Macbook Advice! (Years of waiting and really need some help)

Original post by Student44

I was originally going to get the 15" basic model as I wear glasses and didn't want to get eye strain or damage them further, could this happen!?

13" laptops are big enough to use comfortably, certainly not going to cause damage using them, and the Retina Pros all have gloriously high resolution screens so should be completely fine to use. The best advice is to go into an Apple store and try both model sizes for yourself and, if you have seriously poor vision, ask the guys in an Apple store to take you through the Accessibility options that may be of use to you.

I do think the 13" would be more practical for Uni so It's between the 2.6GHz (Turbo boost up to 3.1) or 2.8GHz (Turbo boost up to 3.3)?

You're doing basic stuff, so don't pay for extra clock speed as nothing you'll be doing will come remotely close to stressing even a baseline Pro, they're all plenty powerful enough for your needs. All Retina Pros start with 8GB of RAM, which is also plenty. As a rule of thumb with laptops with fixed/proprietary hard drives, get as much storage space as your budget allows.

I have been advised to get an external hard drive but I've never had one before with any of my Windows laptops, is this advisable and would it effect the macbook decision as above?

This will have been suggested because the Retina Pros have extremely fast but relatively small SSDs, with the 13" models ranging from 128-512GB whereas a laptop using a traditional hard drive would be able to accommodate terabytes (1TB= 1000GB) at this same price point.

Depending on how much stuff you want stored on the laptop dictates whether or not you'll need an external hard drive. If you go for either the 128GB or 256GB models, I'd recommend picking up an external hard drive with it. They're very cheap these days, a 1TB portable USB 3.0 hard drive costs less than £50 on Amazon, and get into the habit of installing programs and key documents on your internal SSD and your media library and other stuff on the external one. This allows you to keep the stuff you need to load quickly or need with you all the time to be stored inside the laptop itself, and the stuff you don't need the blistering internal speeds to load like movies/music and other documents you keep more for archiving purposes on a mass storage device you can choose when you need to bring along or leave at home. If you plan on downloading and keeping a lot of HD quality videos, I'd get one with the 512GB model too.

[quote]I hope to use the Macbook for general uni work as I'm reading Psychology but I also download/watch a lot of videos and dabble in Photography.

If the photo editing you're going to be doing is kept light, any of the Retina Pros will do the job well.

I would like it to be fast running with multiple applications open and to remain so after 1 year! However as I'm not really clued up on Macs I'm really uncertain what the best option is?

Thank You in advance :biggrin:

Get the model in the size you want with the most internal storage you can afford and it will do the job well enough.

Original post by ftanvir95

I'm in the same position as you! I'm new to the Macbook experience and I was wondering if it was worth waiting a couple of months incase Apple refresh the Macbook line up.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

The Pros actually got a minor refresh last month, the processors got a minor speed bump and they moved to an 8GB allocation of RAM as standard. The key thing that prompts a major refresh/redesign each year is a new generation of Intel processors, which we haven't seen this year and probably won't see appearing in products until the very end of the year. If you want a Retina Pro, now is a pretty safe time unless you want the bleeding edge, and if you're also just going to use it for standard student stuff you won't really need the extra power, it's more a case of if they drastically change anything else about the design which isn't hugely likely.

The Airs are another matter. They also had a small update in the last few months and there's been no new CPUs to prompt a proper refresh, but "Retina Air" models with high res screens have been rumored for a while now. There's absolutely no indication on when they're coming, if at all, so it's just a case of how long you'd want to hold out in the hope of them being released.

Reply 3

ftanvir95

5

Thanks for your help! I will be picking up a Mac before i start uni next month!

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 4

OP

Is it the 512GB that affects this or the 8GB RAM? Sorry for the probably silly question!

If I was to settle on the highest spec 13" would this be a good choice or is it better to edit the 256GB spec?

Reply 5

Original post by Student44

Is it the 512GB that affects this or the 8GB RAM? Sorry for the probably silly question!

The 512GB, it denotes the physical storage. RAM is used by the computer for performing tasks rather than permanently storing files.

Of course this doesn't matter with regards to storing movies if you take my advice and store them on an external hard drive, but still, best to grab as much internal space as you can.

If I was to settle on the highest spec 13" would this be a good choice or is it better to edit the 256GB spec?

Like I said before, choose whichever model has the most storage space you can cram into your budget, since the 256GB can't be configured up to 512GB it's a case of whichever baseline model your budget allows for, and there's nothing else in the configurable options you need to mess with.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 6

CrazyKid123

5

Whatever you do, don't go out of your way to increase the clock speed to 2.8 GHz. You will not be able to tell a difference if you used a 2.6 GHz Macbook and a 2.8 GHz one side by side. In fact I'm convinced Apple don't even do anything. It's a waste of money and it just shortens your battery life.

Long story, I bought a 13 inch pro retina a few weeks ago (2.4 GHz/8GB RAM/256GB Flash) and exchanged it because of the spec bump Apple did a few weeks ago to (2.8 GHz/16GB RAM/128 GB Flash). What have I learnt? The clock speed on a CPU means nothing. Furthermore, a pretty significant disadvantage, the battery life feels a lot shorter! I'm not joking, my battery on the macbook I'm using now is a good hour less than the one I was using a few weeks ago. Right now I'm just about doing light web browsing, some reading, and watching a few YouTube videos and my laptop is dead within around 8 hours or so after a full charge. Perhaps I've got a defective battery or the flash plugin I'm using is very power hungry – but either way I'm probably going to return this Macbook for the standard 2.6 GHz clocked model.

Reply 7

OP

I would rather a longer battery life than a slightly faster macbook as I wouldn't have much time to charge it around uni.

I have got great advice on here and taken it all onboard. Tonight I looked at the 256gb and had thought about modifying it to 16gb and 2.6 ghz as it would give extra Ram but now I'm thinking maybe just the 256gb and ex hard drive? I tend to have multiple screens open, use Netflix and store photos but this is a big decision for me and my account and I want to make the right one!

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Reply 8

ihavemooedtoday

17

Original post by CrazyKid123

Whatever you do, don't go out of your way to increase the clock speed to 2.8 GHz. You will not be able to tell a difference if you used a 2.6 GHz Macbook and a 2.8 GHz one side by side. In fact I'm convinced Apple don't even do anything. It's a waste of money and it just shortens your battery life.

Long story, I bought a 13 inch pro retina a few weeks ago (2.4 GHz/8GB RAM/256GB Flash) and exchanged it because of the spec bump Apple did a few weeks ago to (2.8 GHz/16GB RAM/128 GB Flash). What have I learnt? The clock speed on a CPU means nothing. Furthermore, a pretty significant disadvantage, the battery life feels a lot shorter! I'm not joking, my battery on the macbook I'm using now is a good hour less than the one I was using a few weeks ago. Right now I'm just about doing light web browsing, some reading, and watching a few YouTube videos and my laptop is dead within around 8 hours or so after a full charge. Perhaps I've got a defective battery or the flash plugin I'm using is very power hungry – but either way I'm probably going to return this Macbook for the standard 2.6 GHz clocked model.

That sounds like something is wrong. Unless you are actually running CPU-intensive things, the 2 CPUs should draw the same amount of power, because they will both be working at very low power states.

Reply 9

ihavemooedtoday

17

Original post by Student44

I would rather a longer battery life than a slightly faster macbook as I wouldn't have much time to charge it around uni.

I have got great advice on here and taken it all onboard. Tonight I looked at the 256gb and had thought about modifying it to 16gb and 2.6 ghz as it would give extra Ram but now I'm thinking maybe just the 256gb and ex hard drive? I tend to have multiple screens open, use Netflix and store photos but this is a big decision for me and my account and I want to make the right one!

I would say 8GB is enough, but you definitely want at least 256GB SSD. 128GB gets filled up too fast.

I have a 13" 8GB/256GB MBP, with an external drive, and the setup works very well. You can also use Time Machine to back up to the external drive.

I usually have something like 10 windows open at a time, and I do some pretty intensive stuff (engineering design). Watching an HD video and having a few other programs open at the same time is absolutely fine on 8GB.

Reply 10

Original post by Student44

I would rather a longer battery life than a slightly faster macbook as I wouldn't have much time to charge it around uni.

I have got great advice on here and taken it all onboard. Tonight I looked at the 256gb and had thought about modifying it to 16gb and 2.6 ghz as it would give extra Ram but now I'm thinking maybe just the 256gb and ex hard drive? I tend to have multiple screens open, use Netflix and store photos but this is a big decision for me and my account and I want to make the right one!

Posted from TSR Mobile

You don't need 16GB of RAM for what you'll be doing, don't waste your money on it.

Reply 11

OP

Ok thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. As some of my work is already on word, I was advised I'd need to download this system onto Mac, would this take up a lot of space if I got a 256gb? I currently have 512gb free on my laptop out of 600gb available, I'm really undecided!!

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Reply 12

Original post by Student44

Ok thanks for your help, I really appreciate it. As some of my work is already on word, I was advised I'd need to download this system onto Mac, would this take up a lot of space if I got a 256gb? I currently have 512gb free on my laptop out of 600gb available, I'm really undecided!!

Posted from TSR Mobile

What do you mean by "download this system?"

Reply 13

OP

Downloading Microsoft for Macs, I just wondered what percentage this is likely to take up? I would guess quite little

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Reply 14

Camoxide

14

Original post by Student44

I would rather a longer battery life than a slightly faster macbook as I wouldn't have much time to charge it around uni.

I have got great advice on here and taken it all onboard. Tonight I looked at the 256gb and had thought about modifying it to 16gb and 2.6 ghz as it would give extra Ram but now I'm thinking maybe just the 256gb and ex hard drive? I tend to have multiple screens open, use Netflix and store photos but this is a big decision for me and my account and I want to make the right one!

Posted from TSR Mobile

The middle spec retina 13 is fine.

If you really want the extra power get the 15 inch as it's got a quad core vs the dual core 13 inch.
They're not too expensive with the education discount either http://store.apple.com/uk_edu_5000620/buy-mac/macbook-pro

You'll probably be fine with a 256GB SSD. Just keep all your pictures, films and possibly music on an external hard drive as they're the things that take up a lot of room.
Office for Mac would probably take up maybe 5GB?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 15

HannahBanana1995