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My new 27 inch iMac arrived yesterday. Holy poo poo the screen is huge coming from a 13.3" MBP-so much real estate. Insanely fast, too. 690MB/s write, 702MB/s read on my test. And It's pretty remarkable clicking a button and having this new iMac boot into exactly the same state as my old MBP. Everything it its place, all settings as they should be. Magical really. One word to describe this thing: luxurious Refurb Chat: Another thing to note is that sometimes people return their computers because they don't like them. These returns weren't necessarily vetted for bad hardware, but will be checked by Apple with their process and deemed worthy for sale. But honestly, I feel the free 1 year warranty Apple provides on refurbs is in most cases enough time to know if the hardware is good or not. However, for people wanting refurbished iMac's with SSDs, they're poo poo out of luck. There's pretty much no option except to buy new. Maybe that's a good sign that people generally like their SSD iMacs and they aren't susceptible to hardware failures.
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Apr 11, 2014 02:59
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What would the recommendation be for someone who wants a powerful system, but is already swimming in large flat panel screens? Certainly not to buy yet another large screen that is permanently saddled with a computer, or is it? FAKE EDIT: I should also mention I already have a powerful system, a PC. That is sometimes a Hackintosh. I'm not so sure whether I would ever feel inclined to buy an iMac when I already have two reasonably powerful PC towers, both capable of running Mac OS X in a stable fashion. Is it also worth mentioning that I built my own towers, the latest as recently as 2012?
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Apr 11, 2014 03:21
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Binary Badger posted:This is akin to turning off the fuel pumps in a jumbo jet in mid flight. poo poo will get wrecked in short order. And unless you have a bootable system waiting on another drive to either hook up to Thunderbolt/FW/USB you'll have a $2000 brick. I agree that Apple hasn't provided this, so forget about it (for now). But I want to quibble with the idea that it's totally unreasonable and impossible. It's not, and what's more the required infrastructure is what makes Fusion possible at all. FileVault 2 and Fusion are both built on top of Apple's Core Storage logical volume manager (LVM). A CS logical volume might be a single physical disk -- or it might be multiple, if it's a Fusion logical volume group. It might be encrypted, if it's a FV2 LV, or it might not. Higher layers, such as the HFS+ filesystem driver, don't know. It just looks like another physical volume. CS could be putting the bits on Mars. Core Storage can already do online encryption or decryption to migrate volumes into and out of FV2. When you first turn FV2 on, you must reboot, but I believe this is because Apple isn't formatting all disks as Core Storage logical volumes out of the box (yet). Rejiggering the partition table to make it into a CS managed disk is the only step which has to take place offline. The actual encryption of your data is done online in the background after the reboot. Has a progress bar in System Prefs. You can use the computer normally while it's working. There's no real reason why they couldn't do something similar with Core Storage logical volume groups, aka Fusion. They've already got online HFS+ resizing, had it long before Core Storage in fact. They've already got online migration of data between the physical volumes composing a Fusion logical volume group -- Fusion needs that just to work at all. The rest is online LVM operations on a LVG (shrink / grow / add / remove) which I know are possible since I've done them with the Linux LVM. It would be neat to see more of the possibilities which a LVM opens up come to Core Storage on OS X. You can do some crazy poo poo which people always assumed was like turning off a jet's fuel pump midflight, without missing a beat.
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Apr 11, 2014 03:26
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kode54 posted:What would the recommendation be for someone who wants a powerful system, but is already swimming in large flat panel screens? Certainly not to buy yet another large screen that is permanently saddled with a computer, or is it? What do you mean by you want a powerful system? Like what do you plan to do with it?
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Apr 11, 2014 03:30
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BobHoward posted:Just gives me a bit of a twinge when people claim that refurb must be better than new. The risks of a dud probably do drop, but the same winnowing process also amplifies the chance that if you get a dud it won't be as easy to deal with. Some further pluses and minuses are that supposedly some "refurbs" are actually new products that are just sold off after the product got discontinued and that there's no way to guarantee that a specific configuration someone may have settled on will ever show up in the refurb store. And of course it takes a while before any newly released product shows up there. Plus I don't think the refurb store gives student discounts, but I may be wrong. So it's all cool, but not without its caveats. kode54 posted:What would the recommendation be for someone who wants a powerful system, but is already swimming in large flat panel screens? Mac Pro.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:02
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flavor posted:I don't have a problem with your opinions per se so much as with the way your feelings of superiority of your opinion express themselves in your assumptions It's also okay to defend something without being a spokesperson. flavor posted:1986-1996 Apple wasn't the real Apple Mercurius posted:So considering everything on this list, have you actually used a MacBook Air or Retina MacBook Pro? On to new business: my peer at work just got back from 3 days at NAB in Vegas and he said that there was almost a total dearth of Mac Pros at the convention. Only people selling peripherals for Mac Pros were using them. All the 4K video / camera / screen stuff (which was the bulk of the event it sounds like) -- not really there yet. Anybody here using one daily, for work or for fun?
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Apr 11, 2014 04:23
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kode54 posted:What would the recommendation be for someone who wants a powerful system, but is already swimming in large flat panel screens? Certainly not to buy yet another large screen that is permanently saddled with a computer, or is it? This seems like a very off question. A) What should I buy if I want a powerful system? B) But I already have a powerful system. C) And I'm not sure whether I even want a new system, or what I want it for. Maybe answer your own questions B) and C) first.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:37
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Djimi posted:So it's okay for you to condescend reflexively. Basically only your replies in this thread have inclined me to outlining my background. Because of earlier responses where you have been dismissive and smug (almost continuously), where you seem to think I don't know what I'm talking about. I never called into question anyone's intelligence. You've taken the commentary personally, you've decided to defend Apple. I guess that puts you into a position that is uncomfortable. I also don't really agree with your August 2011 comment either because I quite like all the stuff that's been released from Apple recently. My own experience with their recent stuff is that it's a considerable improvement in both design and construction to the older polycarbinate and unibody laptops (we haven't had a single hardware failure on any of the new rMBPs yet despite purchasing ~150 of them in the last 18 months) . I know that's based on anecdotal evidence but I'd argue that's going to be the case regardless of which side of the argument you're on  .As for the lack of Mac Pros as I understand there has been an extremely limited supply of them so far (and there are still orders that were placed in January that haven't been filled by Apple IIRC). Combined with most of the showing off being around 4K (and Mac OS having flaky support for it at the moment, even on the Mac Pro) it's probably not too surprising that there aren't a ton of them floating around for trade shows. I know our screen production department have been having issues getting the specs they wanted through our normal supplier (but since we're in Australia this is normal for new tech products).
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Apr 11, 2014 04:53
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Djimi posted:Ergo: August 2011 to the present, same thing? No, because the company still operates the same way as before, unlike what happened in 1985. Otherwise, whatever. Yes, I'm their spokesperson. I'm actually Phil Schiller. There, I said it. ~Coxy posted:Maybe answer your own questions B) and C) first. Maybe he doesn't want to  .I just think the Mac Pro is the only Mac that would potentially fit the bill.
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Apr 11, 2014 04:55
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Mercurius posted:As for the lack of Mac Pros as I understand there has been an extremely limited supply of them so far (and there are still orders that were placed in January that haven't been filled by Apple IIRC). Combined with most of the showing off being around 4K (and Mac OS having flaky support for it at the moment, even on the Mac Pro) it's probably not too surprising that there aren't a ton of them floating around for trade shows. I know our screen production department have been having issues getting the specs they wanted through our normal supplier (but since we're in Australia this is normal for new tech products). At this point I'm really wondering why they're still not readily available. Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to produce them domestically.
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Apr 11, 2014 05:04
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Mercurius posted:I still don't really see having user replaceable HDD/RAM as a huge benefit if the tradeoff is having a bigger, heavier laptop with worse battery life to lug around (and the market apparently agrees with me since Apple computers are pretty much the only brand of PCs that aren't nosediving in terms of sales/shipments worldwide). Regarding PCs though, you might want to check statistics: Apple has lost some marketshare while some (HP, Dell, Lenovo) have gained. Of course there's obviously a massive difference in the profit each sees on systems sold, but tablets are definitely impacting the entire market. Apparently though the market doesn't agree with you... The vast majority of people will more likely buy the rMBPs because of the screen. For most people when you throw a system into a carrier bag/backpack/etc., there will probably be other stuff in that bag, and they really aren't going to notice the "huge benefit" of 0.2 inches and 1.14 lbs. I'm sure some will, but the "huge benefit" is vastly exaggerated. flavor posted:I just think the Mac Pro is the only Mac that would potentially fit the bill.  ".
Canned Sunshine fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 05:32
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SourKraut posted:Using the 15" MBP as an example, someone else could make the opposite argument But of course. In this world, any argument can be made and this case it wasn't so much that there were no tradeoffs involved, but how they supposedly signified the end of the end of Apple as we know it. "My" Apple would never radically redesign or drop products  .SourKraut posted:Regarding PCs though, you might want to check statistics: Apple has lost some marketshare while some (HP, Dell, Lenovo) have gained. One thing to note which I'd bet 80% of people reading the article and the table in it would get wrong is that the percentage gain or loss is based on each company's market share, and not an overall gain or loss of market share of that company. SourKraut posted:Pretty much, but even then it'd be gaming-gimped. It feels more like a "My Hackintosh can satisfy a role that no singular Mac can! I wonder if the post was really meant that way. That would be trolling.
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Apr 11, 2014 06:23
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Mercurius posted:I also don't really agree with your August 2011 comment either because I quite like all the stuff that's been released from Apple recently. Mercurius posted:As for the lack of Mac Pros as I understand there has been an extremely limited supply of them so far (and there are still orders that were placed in January that haven't been filled by Apple IIRC).
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Apr 11, 2014 06:56
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Mu Zeta posted:What do you mean by you want a powerful system? Like what do you plan to do with it? If I were to move my Mac OS X development to an actual Mac. I also randomly use it to play games, including some Windows games in Parallels 9 or booted directly into Windows. So having 8GB or even 16GB like this current PC would sometimes be helpful. I have actually run into near memory exhaustion issues with this setup, but only because I have my root volume installed to a 128GB SSD, with my home directory located on a 640GB spinning platter thing. I also need to clean up that spinning platter thing, because it's getting down to just 60GB of free space now. It would probably help if I pruned out months old archives of my primary development project, which comes out to maybe 60MB per build. Maybe I could figure out how to set up the SSD and the 640GB drive in a fusion drive setup instead, but I have no idea where to start. I already have all of my home directory, sans my Dropbox folder, backed up on a third drive in the machine. Ah yes, that's another thing, I tend to keep old cruft hanging around on my drives forever, like a packrat. Maybe yet another computer isn't the ideal solution for me, as I've already got two up and running, and this one works just fine for me, for the most part. And a Mac Pro is one of my hopes for the future, except that I'd have to see a sizable chunk of money before I could even consider buying one of those. And it's been only two years since I plonked down about $2000 on this PC build. Well, including the $650 I spent on this Asus VG278H, which was the first part I purchased out of the whole lot, which took half a year because I couldn't afford to buy the whole lot at once. Yeah, I thought a 3D monitor would be really cool. And it was, for a while. Now I mostly just use it for 120Hz desktop and gaming that can't hope to reach 120fps. And now I also want one of those Rift developer kit 2 builds. If I do buy one, I'll probably also buy the consumer version whenever that comes out as well. I sure do seem to be good at spending money that I don't have. Oh well, at least I seem to have a job lined up a couple of months from now, assuming that funding succeeds. I'll post about that in another topic where it is more relevant.
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Apr 11, 2014 07:22
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Mercurius posted:I also don't really agree with your August 2011 comment either because I quite like all the stuff that's been released from Apple recently. My own experience with their recent stuff is that it's a considerable improvement in both design and construction to the older polycarbinate and unibody laptops (we haven't had a single hardware failure on any of the new rMBPs yet despite purchasing ~150 of them in the last 18 months) . I know that's based on anecdotal evidence but I'd argue that's going to be the case regardless of which side of the argument you're on Somebody who knows more statistics should chime in, but 150 seems like it might be a decent sample size. From the engineering side, there's some obvious reasons why this might be. Connectors and cables are never good for reliability, and the MBA/rMBP design philosophy which first shipped mid-2011 reduces both. Also, it bears mentioning that in the next 5 to 10 years there's a half decent chance even desktop Windows PCs will have soldered processors and memory. Putting connectors in the middle of a link limits how much bandwidth you can get out of each chip pin without unacceptable cost, power, and latency penalties. There's tech on the horizon (Hybrid Memory Cube) which tackles these problems by stacking memory chips into a tiny "cube" which gets soldered to the board right next to the processor -- or even on the same organic substrate as the processor -- and ditching the connectors. There are working HMC engineering samples today, but no concrete plans for using them in the PC space. Yet. Don't be surprised if/when something like HMC does happen, and please don't assume it's only because Twirly McMoustache the CEO wants to screw you. In the electronics profession we've been delivering ridiculous performance/feature improvements and price reductions every year for about a hundred years, and the engine which has powered that trend the entire time is miniaturization and integration. Higher integration has done wonderful things, but it has also always necessarily reduced the end user's ability to tinker, repair, or upgrade things themselves.
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Apr 11, 2014 07:49
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decypher posted:My new 27 inch iMac arrived yesterday. This is my next new Mac. I thought I'd never go desktop again, but I worked on a 21" all summer and miss it now that I'm back on my 15" MBP. And I'm gonna get a second monitor for it because gently caress why not.
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Apr 12, 2014 01:21
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lord funk posted:This is my next new Mac. I thought I'd never go desktop again, but I worked on a 21" all summer and miss it now that I'm back on my 15" MBP. And I'm gonna get a second monitor for it because gently caress why not. I was pretty stoked about the purchase until about 10 minutes ago when my IFTTT recipe ticked telling me there are 27 inch iMac's in the refurbished store with flash drives. I bought mine new. Exactly one week ago. I could have saved $200 AND had 16GB AND had 1TB of flash storage if I ordered a week later.  I am tempted to test Apple's customer service and return this thing while ordering one of those refurbs. What would you guys do in my situation? http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/imac/27
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Apr 12, 2014 01:40
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Fuckin do it. You get 14 days right?
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Apr 12, 2014 01:43
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I think you can return it no problem but why don't you call and ask? You don't have to lie to them or anything, you can be straight-up.
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Apr 12, 2014 01:44
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decypher posted:I am tempted to test Apple's customer service and return this thing while ordering one of those refurbs.
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Apr 12, 2014 01:45
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It's funny because you pretty much created another refurb of that model by doing that.
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Apr 12, 2014 01:49
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Thanks for the quick advice everyone. Although my math was a little wrong (it's actually $200 more than I paid out the door for the larger SSD and more RAM) I still think I'm going to order it and return this one here. Might as well be happy with something I won't be replacing for (hopefully) 5+ years. edit: Ouch! It wouldn't ship for another month. That is a deal breaker as I need the computer for a project I'm doing for my brother's business. I don't actually need the extra disk space as I've got external thunderbolt drives, but it's nice getting the most for your money. Oh well, it's only money, right? :-( Lemme go ahead and disable that recipe. decypher fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 12, 2014 01:49
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Only 200 bucks more for 1TB of SSD is pretty legit anyway dude, at least when Apple is involved. I've only got 256gb of SSD and 500gb of HDD in my MBP and that's more than enough, I'd be dancing in the streets with 1TB of SSD.
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Apr 12, 2014 01:57
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I need some Retina Macbook advice. I'm going to be based in the middle of nowhere for the coming two months, and I need a laptop to work on. I want a Macbook because they're great. I use it for some simple word editing and statistics, with the program Stata. Maybe some light gaming, FTL probably. Pretty light usage, so an air should suffice, but I want the retina screen. So I'm torn between the 13' retina macbook 128GB or 256GB. How much is left for the user after OSX takes it share? The other difference between the two is the RAM: 4 GB vs 8GB. I've never used OSX so I don't know how RAM heavy it is. It really is a pretty big difference in price so I'd rather not go for the expensive version unless it really hurts me. (I know Retina airs are probably coming but I'm leaving in a month)
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Apr 12, 2014 13:15
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LPG Giant posted:I need some Retina Macbook advice. I'm going to be based in the middle of nowhere for the coming two months, and I need a laptop to work on. I want a Macbook because they're great. I use it for some simple word editing and statistics, with the program Stata. Maybe some light gaming, FTL probably. I believe the generally recommended laptop these days is the 13" rMBP with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Best place to get them is the refurb store since they're 15-20% cheaper than retail and come with the same 1 year warranty as a new one. Only catch is that because they're refurbs they're not always in stock.
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Apr 12, 2014 13:40
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Mercurius posted:OS X uses almost nothing these days and I think it's less than 10GB on the drive for a fresh install of Mavericks. It's all the other stuff that you install afterwards like iLife/iWork that take up all the space. Darn, that's a pity. Can you get a refurb with education discount? How much cheaper is a refurb? (They're not in stock at my national apple store).
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Apr 12, 2014 13:45
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Refurbs of the current models are usually 10-15% off. No you can't combine the edu discount with them. I would buy it here. $1459. No tax and free shipping, and a free copy of Parallels. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1010902-REG/apple_me865ll_a_13_3_macbook_pro_notebook.html
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Apr 12, 2014 13:56
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Mu Zeta posted:Refurbs of the current models are usually 10-15% off. No you can't combine the edu discount with them. I'm not in the US unfortunately (I'm in the Netherlands). I think I'll just go for the education discount then. Can't really risk waiting, and the edu discount is pretty sizeable as well.
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Apr 12, 2014 14:37
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 Is that half way decent for a 2008 MBP A1175 battery? I'm not looking for advice on replacing, just curious if this battery is faring better or worse than others in its age group. This is after ~4 recondition cycles. Full charge, leave plugged in for a few hours more after 100%. Drain until forced sleep. Leave in sleep until the blinky light stops. Shaocaholica fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 12, 2014 17:57
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At least one of those battery tracking apps submits reports to a site to track averages. Coconut Battery might?
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Apr 12, 2014 18:03
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If you have CoconutBattery you can compare it online at http://online.coconut-flavour.com/ they have a large database which could do better than us of telling you how it is. Having said that, advice for maximising battery life? Some stuff I've read has said that you should let it charge up and then unplug, use it down to 50-60% and then charge it again. Good advice?
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Apr 12, 2014 18:04
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Sad Panda posted:If you have CoconutBattery you can compare it online at http://online.coconut-flavour.com/ they have a large database which could do better than us of telling you how it is. Thats really dope, thanks!   Looks like I'm doing well. Edit: I'm not sure what the data is beyond my battery life. My battery was purchased when this MBP was first released so there shouldn't be any data for batteries that are older than this one since they shouldn't have existed.
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Apr 12, 2014 18:44
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Since you're out of warranty, it's really not that difficult to buy a new battery and install it yourself if you really care. I don't recall if you need a Torx driver but they're cheap. It's a trivial operation. Just take off the lid, unplug the battery, unscrew it, installation is the reverse of removal. If you really care, anyway.
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Apr 12, 2014 18:49
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Pivo posted:Since you're out of warranty, it's really not that difficult to buy a new battery and install it yourself if you really care. I don't recall if you need a Torx driver but they're cheap. It's a trivial operation. Just take off the lid, unplug the battery, unscrew it, installation is the reverse of removal. Those batteries require a tri-wing driver to remove. It's the only part in those machines that use it.
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Apr 12, 2014 18:53
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Sad Panda posted:If you have CoconutBattery you can compare it online at http://online.coconut-flavour.com/ they have a large database which could do better than us of telling you how it is.
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Apr 12, 2014 19:00
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MBP 4.1 guys. Tooless removable battery 
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Apr 12, 2014 20:24
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edit: beaten like an eggempty baggie posted:Those batteries require a tri-wing driver to remove. It's the only part in those machines that use it. According to the Coconut Battery screenshot it's the last of the prior model aluminum laptops where you use two thumbs to remove the battery. The tri-wing bullshit started with the Mid 2009 Unibody models. Macsales has the good Newer Tech batteries for this. Also I can't believe my eyes, people are now recommending Coconut Battery? I remember when you guys loved to make unending posts about how much you hated it, it sucked, and how going to About This Mac was better, etc. Obviously the author actively developed the product..
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Apr 12, 2014 20:24
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edit: god damnit, you guys are quick.empty baggie posted:Those batteries require a tri-wing driver to remove. It's the only part in those machines that use it. No they don't. Early 2008 MBP /A1175 battery is user removable, all he needs is his thumbs. MBPs weren't even unibody until late 2008, and didn't start using trilobe screws until 2010, i think. 2008-2009 had an awkward phase where they used a pentalobe driver for the battery screws, but otherwise yes, trilobe screws after that.
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Apr 12, 2014 20:28
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Binary Badger posted:edit: beaten like an egg Thanks for the tip on the newer tech batteries although those are in the same range as apple batteries. I was about to plunk down the $30 for an eBay battery. How are those? I've bought one for a friend and it's been fine but no real scientific comparison and she needed something right away since her original A1175 expanded and popped the battery case.
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Apr 12, 2014 20:38
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