macbook pro purchase

[Jeff Greenberg]

[Wendell Davis] “is it worth getting the 2.7 ghz over the 2.6ghz”

You’re paying quite a bit for such a small bump in speed. It’s not going to be your real bottleneck (having the 8 cores is way more important.)

[Wendell Davis] ” Also SSD drives: Apple’s or other vendor such as Samsung?”

Apple is really ending the post customization of laptops. They’re using their own SSD connection; in fact, I don’t think you can get a rMBP without Apple’s SSD>

[Wendell Davis] “I don’t put in the 16 gigs now I can’t late”

That’s correct. Your ram choice is permanent.

[Wendell Davis] “External hard drive – thunderbolt – Pegasus R6 worth it or something else? Size is important both physically and storage capacity – minimum 8TB raid 5 for on the road.”

I love my Pegasus. But it is not portable. As a Raid 5 it’s the speed of an SSD. You can’t really get a portable raid 5.

Just so I say it (and realize I’m working on a 2.6 i7 rMBP), you’ll get far, far further with your dollar on a PC desktop. Unless you work from a hotel room, laptops are overrated. 😀

Best,

Jeff I. Greenberg
Author/Master Instructor/Speaker/Consulting
My contact info and more

[Wendell Davis]

Hi Jeff. Thank you so much for all the great information. On the road for “months” at a time laptops are usually the answer. If I am close (Boston area) to home as in Vermont and right now New Jersey, I can bring my large system. Otherwise laptops. What we are provided with for systems is deplorable. That’s why most of us bring our own systems. Treated right…not really but much less frustrating.

Pegasus: isn’t it “small” enough to be able to “cary” or ship sort of?

The decision has come down to our son (going through kemo and rehab) needs a new computer. He’s getting my 17 inch. At age 66, this may be my last major blown out computer purchase. We’ll see.

Appreciate your help.

Wendell

[Jeff Greenberg]

[Wendell Davis] “On the road for “months” at a time laptops are usually the answer. If I am close (Boston area) to home as in Vermont and right now New Jersey”

Ah, that makes sense. (Love boston & vermont. As a Philadelphia, mixed about jersey, 😀 )

[Wendell Davis] “Pegasus: isn’t it “small” enough to be able to “carry” or ship sort of?”

It’s heavy – like 10-15 lbs or so and it’s substantial. It’s not something I’d want to carry in a backpack (but a roller back or a pelican case? fine.) I haven’t tried much travel with it (I’d do a car/train in a case vs. taking it on a plane anywhere)

If I was going to take it on the ‘rough and tumble’ of the road, I’d suggest the r6 formatted as a Raid 6 to give you two drives that could fail vs. one.

I’m assuming you’re working with footage that you need that sort of speed; on the road I might take a pair of fast USB3 drives – just to fit them into a backpack.

[Wendell Davis] ” The decision has come down to our son (going through kemo and rehab) needs a new computer. He’s getting my 17 inch. At age 66, this may be my last major blown out computer purchase. We’ll see.”

I just had my first (I’m about 4 years younger than when you had your son) – tonight we’re dealing with our first ‘major’ fever. Best of luck to your boy.

[Neil Patience]

Hi Wendell

One option you might want to consider :-

I went for a non retina 2.7 gig i7 MacBook Pro. The high res anti glare screen model. Although you sacrifice the retina display it retains the optical drive which you can keep or use the space for a 2nd HD/SSD. Same CPU same GPU, it also has a firewire 800 connector, Ethernet, Thunderbolt and 2 USB3 ports,
So you get the same performance (in fact I noticed on Geekbench it slightly out performs the Retina by just a touch.) much more connectivity, upgradeable Ram to 16 gigs, replaceable HD.
So all in all with the exception of the Retina display its a whole lot more flexible, connectable and as much as any laptop upgradeable, Its slightly thicker and slightly heavier than the Retina.
It will save you a few hundred dollars too over the Retina model.

Just a thought.

best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv

[Wendell Davis]

I guess I’ve made my decision…. If I weren’t a Mac geek, I’d go with the ASUS G75VW-DS73- much faster and cheeper. But since everything I own is Mac, upgrading/changing over to Windows applications would really blow out the price.

Choice is: gulp -$$$$ – full blown out 15 inch Macbook Pro Retina – everything maxed out. It will be my “retirement” laptop for the next 3-4 years. Like so many others not pleased that Apple has gone to machines that you can’t upgrade at all – I mean really. A must is the 3 year warranty. The internal hard drive is relatively small at 768gigs. Pegasus will be on hold for a little while since I have 4 USB3 drives (12 TB) for now.

The Matrox DS-1 Thunderbolt Docking Station looks interesting as does Belkin’s THUNDERBOLT™ EXPRESS DOCK. Those add $300 – $750 – we’ll see what is needed as we go forward.

As always Creative Cow is the place to be just because of people like you.

Thank you all for your suggestions.
Wendell

[Al Bergstein]

Wendall, i just recently ordered the MB Pro model Neil mentions. I don’t believe Jeff. Is correct, in that you can already buy RAM upgrades for it , at OWC, a vendor I’v worked with for years for upgrades.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_1600MHz_SDRAM
I opted for the 1 gb video card and likely will replace the dvd eventually, though it’s awfully handy at times.

While expensive, i recently sold off a lenovo 520, a nice machine in many ways. I felt i needed to have the option of running either mac or windows software, and this version of Mbp will allow that easily. Either boot camp or one of the virtual machines will do. And the addition of two USB 3.0 ports is great. Much cheaper than TB drives.

My concern in buying now, is that given the REtina models not coming with FW 800 ports, and other ports, we might see all of them abandoned in future models. I have quite a few 800 drives from my Mac pro, which I’m also selling.I prefer the non glare glass too. I find the super high res Retina a bit tiny in the fonts for my older eyes. So i’m not too worried and save some money.

It’s somewhat disconcerning that Apple is not offering more flexibilty in high end models, like the retina. They serve a market that needs it.

Al

[Wendell Davis]

Understand where you are coming from. I’ve decided to hold off to see what comes next and have upgraded/blown out my 2009 Mac Pro: 16TB internal drives providing 350mbs, external raid5 with 8 4TB drives giving me 750-850mbs, HighPoint USB3 card providing 85mbs for backup drives, Blackmagic HD output, 64gig of ram and a new Nvidia video card and 3 Drobo raids. (All drives 7200rpm)

I need to keep all kinds of projects online and available. I have 3 copies of everything. A few years back I lost a major drive. It took lots of effort and time to get the files back. Will never happen again.

I’m in agreement about the MacBook Pros. Not being able to upgrade chips is a major flaw. It won’t be long before 32 and even 64gig chips will be available. Right now you have 16gig chips. 2 slots would provide 32 gigs. As many of us feel, Apple is saying good by to the Pro market.

Not having an internal Super Drive or Blu-Ray is annoying. I use Blu-Ray for archives. The idea behind a laptop is a one piece unit for the road. All the extra pieces we’ll now have to carry will take up more room.

After having only Macs since the day Steve Jobs came to the Boston Computer Society, I’ve started looking at PC…OH how I dread the thought.

My best.
Wendell

[Al Bergstein]

I think what you described is a good plan. I’ve not heard though that the newest MBP have no ability to upgrade their memory. I would make sure that’s accurate. The one I bought does allow upgrading of RAM.

As to moving to PCs, I’ve done it. I would say that you should go slow there. The W8 transition is terrible, and if you do move to a Windows world, do it on Windows 7 for now. While I agree that you can get a ‘cheaper’ box, I’ve found that it still comes back to less problems from the OS and hardware with the Mac. I just spent two days offline on my work fixing a problem of a corrupted Windows user profile after having a rock solid platform for over 6 months. That alone cost me the difference in price between the two platforms. I’ve used Apple products as long as you have, and I have never experienced a corrupted user profile, though I know some do. Software though seems like Premiere has more issues on the Mac than Windows, from what I’ve seen on this board. Might be just my limited perspective.

Apple is slow to move sometimes, and there is a possibility that T.Cook will have some announcements in May/June for the pro users. This will be the year that tells the tale, whether Cook will move the professional market forward (it would have taken about 2 years for his leadership there to produce something with his stamp on it), or by years end we will know that Apple really doesn’t care. Cook has made public announcements that he will work on getting us the right tools from Apple, and their continued work on FCPX is positive, even if they lost folks like me.

Al

[Wendell Davis]

Agree. I travel all over for the Government and had planned to get a blown out MacBookPro. But because of the way Apple has made decisions held off as I said. Last two years I’ve been within driving distance of my assignments and have brought my MacPro – with 3 30 inch monitors (2 of Apples and 1 Sony for playback)

The large monitors are so nice on the eyes for long days of editing.

I wish you well and as you will await Apple’s decisions.

Wendell