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etalian posted:Yeah it's pretty hilarious for Apple refurb pricing such as occasionally offering ancient unibody Pros for $1700-$1800. Anything more than 1 gen out and the refurb store has quickly vanishing rewards 
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Jun 17, 2013 16:55
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I think this is ultimately what I'm going to get: http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC975LL/A/refurbished-macbook-pro-23ghz-quad-core-intel-i7-with-retina-display Good hardware, better for someone who needs mobile productivity (for school purpose, as I'm a computer science student and read a lot of text), and beefy enough to do a bit of gaming, although I expect to have disappointing framerates with the huge resolution.
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Jun 17, 2013 21:39
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So anyone had the chance to run a battery test on their new 2013 Macs? From the reviews looks like the battery life really improved up to 9 to 12 hours depending on the stress test.
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Jun 17, 2013 23:18
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Pseudo-God posted:Is it possible to buy stuff from the apple.com store using a non-US card? I will have the Mac delivered to a friend in the US, who will bring it over personally. I am keen on saving, so hopefully this method will work. Check out entropay.
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Jun 17, 2013 23:36
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Thinking about getting a used IVB MBA 13.3" on Amazon for $855.16. I would normally get it at the Apple store but refurbs for the 13.3" have been OOS for a week now. Any problems with buying refurbs from Amazon? Lack of warranty?
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Jun 18, 2013 00:40
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MrBond posted:Anything more than 1 gen out and the refurb store has quickly vanishing rewards Are they still trying to sell 2010 Airs with 256GB drives for $1200?
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Jun 18, 2013 00:45
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etalian posted:So anyone had the chance to run a battery test on their new 2013 Macs? From the reviews looks like the battery life really improved up to 9 to 12 hours depending on the stress test.
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Jun 18, 2013 00:56
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Geno posted:Thinking about getting a used IVB MBA 13.3" on Amazon for $855.16. I would normally get it at the Apple store but refurbs for the 13.3" have been OOS for a week now. You can find good deals on Amazon but main advantage of getting a Apple direct refurb is it has the full one year warranty.
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Jun 18, 2013 01:22
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Geno posted:Thinking about getting a used IVB MBA 13.3" on Amazon for $855.16. If it's not what you expected you're protected by A-Z guarantee.
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Jun 18, 2013 01:49
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Bastard UPS. Headed to Savannah for a couple days...checked this morning and it said 'Anchorage, Wednesday'. I leave the house and two hours later my daughter texted it was delivered. Cocks.
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Jun 18, 2013 02:16
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Geno posted:Thinking about getting a used IVB MBA 13.3" on Amazon for $855.16. I would normally get it at the Apple store but refurbs for the 13.3" have been OOS for a week now. You get the balance of the factory warranty, but there's no way of knowing what that is on "Amazon" (marketplace) refurbs. There's also no standard of refurbishment among those third-party sellers. As mentioned you are covered by Amazon's A-Z guarantee if it's not what you expected, and they're quite liberal with the adjustments or refunds if there is an issue.
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Jun 18, 2013 02:25
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Im at that stage in my work where a laptop would be useful, and Im thinking of an Air. I have a 27" iMac (mid 2011) currently. Am I right in assuming it cant be used as an external monitor only, but I could use it to boot from the Air's SSD in Target Disk Mode and use the SSD on the iMacs hardware? Essentially what I am going for is having all my poo poo running on my Air for simplicity. I have a NAS with my bulky files on that, so its not an issue of space, just applications and some documents/dumping photo and video. Then getting rid of my iPad2 and grabbing a new mini for super mobile stuff.
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Jun 18, 2013 03:35
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Thinking of grabbing an 11" haswell air when they're finally available in this country in a month or so. Bumping the processor to i7 and storage to 256gb, but waffling on whether there's any point to the 8mb upgrade if I'm not running multiple VMs, though I actually will do some casual gaming on it. My intuition is still that 4mb is pretty redundant, but apparently people on forums are upgrading it before processor and SSD.
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Jun 18, 2013 03:42
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Any trip reports on using Mavericks on a Haswell air w.r.t. battery life?
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Jun 18, 2013 03:55
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tirinal posted:Thinking of grabbing an 11" haswell air when they're finally available in this country in a month or so. Bumping the processor to i7 and storage to 256gb, but waffling on whether there's any point to the 8mb upgrade if I'm not running multiple VMs, though I actually will do some casual gaming on it. My intuition is still that 4mb is pretty redundant, but apparently people on forums are upgrading it before processor and SSD. Well apart from 8MB being what I had in the early 90s, I love "tell me what I need" questions. What you need and should buy totally depends on your own usage patterns, which you're not giving much of a hint on. There are also factors like what kind of money you can spend, how long you want to keep this thing and others. For my typical usage, a 128GB SSD would have been full before I'd have gotten all my apps on it, let alone a Windows VM or boot camp partition. 256 would also be pushing it. I'd also be constantly filling out the 4GB, so I went with 8. As for the CPU, I'm not so much just watching for speed, but also for the fact that the i7 has hyperthreading and can make background processing even less disruptive. There's also the aspect that I tend to keep Apple items until after the AppleCare runs out, so I'd like to be as future proof as possible.
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Jun 18, 2013 05:18
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flavor posted:As for the CPU, I'm not so much just watching for speed, but also for the fact that the i7 has hyperthreading and can make background processing even less disruptive. Pretty sure the Haswell i5s in the MBAs got hyper threading.
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Jun 18, 2013 05:35
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shodanjr_gr posted:Pretty sure the Haswell i5s in the MBAs got hyper threading. Hm, interesting. Makes Intel's nomenclature even more confusing than it already is because with desktop CPUs that's one of the major differences. Well I guess then it's still faster and has more cache.
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Jun 18, 2013 05:46
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flavor posted:Hm, interesting. Makes Intel's nomenclature even more confusing than it already is because with desktop CPUs that's one of the major differences. Well I guess then it's still faster and has more cache. Aren't i7s true 4 core processor (8 via HT) and i5s 2 core (4 via HT)? This how the desktop CPUs used to run, but maybe things have changed.
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Jun 18, 2013 05:56
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tonic posted:Aren't i7s true 4 core processor (8 via HT) and i5s 2 core (4 via HT)? This how the desktop CPUs used to run, but maybe things have changed. No you can get dual-core i7s. I think the ones in the air are clocked higher (and maybe more cache?). There should be an impact to battery life though...
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Jun 18, 2013 06:00
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Intel's naming scheme is all over the place now which is such a shame after the Core[X] [Solo|Duo|Quad] system.
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Jun 18, 2013 06:05
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shodanjr_gr posted:No you can get dual-core i7s. I think the ones in the air are clocked higher (and maybe more cache?). There should be an impact to battery life though... Well I can lift the mysteries based on Apple's product page. They're indeed clocked higher (1.7 GHz with a boost up to 3.3 GHz instead of 2.6) and have 4MB L3 cache instead of 3. There may be an impact on battery life, but so far this thing runs as long as it should when compared to the real-world battery life of the other laptops I've seen. The longest estimate I've seen in the menu bar so far has been 9 hours and 33 minutes of battery life.
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Jun 18, 2013 06:27
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tonic posted:Aren't i7s true 4 core processor (8 via HT) and i5s 2 core (4 via HT)? This how the desktop CPUs used to run, but maybe things have changed. It's all out the window, especially on the mobile platform. You'll see i3's with HT, dual core i7's, and you'll need to look everything up on intel's site to see what you've gotten. I believe in the case of the MBA, the only difference is stock/turbo speed and 3/4MB of l3 cache, but they call one an i5 and the other an i7. It's stupid. (beaten, oh well) Speaking of, I just picked up my 11" MBA (i5/8GB) from UPS tonight, and I'm in love. I'd toyed around with a 2012 13" MBA, and I like this more in almost every respect, but I like tiny computers. Something else interesting was that playing a game like FTL for a couple minutes would trigger the fan to turn on on the old MBA, and no matter what I've done to this one, I can't get it to make a peep. And maybe it's my imagination, but I'm pretty sure I'm seeing the faster disk performance. It's really snappy.
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Jun 18, 2013 06:29
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Civil posted:And maybe it's my imagination, but I'm pretty sure I'm seeing the faster disk performance. It's really snappy.
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Jun 18, 2013 06:51
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Laserface posted:Im at that stage in my work where a laptop would be useful, and Im thinking of an Air. Civil posted:Something else interesting was that playing a game like FTL for a couple minutes would trigger the fan to turn on on the old MBA, and no matter what I've done to this one, I can't get it to make a peep. kuskus posted:Anand's test showed 750MB/s. this is simultaneously what I'm jealous of and looking forward to in future computers. Maybe this will kill the remaining bulge in the next iMac. Also, Haswell-E 6-8 core was announced for desktops so if that makes it in there, it will be nice for those priced out of the Mac Pro.
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Jun 18, 2013 10:07
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BobHoward posted:When using dd on OS X you should use the raw device nodes for best performance. /dev/rdiskXsY instead of /dev/diskXsY. Also try increasing the block size dd's using while copying. 128KB is usually a good value; the argument to pass to dd is "bs=128k". Thanks for this! I had to copy the whole partition again, as the computer went to sleep a few times during the previous dd command which I think may have corrupted some/all of the files. Using rdiskX and 128k blocks it's hitting 33MB/sec, which is close enough to the USB2 limit I guess.
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Jun 18, 2013 12:51
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Is there any consensus on a good dock for the 15" Retina MBP that isn't a complete ripoff? Ideally I'd like a nice vertical or horizontal one but if it comes down to getting a simple thunderbolt box within a reasonable price range I'd go for that.
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Jun 18, 2013 15:17
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flavor posted:Hm, interesting. Makes Intel's nomenclature even more confusing than it already is because with desktop CPUs that's one of the major differences. Well I guess then it's still faster and has more cache. Yeah, it's been mentioned before but all of the i5/i7 ULV CPUs that have gone into the Air over the last few years (I want to say that it's all of the i5/i7's that have gone into the Air, period, but I'm not totally sure) have come with hyperthreading and turbo boost- making the distinction between the two CPU tiers almost exclusively about clock speed. I think we'd end up with very different performance figures across the lineup if Intel didn't break their standard naming scheme with the ULV CPUs. Without hyperthreading/turbo boost, we'd probably have horribly underpowered i5 Airs and the only one that would remotely qualify as an MBP alternative would be the i7.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:18
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flavor posted:Well apart from 8MB being what I had in the early 90s, I love "tell me what I need" questions. What you need and should buy totally depends on your own usage patterns, which you're not giving much of a hint on. There are also factors like what kind of money you can spend, how long you want to keep this thing and others. For my typical usage, a 128GB SSD would have been full before I'd have gotten all my apps on it, let alone a Windows VM or boot camp partition. 256 would also be pushing it. I'd also be constantly filling out the 4GB, so I went with 8. As for the CPU, I'm not so much just watching for speed, but also for the fact that the i7 has hyperthreading and can make background processing even less disruptive. There's also the aspect that I tend to keep Apple items until after the AppleCare runs out, so I'd like to be as future proof as possible. I understand what you mean but he is probably looking for general opinions from various people since most of us can't describe our own usage patterns. Which is why I'm lurking this thread instead of reading a few benchmarks before ordering. Do people with the 128 drives end up wishing they went for the 256? Is the 4gb laggy in real world scenarios? Does the i7 actually make a difference in day to day computing activity? Of course we can read the reviews online and see benchmark scores, but the qualitative reviews are extremely helpful.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:31
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I wonder how long Apple will sell the regular ol' Macbook Pros. I would love them to update them with built in fusion drives and remove the optical drive. They might even be able to make them slightly thinner. Either that or just cram more battery life into them. But my fear is, that when they update the rMBP to Haswell, they will just make the old MBPs disappear off the site.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:35
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echobucket posted:I wonder how long Apple will sell the regular ol' Macbook Pros. I'd bet they keep them around for the low-end of the market, and education. Maybe the 15" will finally get a price drop. Remember they used to have white MacBooks too.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:38
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Oceanlife posted:Do people with the 128 drives end up wishing they went for the 256? Is the 4gb laggy in real world scenarios? Does the i7 actually make a difference in day to day computing activity? I wish I went with 256. It's my biggest regret about my current Air. In my experience, occasionally (lots of Chrome tabs). It's worth getting the full 8gb. Historically, the answer was always, "No, you probably won't notice it. Get the i5." With the notable clock difference between the i5/i7 in Haswell, I don't think anyone has any solid idea yet. If you don't post the questions, we can't answer them. Sometimes people in the thread get cranky because it seems like we get a barrage of the same questions. This can be helped by reading over the last few pages before you post. But if the question you want answered isn't there, don't be shy about asking it. Nobody expects anyone to have the last 30 pages of the thread committed to memory.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:47
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Oceanlife posted:Do people with the 128 drives end up wishing they went for the 256? I wanted to have a bootcamp partition on my new laptop and didn't want to have to manage files to keep the drive from filling up, so 256 was worth the upgrade cost. It should be more than enough for me even with a modest 50gb Windows partition set aside.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:51
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OK, I'll jump in. I want to get an air. I'm, sold on the 512GB/8GB combo, but I, too, am debating between i5 or i7. I will mostly use it for watching Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, traveling with it, etc. Occasionally I will want to encode some stuff, etc. But, it just *feels* shortsighted for me to buy the older processor - I was always of the school of thought to max out a computer when you buy it and then never look back.
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Jun 18, 2013 16:53
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dexter6 posted:OK, I'll jump in. It's not a difference of old or new, it's clock speed and CPU cache. But when it comes to something like a MBA, where you (comparatively) can't upgrade anything, it's absolutely worth getting the best of the best since it will stay relevant longer. Apple does overcharge for the upgrades but since nobody else can do it...
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Jun 18, 2013 17:05
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Oceanlife posted:Do people with the 128 drives end up wishing they went for the 256? Is the 4gb laggy in real world scenarios? Does the i7 actually make a difference in day to day computing activity? As far as RAM/processor goes, when I started playing Binding of Isaac and Dungeons of Dredmor which I thought were fairly non-hardware-intensive games, only to have the fans spin up most of the time, it was then that I thought more RAM might have been wise. I'm not sure if a better processor would have helped as well, in that case. I also have a pretty slow experience with Pixelmator and I'm pretty sure a heftier processor definitely helps there. All that being said, for general day-to-day writing, browsing, note-taking, I can't really see a better loadout helping with that, I've been pretty satisfied with my experience so far. I also was rather conservative as it was my first Mac when I bought it in July 2011, and I was still figuring out what my needs were. Nowadays I'm keeping most of my gaming to consoles and/or iOS which will further simplify my upgrading decision. dexter6 posted:OK, I'll jump in.
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Jun 18, 2013 17:12
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dexter6 posted:OK, I'll jump in. code:
zeroprime fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 17:23
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I have some hardware questions about a 2009 Macbook Pro (one of the unibody aluminum ones): My screen started having this issue where it will begin graying out while the image stays in place (stops refreshing) until I hit it or wiggle the screen around. Could this just be a connector that got loose, or is the display itself dying? If it's a connector it seems like something that might be worth taking apart the laptop and fixing myself but I don't know. Obviously it's way out of warranty. Second, I was looking at upgrading the memory in the laptop (before the screen issue started). It says it uses DDR3 1066 memory but it looks like there's a better selection of faster memory in terms of prices and brand names. But I can't confirm whether something like DDR3 1333 memory will work in my laptop and just downclock it to 1066 or if it won't work at all.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:10
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It's pretty amazing to see the battery life progress compared to the older models: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2439
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Jun 18, 2013 18:12
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Ran home to throw my Macbook Air and Airport Express inside on my lunch break. Barely had time to open it but goddamn I'm excited to get home and play with it. As for 128GB regret: having that much space sort of influenced how quickly I migrated to cloud storage and using more online services. For example, I haven't had local music on a computer since Google Music started beta and Spotify came out here in the US. That said, when I was trying to get into development Xcode took a decent amount of space and that coupled with Adobe Creative Suite made it really annoying to store stuff I was working on locally. That's pretty much why I got a 256GB this time around, which is just enough to keep audio/video stuff locally with all of my applications and whatnot. If you're just using it for general poo poo I don't see why 128GB wouldn't be enough for almost everyone. I assume the bulk of everyone's files are their music collections, and using a digital locker can make a big difference there if you're okay with that stuff.
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Jun 18, 2013 18:28
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Oceanlife posted:I understand what you mean but he is probably looking for general opinions from various people since most of us can't describe our own usage patterns. Which is why I'm lurking this thread instead of reading a few benchmarks before ordering. Hm, I go from personal experience and expectations mainly. First, benchmarks are irrelevant to the questions of disk space and main memory needed. They're both easy to figure out based on expected needs and prior experience, particularly if one already has a Mac. The CPU question is where benchmarks come in. I generally end up doing some gaming on these things, so unless there's no appreciable gain at all, I tend to get the BTO option on that. Other questions that I think are very relevant are how much the potential financial pain is and how long someone wants to keep the Air. Personally I'd think these considerations (not necessarily my conclusions) belong in the OP, just like the endless repair questions (that I've been guilty of too a while ago with my iMac) should go to the Haus of Tech Support, as they do with Windows PCs. Mr. Smile Face Hat fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 21:31
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