Macbook Pro normal or retina?

[teejay]

Hi,

I'm seriously thinking about moving over to the dark side and getting a MacBook Pro. I can't decide between the normal 15" MacBook and the retina model.

From what I understand the retina one has a better display, is thinner and lighter but is completely non upgradeable if you wanted more memory or a bigger ssd and would mean carrying around extra cables and bits for a lan adaptor and dvd drive. The normal MacBook Pro 15 has the dvd drive and lan built in and as I understand it can take a memory upgrade and you could put in a 3rd party ssd, or have Apple locked out this option now? Also, if I went with the normal one is it worth paying the extra £75 for the hi-res screen?

 

Flippin lot of money but hopefully worth it...

[FN-GM]

Do you need a DVD and LAN port, i cant remember using either on mine personally. I would go for the retina version just because its thinner.

[teejay]

Yes I need both, I do a fair bit of media work so need to burn cd/dvd's and also do need a lan connection at times.

[morganw]

Doesn't the effectiveness of the retina display depend on programs being written to accommodate it?

I thought I read that if you just run regular applications everything gets scaled and looks bad. I don't think you have any control of the actual screen resolution.

[teejay]

Hmm, the thing I'm most interested in is screen real estate as I would be using some video editing software and also some dev software, so would I be better with the hi res version of the normal one or the retina display?

[morganw]

I think it depends on the specific software. I imagine things like Final Cut X have been updated for the new screen. I would want to see the programs running on one before I parted with any cash.

 

The MacBook Pro Strikes Back (With Retina Power) | TechCrunch

 

"The biggest downside of the entire device in my mind is just how bad it makes most of the web (and quite a few native OS X apps) look. While this version of OS X Lion does upscale text and some graphics to be “retina”-ready, much of the web is not. Take Facebook, for example. The text is fine, but all the images, including the logo, are extremely blurry. Google? Same problem.

 

And that’s the picture if you’re using the version of Safari bundled with the Retina MacBook Pro. If you try to use Chrome, you may vomit. Everything is rendered poorly — text included. Luckily, Google is moving fast to correct this and a retina-ready version of Chrome is already in the Canary (early beta) build."

[teejay]

Ok, thanks everyone, I think I'm heading more towards the standard MacBook Pro with the hi-res screen, but could anyone confirm that you can still take out the hard drive and replace it with a 3rd party SSD? I have seen some things where Apple have locked it down in the OS so you can't do this? I presume 3rd party mem upgrades are fine?

[Marci]

Yep & yep (having done both to the Macbook Pro I bought 3 months before the new one came out).

[-Tim]

I would go with the non-Retina version. I already have parted with my optical drive on my current MBP to add an SSD but I would not be able to part with Ethernet and upgradeable RAM. I can confirm that the SSD is upgradeable, though it does not use the standard mSATA connection. This means you will have to buy a customized SSD specifically for this model ($$$).

 

OWC offers 480GB SSD upgrade for Retina MacBook Pro, requires screwdriver and careful math -- Engadget