Very simple. I'm on the verge of buying one in the coming months I can get a cheap as chips non-retina refurbished for around £600 Intel Core i5 (2.5GHz/3.1GHz) 4GB DDR3 RAM 500GB HDD 13.3 inch (1280x800) Screen Mac OS X 10.7 Lion DVD Super-Multi I can get a moderately priced refurb retina for £769 Intel Core i5 (2.6GHz/3.1GHz/3MB) 8GB DDR3L RAM 128GB SSD 13.3 inch Retina Display Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite or a brand new retina for £999 from apple Intel Core i5 (2.7GHz/3.1GHz/3MB) 8GB DDR3L RAM 128GB SSD 13.3 inch Retina Display Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite The thing that turns me off about the retina models is how apple decided to solder everything down to make it slimmer. Even if i didn't want to upgrade in the future hardware failures means i have no choice but to send it away for an expensive repair! I'm not interested in it having lightening fast boot ups and from my understanding i can upgrade the OS for free to the latest with no issue.
I've got the 13inch model but with larger SSD. TBH with you the screen makes a HUGE difference compared to non-retina models. If you are looking at it there's clearly a large difference in clarity and vibrance. It's worth the extra cost but the only down side is the glossy finish but it's not too bad. The one other piece of advice is get a 256gb model, the 128gb is not enough and the amount of times Apple & other apps update will quickly eat up your hard drive space as there's no PCI-E ssds that are MBP compatible at the moment to swap it out.
I've moved entirely to retina MacBooks now (a 2012 15" MBP and a new 12" MB) simply due to the quality of the screens. The panels in the rMBP/rMB are fantastic and blow the older models out of the water - plus they let you run higher resolutions. That refurb 13"er at £600 is going to have the stunning maximum of 1280x800, whereas the retina models will do 2560x1600 with a quick hack or 1440x900 using OS X's software. Real estate is a good thing. As all the models you're looking at are dual-core i5s I'd likely go for the new one, if only to get full warranty coverage. I can't tell if the 2.6Ghz model is an early 2013 or a mid-2014 though, as they both had 2.6Ghz CPUs as standard (the 3230M vs 4278U).
i upgraded to a retina mbp last year and the difference in the screen is fantastic and well worth the extra cost. As Cei's suggested, I think you're better going brand new and getting the warranty. This is my third intel mbp and so far aside from the first one (Jan 2007) shipping with a faulty dvd drive, i've not had any hardware failures with any of them.
I'm not a heavy Apple user but the retina displays are really really nice. If I was after another one of their products I'd definitely make it a point to get that model.
The panels in the late 2013 and onwards models of the 15" Retina are actually capable of 3840x2400, which can be be ever so slightly amusing to demonstrate. The screens are just so much better on the Retina's, the Macbook I had before this ran at 1280x800, and I run this at 1920x1200 so much more screen space.
I thought the retina might come up the winner. A 256GB SSD retina would set me back £1200 which is £400 more than I had to spend. Unless I went 128GB for £999 I guess my options are either waiting for more cash, going with the retina on the 3rd party site for £779 and adding the 12 month cover for £29.95. Waiting for the same refurb to come up on apple (currently out of stock) and doing it that way (refurbs come with 12 month warranty) in both cases limiting myself to 128GB SSDs but getting the retina display. Another option is PayPal credit apple provide, as said I have £800 cash ready to go. Apple offer terms of 6,12,18,24 monthly repayments and dropping £800 with £400 paid over 6 months I won't even notice the repayment. But has anyone had any experience with it before?
I can't comment on the finance as I've always paid cash. However a 128GB SSD is pretty small - both mine are 256GB and I also run 2TB externals for my iTunes library and Lightroom. I would be tempted in your financial case to go for the refurb plus the £30 warranty if you think you can cope with the lower storage by using cloud/externals.
My sig one was done on student partner finance (Barclays) because I needed something reasonably powerful CPU wise for my masters, but portable (at the time the most powerful CPU in any laptop on sale), but having to work whilst doing the damn thing meant I couldn't drop 3 grand willy nilly, no problems whatsoever.
id grab the retina refurb, £220 for 100Mhz non boost is gash lol. As for the SSD, you can buy a "nifty drive" and expand it out to more. I also use an external to keep large non every day files on
No they're not. They have a native res of 2880x1800... just the same as the 2012 models. It's the DP output that's capable of 4K not the internal retina panel.
DING DING DING! Congratulations you've just won the Internets! That's definitely something i never knew existed, as long as i could increase the internal capacity fairly easily with a nifty drive and microsd then i could save myself £450 or so. A SSD for OS is definitely appealing but for plain storage I'm not interested in ultra fast for the added price.
Ok last decision to be made. Retina with 128Gb SSD from questionable 3rd party refurb - £780 + £50-£60 for nifty drive Retina with 256Gb SSD from Apple refurb - £979 Retina new with £128GB SSD from apple - £999 + £50-£60 for nifty drive The top option i can do 6 months interest free (after my car looks to be taking a chunk of my original £800) and bottom two options i could do 12 months interest free (well almost interest free.)
might be worth seeing if you know anyone who gets a discount from Apple? Standard I think is 7-8% off, not much but it helps. Students get more obviously but are probably more hassle (need a .ac.uk email address I think). Assuming you aren't already factoring in a discount?
Thanks for all the help chaps. Nice to see Mac and PC being used together as well Think I shall be going with the 256GB refurb. Just need to read all terms and conditions to make sure I'm comfortable with going for a 6/12 month credit option from PayPal. I could leave it for a few months and do it then but I'm probably never going to be in a willing to part with £1000.
That sucks. No refurbs left atm... If I got It delivered it would be to my parents meaning no access till next weekend anyway. Will leave it a couple days to see what happens, if not I'll go back to 128gb new model with a nifty drive! Got all excited to buy it them
