MBP Retina - big changes in q3 '13?

[jMerliN]

Apple loves to release reconfigurations and hardware upgrades in q3-q4.

I'm considering buying a MBP Retina 15" with 7xxGB SSD and 16GB ram. The reasoning is fairly simple: I use MBPs for work, and this would have sufficient power to be a development machine as well as a gaming machine, and the DPI = <3. That's enough SSD space and RAM to run parallels or vmware comfortably with multiple hosts, as well as to bootcamp a partition for Windows 7 for any windows work that isn't sufficient under a VM or in Wine.

What do you think: is Apple going to dramatically alter things such that a purchase now instead of 3-4 months from now is a bad idea, or is it going to be mostly fluff (say.. iPhone 5 level fluff)?

Before the hackintosh discussion begins: a $3500 purchase doesn't really bother me, and I'm quite used to the trackpad on a mac as well as the keyboard, and weight is a concern. The only thing I don't like about MBPs is that they don't offer a substantially larger battery for people who don't want to be tethered to a wall socket, and the after market for extended batteries seems gross. Maybe in a few years when graphite superconductors manage to become mainstream we'll have external battery extensions that can hold 30-50 hours of battery powering goodness and charge in a few minutes, but for the time being, that's a pipe dream.

(Quick math: at 2000W for charging a capacitor, and with a MBP consuming around 50W of power, that's 40 seconds of battery time for every second of charge time, so to get 50 hours of battery time, you'd need 1 hour and 15 minutes of charge time, though if you could get a much higher wattage socket (which may happen when this technology becomes more common), pulling 5000W would make that 30 minutes :o).

[MentaL]

[.Yoss.]

There seem to be some problems with the retina screens on the new mac book pros: Users report fan speed issues with Apple's latest Retina MacBook Pros

There are also some reports about ghosting on retina screens manufactured by LG among other issues as can be seen in this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0 which don't seem to appear on the ones manufactured by samsung.

My guess is that they will release a new model in Q3 to address these issues and maybe upgrade some of the hardware.

[EliteGM]

My dad has the latest MBP 15" w/ the 2.7 GHz i7, 512gb ssd, 16gb ram & retina. He runs win7 on the side. Works like a charm, great machine that is. Of course I always nag about Apple's pricing but if you simply don't give a shit, they're great devices.

His last Macbook Pro lasted him 5 years... Still works, actually. I'd just buy it now. It'll last you those years anyway.

[nathan123]

There seem to be some problems with the retina screens on the new mac book pros: Users report fan speed issues with Apple's latest Retina MacBook Pros

There are also some reports about ghosting on retina screens manufactured by LG among other issues as can be seen in this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0 which don't seem to appear on the ones manufactured by samsung.

My guess is that they will release a new model in Q3 to address these issues and maybe upgrade some of the hardware.

I was about to say exactly this. If you're going to buy a MBP, you may as well wait until the refresh later this year.

[jMerliN]

I was about to say exactly this. If you're going to buy a MBP, you may as well wait until the refresh later this year.

I did a little more research and it looks like they constantly do "refreshes" by making minor upgrades here and there. It's unlikely a major overhaul will happen in Q3 this year. Perhaps a new form factor, maybe a 17" (probably not), maybe larger battery life, or possibly a 24GB model, but it's very unlikely something radical will happen like a 6 core machine, so I went ahead and got it.

I don't see either of those issues in my MBP, but under warranty it should be replaced if I find any major defects such as those.

The only thing I've found that I have an issue with so far is that the latest flash player on retina when maximized is incredibly laggy, as if it's using the iGPU instead of the dGPU. This is annoying but it's the only issue I can find, and a quick Google suggests this problem has happened on and off for several years. Basically, Adobe is hopelessly incompetent when it comes to developing software, and it's all their fault. I can run full-screen games and movies perfectly smoothly, just not Flash.

[nathan123]

I did a little more research and it looks like they constantly do "refreshes" by making minor upgrades here and there. It's unlikely a major overhaul will happen in Q3 this year. Perhaps a new form factor, maybe a 17" (probably not), maybe larger battery life, or possibly a 24GB model, but it's very unlikely something radical will happen like a 6 core machine, so I went ahead and got it.

I don't see either of those issues in my MBP, but under warranty it should be replaced if I find any major defects such as those.

The only thing I've found that I have an issue with so far is that the latest flash player on retina when maximized is incredibly laggy, as if it's using the iGPU instead of the dGPU. This is annoying but it's the only issue I can find, and a quick Google suggests this problem has happened on and off for several years. Basically, Adobe is hopelessly incompetent when it comes to developing software, and it's all their fault. I can run full-screen games and movies perfectly smoothly, just not Flash.

The only reason I say wait is because of the screen issues they've been having. It's not a problem if you get a Samsung screen, but there's no differentiation between the two until you experience problems. It might be worth the wait until the refresh even if it's just to save you warranty issues down the line. If you buy one now, I'd highly recommend buying Apple Care in case the problem occurs outside of the first year.