Non-retina MacBook Pro advice

The jury is still out on the retina display for the premium one has to pay. Personally, I would examine what is available in the refurbished section. The pricing is more favorable and you get essentially new MBPs with the same warranty and Apple support as virgin new ones.

If cutting edge performance is your preference, do wait for the next generation when ever that will be. I on the other hand went 'backwards' and recently bought a late 2011 MBP. The principle reason being that I wanted the 17" display. It may not have all of the latest 'speed' options but I find it to be an excellent machine.

I also have a 2006 Core Duo and it works perfectly within the constraints of the installed hardware. It is noticeably slower in certain situations compared to the newer MBPs but unless one's requirements are for really heavy duty applications, it is more than adequate.

Determine what your real needs are and what features are really required and go from there Try to extinguish emotion in your selection and do an impartial cost benefit analysis.

Ciao.

Retinas are tough to upgrade ram. Retina is nice but regular is more durable. Save money and go with the regular one.

Don't get a 17 inch. Wait for the 2013 model to come out and get a regular (as in non-retina) high end 15 inch. With 2.8 ghz quad core, SSD, 1 gig of NVidia graphics, and 16 gigs of ram. If you are willing to invest in a Mac for 5 years, completely max out the specs when you buy a non-retina 15 inch and keep all software updated. Plan to be able to update your OS until 2016. The specs for that same Mac in late 2008 are only 5 hours of battery instead of 7, apple max ram for the old Mac was 4gb while now you can get 16gb on your Mac when you buy it from apple, they had intel core two duo duo processors as opposed to now's quad core I7s and the future's xeons and I9s in Macs, 2008 had 250 or 320gb Sata 5400rpm and 128 and 256 SSDs, the max VRAM then was 512mb NVidia and now it's 1gb also NVdia. This is something to think about when buying a Mac now. These specs are approximately how your 2013 Mac will compare to new macs in 2018. Good luck Advanced User!(:

HAL 9001, greetings: How do you know what CPUs and GPUs will be installed in the next generation of MBPs? Not only Apple does not release such information prior to product introduction, this constitutes a violation of the Terms of Use for this forum. Such statements are encompassed in the 'speculation' clause. Perhaps you should review same.

To spec out a MBP entirely from Apple can be done but I consider that less than the best advice. The CPU and GPU cannot be altered but RAM and storage can be. If you look at the cost differentials for third party RAM and SSDs with the Apple prices, considerable money can be saved by ordering the basic RAM and HDD from outside vendors. This has been proven a good strategy in outfitting a MBP without any sacrifice to quality or performance.

Ciao.

I am sorry if I "violated" the terms of use. I love apple and would never do such a thing. First of all, I got my information from an app called mactracker which I am guessing you have heard of. All of the things that I said pertaining to the future specs of macs were read by myself in an issue of MacWorld magazine and just estimated. Please do not pressure me on topics that have to do with legal issues as I am only in 7th grade and would not like to deal with this right now. I am sorry If I bothered you OGELTHORPE and I will retain from stating any information about future apple products in their threads that has not been confirmed by apple yet.

P.S. I am sort of smart for a twelve year old so don't be surprised by my vocabulary. Thank you.

Oops. I forgot to mention, but I did not include any info about future GPUs and the information that I provided about CPUs is well known and is easily found in a google search about i9 processors andthat intel will continue to collaborate with apple for many years to come. Xeons are also predicted to become cheaper and therefore be in apple notebooks as well as Mac pros.

According to the terms of use here, we are not allowed to speculate on future Apple products. Anything you read elsewhere is just a rumor unless it is confirmed by Apple.

It might be good for you to read the terms as they also mention the minimum age requirement. You had to agree to the terms when you established an account here.

https://discussions.apple.com/static/apple/tutorial/tou.html

HAL 9001, greeting; You will not be fined, you will not be incarcerated and you certainly did not bother me. My intent was to simply inform you of a policy that is strictly observed on this forum. When you turn 13, I look forward to encountering you, and rest assured it will be on friendly terms.

Ciao.

MacBook Pro: How to remove or install memory - Apple Support

here is the link for all the macbook pro RAM upgrade spec requirements that is needed for each and every model

You do realize that this thread is almost 2 years old?