.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
Yeah, I can't see myself spending $2,800 for the 15" retina with the 512gb SSD. I think I'm going high 15" MBP sans the retina and buy myself a nice monitor for gaming at home with it.
The 650m? Pretty capable? GW2 and Secret Wars should do ok on it?
Yeah, I hear that. If I went with the retina model, I'd have to carry a cd drive and a hard drive. If I went with the standard 15" pro I'd have to carry...nothing, because they're both baked in.
As for the retina display, I'd be quite happy to have it. It would absolutely RULE for photo editing or doing any work in Adobe CS (once it's supported). Though, at this point, I feel like being an early adopter would be somewhat disadvantageous. A lot of raster-based web content would look pretty ugly for a while, until graphics are updated with sufficiently high resolution versions. Finding sufficiently large wallpapers could also be a chore
As for the 650m, I'm sure it's pretty capable. The 6770m in my current 15" is already quite capable. FYI: GW2 is totally cpu-bound still. I tried the beta over the weekend, and it wasn't even touching my graphics card. It wasn't even multi-threaded. It was running on ONE cpu thread (my i7 has 8 available), and was laggy as shit as a result, even on low settings. That said, once it's actually optimized, it should run quite comfortably on my 6770m, and presumably the 650m as well. If I can get 20fps on low settings with just one cpu thread and no gpu at all, then I think it should run quite nicely on high if the other 7 threads and the gpu get into the act.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
That's part of my issue. A 256gb SSD shouldn't command a gigantic premium. I've had a 128gb one in my tower for over a year now, and it was only $200 when I got it. Yes thats a premium, but consider that was over 12 months ago...yeah.
Yeah, i'm confused by this product lineup. It seems like the people who would be drawn to the retina display would want the storage of a traditional HD, and the more casual user would be OK with a smaller SSD. Maybe the thinking is video professionals would use thunderbolt/firewire external storage anyway, but it's a confusing mish-mash of upgrades. I'm not sure who the target user is, besides art students whose parents are paying for a laptop.
Yep, right now a 256GB SSD off the shelf will run you around that same $200 that got you 128GB a year ago (with a pretty high price variation based on SSD controller features and brand). Still a premium item, but the $/GB is falling pretty steadily.
Of course, off the shelf prices mean nothing when you are talking about a flash memory board soldered onto a motherboard and sealed in a non-user-serviceable case. Not buying AppleCare with these things is asking for trouble, because the list of things you can fix without getting an apple tech involved is basically nothing.
If I wanted to buy a new Mac today, this is what I'd get.
11" Macbook Air:
The most powerful tiny notebook possible.
Thankfully my iMac, which is a circa 2010 model (and a free replacement for a 2008 model via Applecare, should last me throughout 2015. By that time hopefully SSDs will have come down in price.
Of course by the time 2015 rolls around they may not even offer the air anymore.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
You can play high demand games at 1080p, or if your eyes have difficulty with non perfect resolutions, 1440x900, which will give each pixel 4 pixels, and will look just fine.
That GPU running at 1440x900 will smoke any game on the market.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
It's still a pretty hard price to swallow, since it costs more than what I paid for my two 13 inch macbook(pro)s combined. I'm still content with my current one save for resolution, gaming performance, and battery life.
I'm hoping that by the time I can afford to dump my current MBP the entire line will be sans Superdrive.
But, y'know, shit. I still want this thing and I have zero practical use it.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I keep assuming there's "a plan" there. Its silly that the 13" Air has a better resolution.
I think the non-retina MBPs still have Superdrives and the old form-factor.
At this point, I wouldn't even consider a 13" Pro. I'm pretty confident that they're only keeping it around for another year or so, at which point they'll probably give the Air lineup retina displays. They're probably only still selling it because it is their strongest seller. But, given how much it overlaps with the 13" Air at this point, I doubt that will last.
The Air gives you a higher resolution screen, the exact same graphics (which are most definitely a lot better than the old nVidia integrated graphics from a few generations ago, by the way), SSD standard (worth it, unless you need a lot of onboard storage), and finally plenty of RAM to work with (at this point, going beyond 8gb is completely pointless, unless you're working with 5gb Photoshop files and stuff, at which point you'd be looking at a 15" Pro anyway).
If I were in the market for a new computer right now, and I didn't need the additional power my 15" Pro affords me for my DAW stuff, I'd be all over a 13" Air with a 512gb SSD and 8gb of RAM.
If my 15" Pro blew up right now, I actually do think I'd go for the Retina Pro with a 512gb SSD. If the resolution scaled down to 1440x900 looks good for games, I'm happy. And, I hadn't really considered that USB 3.0 and potentially Thunderbolt drives would actually be fast enough to store my samples on.
1.80 GHz i7 - 2677M
4gb Ram
256gb SSD
For almost the same price what I could have gotten now:
2.0Ghz i7
8gb Ram
256gb SSD
The extra Ram and slightly better on-board graphics (ivybridge vs sandybridge) would be nice but honestly it's hardly different so I'm not too sad about it. I'm happy it wasn't an entire redesign of the case and what not or else I might have felt a lil bad. (I will say it's kinda a shame apple won't give me mountain lion for free since I bought it so recently but oh well)
I was thinking about that. I bought the last non-thunderbolt cinema display in 2010. I am thinking if one of those came out, I would then own two 27" displays. For anyone doing video editing work on an MBP, it seems like there's a much better business case for buying a non-retina MBP and then a display rather than a retina MBP.
they replaced the USB -> Ethernet adapter with a Thunderbolt -> Ethernet adapter
the problem is there is only 1 thunderbolt port and it still handled display, so there is now no way to have a DVI monitor hooked up along with a ethernet adapter unless your monitor happens to have thunderbolt
(at work I have my air on a mStand to the left of me next to my 27" LCD, connected through a dvi adapter, in effect I have 3 displays. The monitor has my wireless keyboard and mouse plugged in as well as the USB ethernet adapter (monitor has 2 USB ports). The Monitor's hub is connected to the Air thorugh USB and that leaves the other USB port on the air free for whatever I need to connect to it temporarily.
This setup would no longer work with the new Airs.
The Thunderbolt one is a true gigabit connection, however, if that is something you care about.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
How much do you care about resomalutions? Standard 27" HDMI monitors are going to go to 1920x1080; the Thunderbolt (and other top-end monitors with comparable prices) goes to 2560x1440.
Also, IPS, with thunderbolt, built-in hub, and a charger for your MacBook.
If you want to compare apples to apples (so to speak), the 27" thunderbolt display is most closely comparable to the 27" Dell Ultrasharp that retails for $800 - $1000. And the Dell lacks the built-in MagSafe charger.
I should probably stick to a 1920*1080 monitor so that my MacBook Pro (buying the new non-retina one in a month or so) doesn't asplode when I try to game. If only I could find one as pretty as the Apple displays...
Speaking of, anyone know if the Henge docks will work with the new non-retina MBPs?
Maybe find a used or refurbished 24" Cinema display?
I recently bought the hp zr2740w for ~650 and it does 25x14, is IPS and connects with displayport/dvi. It's very, very pretty.
Has anyone seen that before? I'm going to bring it in for service today, I have AppleCare, but I'd like to have some idea of what's wrong and how bad it is.
Turn it on, hear the DING, and hold the option key down until pictures of hard drives appear on your screen.
If you are running Lion, one will be called recovery HD.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...