Retina MacBook Pro review as a Mac Pro owner | Hacker News Reader

Retina MacBook Pro review as a Mac Pro owner

marco.org

62 pointsrkudeshi98 comments

"The long-standing performance gap between the Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro is now effectively moot"

That's what happens when the Mac Pro product line is allowed to stagnate and run 2-3 year old parts. The difference is infact moot, and that's a damn shame. =[

A good friend of mine that really wanted a modern OS X workstation went the Hackintosh route. He built a machine that's not only much more powerful than the current line of Mac Pros but also considerably cheaper.

I can understand why Apple is neglecting this segment for financial reasons but I do think they're slowly losing their exclusive cachet with the creative set.

Edit: misspelling.

Check out this guide, it's got a full walkthrough for purchasing the parts for and assembling Hackintoshes of various calibers: http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2012/08/building-customac-buy...

I assumed that building and maintaining a hackintosh machine would be a pretty major pain in the ass but my friend says it was no more difficult than building a bespoke Windows machine as long as you did a tiny bit of up-front research on parts.

It's no different from building any other PC, except for the restrictions on parts, like you said.

Nowadays you don't even have to worry much about that - there are high quality, in-depth guides that will walk you through the entire process step-by-step, if you need them: http://lifehacker.com/5841604/the-always-up+to+date-guide-to...

I've been maintaining my Intel i7 based Hackintosh (currently running Lion) since May of 2009, and the only time I've really had any asspain was doing major OS upgrades. I went from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and then to Lion, and each time I basically spent the better part of a weekend on the upgrade.

While this box has held up fine for my OSX work, it's getting long in the tooth for Windows gaming. Now that Mountain Lion supports high end graphics cards like the nVidia GTX680 out of the box, I'm looking to build out a new Ivy Bridge based Hackintosh that I'll also boot into Windows for some high-end gaming.

Do you have a link to some information about this? Is it a new box, or changes inside the Mac Pro box? In French we say "cachet" for something exclusive, not "caché" which means hidden.

Thanks for the correction.

His machine is entirely built from standard PC parts from Newegg or some similar vendor. He said he did a little bit of upfront research on components to make sure they were supported but that everything in the box is pretty standard.

Sadly, with the release of Lion, I had to retire my Hackintosh. DarkWake meant that my PC would no longer sleep and wake reliably, with random kernel panics to boot. I found the Hackintosh community to be full of wankers who would counsel people based on no real understanding of kernel internals. Perhaps it has improved since then.

Personally I would never bother with this because I'm just too damn lazy. I'm willing to suffer some installation hassles over Linux for moral reasons but if I want a Mac I'll just buy a Mac.

But maybe I'm lucky because any of the current iMacs are more than powerful enough for my needs.

They stopped caring about the Mac Pro at least 5 years ago. I'm occasionally amazed it is still offered for sale.

I recently picked up a retina MBP for work-related purposes, and it's a good machine, but I wouldn't review it nearly as breathlessly as this particular review does.

It's attractive, it's got a great build quality, and it's decently fast. I can't really tell the difference (in terms of "omg, teh pixels are invisible") between the Retina display and my HP Envy's 1920x1080 screen, but that might be because I don't sit with my face six inches from the screen. Text looks better on the MBP, but I credit most of that to the fact that OS X's font engine just blows Linux's (I run Fedora 17 on the Envy) out of the water.

Despite that, my daily driver is still my Windows desktop, running an i5 at 4.3GHz, with an SSD for my OS and programs, 2TB of magnetic storage, and 16 GB of RAM. That particular setup ran me well under $1k. My actual dev happens on a Fedora whitebox on my LAN, again with an i5 and 16GB of RAM, which I built for about $400.

The retina MBP is a nice piece of tech, but it's not the orgasm-inducing Jesus-box that some people seem to think it is. I probably couldn't justify the cost of one versus the competitors if I were buying it for personal use.

Well yes, of COURSE you could build a desktop for less money than a laptop. Unlike some people I've seen at Starbucks though, I don't feel comfortable lugging desktops from place to place. Not to mention it'd take up a bunch of space while I'm trying to get work done on the flight in economy class.

There are plenty of comparable laptops for far less money, too. It's not like the only options in the laptop market are $2200+ MBP or nothing.

I like the MBP. It's a great piece of hardware. I don't think the retina display is the quantum leap in laptop technology that it's made out to be. I don't feel any particular need to justify my purchase by citing the need to have top-end specs, because if I need maxed out specs, I can get them in my desktop for an order of magnitude less money. I enjoy working from the comfort of my desk with my big monitors and my mechanical keyboard and my nice speakers (and frankly, dislike working elsewhere without them), so laptop vs desktop is a moot point for me.

But how will people know you can afford $2200 for a computer if you don't bring it to the coffee shop to show off?

> There are plenty of comparable laptops for far less money, too.

What do you mean by "comparable"? The only decent quad core laptops in the same weight class are the Vaio Z, Panasonic CF-B11, and 14" EliteBook -- and with those (or any heavier modern computer) you have a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you need maxed out specs and don't want to work from a desktop, these are the kinds of computers you want to get. Take a Thinkpad T520, remove the optical drive, give it a 1920x1200 screen and the X1 Carbon's trackpad and you'll have a comparable laptop. Or if Panasonic would just go for the 16:10 screen ratio, you wouldn't even have to drop the optical drive.

For another unbiased review, we go live to John Gruber!

Indeed! "Scrolling sucks but here's a quote from another review on why that's OK". I'm not saying competitors' offerings are better, nor am I failing to realize that's just his opinion but come on, this is clearly from someone who's only bought Macs for years. Just saying, lets stick to the larger grains of salt, and upvote actual professional reviews instad.

Where did someone say it was OK? As far as I can tell they just explained the reasons it occurred.

That's really not the point.

I'm always intrigued by these claims that you can get something basically the same as a Mac for much cheaper. When I've investigated in the past (but in the OS X era---it seems generally accepted that Macs were sold at a hefty premium in the 80s and 90s), I've generally found the price difference to by in the ~10% neighborhood.

I just priced out a grossly-similar laptop to the Macbook Pro Retina at Dell's website, and came up with a Latitude E6520 with a price of $1931. Less than a Macbook Pro Retina by about 15%. The Latitude has a slightly faster processor, a graphics chip with half as much video memory, no retina display, weighs ~1.5 lbs more, and (I suspect) lacks Apple's all-around build quality.

However, a System 76 laptop with similar specs as the MBPR costs $1153. But that's with only the Intel HD 4000 graphics (no NVIDIA chip), and, again, no retina display.

So, I don't know. Can anyone offer some insight into why the System 76 system is so inexpensive compared to the base-model MBPR and the Latitude above?

I know that Dell sells, for instance, Inspirons, which are much cheaper than Latitudes, but my understanding is that these machines are essentially composed of whatever components can be bought most cheaply this week, and so they pose maintenance headaches, because it may be difficult to obtain a component that dies a year after purchase. Also, my personal experience with Inspirons is that they have very poor build quality.

Intel's roadmap for how long it'll take for everything to go retina: (png)

http://media.bestofmicro.com/M/F/333879/original/Intel-Roadm...

I just recently got hold of an older MacBook pro after years of Windows/Linux laptops and I got to say that I've been really impressed by the both the hardware and the user experience that's created through the amazing touchpad.

I feel that the OS itself might be a bit too heavy/slow for what I'm used to, and so I'd love to have the option to install Ubuntu on a MBP Retina and still have that awesome user experience. It's my understanding that getting any distro to work perfectly with Apple's laptops has been a neverending uphill battle.

I read that Gnome and Unity don't quite scale properly for the new resolution and I also don't think you get quite the same awesome gesture-based navigation you expect from every app running on OS X.

One can dream though. It would be unfortunate to let such wonderful hardware go to waste. I've always been that guy, carrying a wireless mouse around with me because all of the laptop trackpads were absolutely atrocious, always in the way, always accidentally clicking for me when my palms would be over them. After trying a MBP, I finally figured out why I would never see Apple customers carry around mice.

This.

"I used it at the scaled “1680 × 1050” resolution the entire time, since the native “1440 × 900” resolution isn’t enough space..."

Now, granted, I've only used it for 15 minutes at the store and not a week straight, but the poor IMHO software scaling required to get more "usable" space is a huge bummer for me. (I went for the high-res 1680 × 1050 display when I bought my latest MBP last year to get the greater screen real estate.)

This is my main issue too, but I played around at the Apple Store with scaled resolution and decided to go for it.

And how is it in day to day use? What display settings are you using?

Maybe you should get another MacBook Pro Retina and use it as an external monitor.

$2,200 for a laptop? Post-purchase rationalization anyone?

I paid more than that for a late 2010 model and it was worth every penny.

Three things have changed my career (as a programmer/CS student): MIT/Harvard/Stanford OpenCourseWare[1], HackerNews (the past 15 months) and my MacBook Pro.

That MacBook Pro is the best things I've ever purchased. I owe a lot to that machine (and HN).

[1]: I don't mean the new www.coursera.org thing. I mean http://ocw.mit.edu, cs50.tv/cs75.tv and http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx which were all available years before Coursera and I watched "all" of them and learnt "a lot".

I know what you mean, my Lenovo x201t was really the best purchase I ever made. It came when I was mostly done with the CS part of my degree and was focusing on my math major. The difference in my ability to take notes and actually organize and use them was absolutely massive.

I'm glad you love your macbook, but would a similar-enough computer _really_ not do it for you? When I upgraded from a netbook as my main machine to my Toshiba Z830, it was amazing, but then again, that is comparing a $200 machine to a $700 machine.

I can't really see that same $500 difference in price making something like the $1200 MBP so much better than what I've got, with marginal utility and all that going.

I don't by any means think that getting a high end machine is a bad idea, but I do think that once you get something that is a high quality item, you definitely reach the "good enough for me" stage.

In Europe, it will be 2200 euros. And still a good buy. Not a cheap one, but a good one.

It's more like 1900 euros before VAT, or 2375 usd.

I spent 4k for maxed out ram and a larger SSD. I'll spend more time interfacing with this machine than with anything else in my life over the next 3 years. I advocate spending a lot on your Computer, chair and bed, and spending little on your car.

Yep, same here. I put the most money into the things I spend the most time with. So far it's worked out pretty well.

Explain please. I was providing reinforcement for his statement.

Exactly how I rationalized spending $3k on the MBP retina. I commonly see people that think its crazy to spend a few grand on a computer but to me it's a device that supplies my income and where I spend the majority of my time.

The part about the car however, I do not agree with.

I'm an auto enthusiast and unfortunately I spend way too much on my car as well but it is something that I love to do and it provides me with a hobby to let me get away from all the time I spend on my $3,000 MBP.

In regards to cars, yeah, that comment gave me pause. I mean, when I was a teenager I was a skinflint on cars, but once you've got some funds... your computer can't kill you. Your car can.

This is not an advertisement for the latest car with fifty airbags. Rather, a suggestion to avoid being downright cheap with an automobile. Assuming risk is one of the costs of driving, and should be factored in to your purchasing decision.

Yeah, for me, the $3K is worth it. The only thing that gives me pause about the Retina MBP is the price and capacity of storage.

For example, if you're a photographer who likes to keep your entire library on your internal drive, you'll have mixed feelings about the Retina MBP's storage. I'm only shooting 12MP RAW, and my Aperture library is already >200GB with diligent pruning. I'd hate to imagine someone using something like a D800 and its 36MP RAW files only to find out they need an external drive after a few months of using the Retina.

It seems a good portion of the HN crowd is obsessed with spending more money than necessary. I totally get the "Put money into things that matter" idea, but overpaying for outdated specs is not some honorable trait.

A key counterpoint to the "put money into things that matter" idea is "but don't put unreasonable amounts of money into those things".

In other words, it doesn't rationalize spending $10,000 on a laptop if the $1,000 model is 99% as good.

I think it depends, obviously if it really were 99% as good it is a no brainer, a $4000 laptop that you value say 30% more could well be worth it. If you are bringing in 100k+ a year mostly using your laptop the $4000 figure is really quite insignificant in the long run.

Because a computer is nothing more than a list of specs right? It's the same quality logic behind "My number is bigger than his, so therefore my computer is better."

> Because a computer is nothing more than a list of specs right?

What else would it be? If my computer is faster, cheaper, and lets me accomplish the same things in the same amount of time, how could it be worse?

Oh. There are a thousand ways it could be worse.

Could you share some? I use a MBP at work, and if I'm not "doing it right", I'd like to know how I can get the most out of my machine.

It's all about getting the most of your time using the machine, unless you're doing CPU-intensive work (and why wouldn't you offload that to a server farm?). Convenience, reliability, usability, efficiency, etc.

After obsessing over pc parts since childhood, these days I don't give a shit about specs and am happier for it - unless I'm trying to play Counter-strike, even then I only wish I could use my PS3 and forget about it :)

My work MBP is fast enough for what I do. I don't need 16gig 2133 DDR3, or an i7. My problem, though, is that you're paying PC i7 level price for an i3/5, for example.

That's like saying by buying a Smart Car you're paying V6 price for a four cylinder engine. In other words, you couldn't be missing the point more.

I guess I just view things from a different perspective, not having the disposable income of the average HNer (where 2200 is a "rounding error", as seen in this thread)

>> If my computer is faster, cheaper, and lets me accomplish the same things in the same amount of time, how could it be worse?

Different people value different things.

Myself, I care less about specs than I do about weight, display quality and build quality -- I'll pay extra for those things too.

Other people might prioritize storage speed, and spend a fortune on the biggest possible SSD, even though the cost per GB might not be worth it to most other people.

If you are happy with a faster, cheaper computer, more power to you, because you're happy, and really, that's all that matters.

> If my computer is faster, cheaper, and lets me accomplish the same things in the same amount of time, how could it be worse?

Seriously?

Let's just take the most obvious example then. One is a laptop, one is a desktop. There. One is "faster, cheaper and lets you accomplish the same things in the same amount of time" but one requires you to be tethered to a wall and the other doesn't.

If that example is too much of an extreme for you, how about a desktop replacement laptop? I can get a 11-pound beast that is "faster, cheaper, and lets me accomplish the same things in the same amount of time" than my MacBook Air. Good luck opening it and using it anywhere other than a full desk though.

A computer is not just a spec sheet, much like a car is not a spec sheet. If you don't value the differences that putting more into a car or computer brings, that's fine. However it makes you look pretty out of touch if you can't even see what others value in it.

Build quality is generally not considered in terms of specs, it is hard to quantify. Also if we are talking Macs there is a lot around interoperability and software.

It's hard to put numbers on things like the trackpad on the Apple laptops, which are very large, accurate, have a great, durable, low-friction surface, a ton of useful gestures, and excellent heuristics to ignore palm brushes etc.

I spent around $3500 for a maxed out 15" MPB in 2010. Matte screen, higher res, 256GB SSD, 8Gig RAM.

Just this year I downgraded to a 13" MBA after using a co-workers... $1500 later and I've never been happier. The old MBP feels like a brick. A buddies new retina MBP feel like a lighter brick, but still a brick.

I can't see myself ever going back to the larger form factor.

I recommend really thinking about what you want in a laptop and trying out a few options. Go ahead and spend a lot if it's the perfect match, but don't feel like it needs to be expensive in order to be a great machine.

Absolutely, my machine preceding this one was an 11" MBA. I still use it on-the-go frequently. It helps me to check that I have committed everything :D It was the best $1000 I've ever spent.

I almost went with the 11", but it just felt too small after playing around in the terminal for a bit (talk about weird looks from the Mac Store kids). Maybe in a couple years I'll give it a try again. Such an amazing little box.

I tried to like the air, but the fonts were just a bit too wee for my eyes for extended use. Maybe if the airs ever go retina then resized terminal fonts won't look completely awful, and I may give it a go again. A retina 13"-mbp could be pretty nice too though.

Still rockin' the mid-2009 15"-matte with an aftermarket ssd for now.

I'm running 14pt Monaco in iTerm. It's perfect for me, and it still feels like I have more than enough screen space.

Only thing I miss is the matte screen...

The native widget fonts are still pretty small though right?

Not really, but I doubt I'd mind if they were. You should take another pass on the MBAs at a Mac Store. Launch term, change some fonts, muck around a bit and see if it's acceptable. I was originally going to upgrade to the MBP retina, but changed my mind after using a 13" MBA for a few min.

iOS compiles could be snappier I guess, but everything else is fine. Its faster than my 2010 MBP anyways.

I might do that. Thanks.

You can sell it year later while losing 10-15%. (If you take good care of it.)

What's your point? That's in no way a bad or ridiculous price.

No. You get what you pay for, and what you get here is a screen significantly better than any other display available. In addition to a very, very fast computer that weighs 4½ pounds.

As a software engineer my machine is one of my most important tools. Considering as much time I spend on it, $2200 is a rounding error.

> $2200 is a rounding error.

When you consider that the other options aren't free, this becomes even more true. A heavier or thicker case, plastic body, shittier display, or even something as seemingly insignificant as a bigger power brick to save a few hundred bucks? No thanks.

What would you say about a zenbook prime UX32 [11.6in 1080p] sporting a noob friendly Linux distro [Ubuntu/Mint]. Similar (possibly better) performance, aluminium body, lighter form factor, bleeding edge OS, access to most developer tools available on the OSX (bar textmate and xcode). Pricetag - $1300. The mind can justify whatever it wants...its called human nature

That computer is comparable to the 11-inch Macbook Air, which is around $1300 when all is said and done, not to mention it doesn't come with the stickers and bloatware of the Zenbook Prime.

Comparable? Considering the Macbook Air ships with a second gen dual-core i5-chip [Zenbook 3rd-gen i7], and an 1440x900 [Zenbook Full-HD (read 1920x1080)], It is more comparable to the lower end MBPs.

Last I checked bloatware was really an issue on most linux distros [Archlinux leaves you with a terminal prompt]. I'd recommend Ubuntu for new users, but as a Mac user you'd feel right at home. When you then take into consideration that performance of Wine (the free, open source Windows emulator available on linux) when running native Windows applications (Including high-graphic-demand games), it's a developer's dream.

Stickers...well there's precious little anyone can do about that.

So it looks like you can get a Zenbook Prime that's very similar to the $1099 MacBook Air for $900, but yes, with somewhat better specs.

It looks like a competitive laptop, although I'd have to hold one in my hands to really know. Looking at the pictures I'm guessing that the trackpad would drive me crazy (I don't understand why other manufacturers have so much trouble here, although Vizio seems to have done a nice job with their new line of laptops in this department -- no separate buttons for one). I'd also be trading OS X for Linux (or Windows), would would be a pretty serious compromise for me[0].

Anyway, yes, the mind can justify whatever it wants, but I don't feel like I have to do a lot of work to justify spending an extra $200. That's substantially less than a day's gross pay if you've got a typical US software engineering job.

[0]: I'm no stranger to Linux. I ran it exclusively from 1999-2004, and I have a Linux dev desktop at work. Out of the box I strongly prefer OS X, if for nothing other than the consistency of keybindings across software (including third-party). I could (and have) customized my Linux config to be more consistent, although some things are not easily tweaked.

How's the clickpad? How about SSD performance? Does Mint handle the app switching pretty well compared to OSX's Expose/Drag-Drop?

These things in a 2010 MB Air, where you wouldn't expect it, were unparalleled. When I spend 10+hrs a day on a device, I need it to have flawless input devices, and the Apple products seem to deliver the best (OSX req'd for best integration).

I'd recommend trying out the App switching/Workspace management on Ubuntu 12.04. 'Super'+S gets you all your different workspaces (defaults at 4 but customizable to 64 :D), while 'Super'+W shows all the applications running in a workspace. All that added to good old Ctrl+Tab and yup...comparable experience. SSD performance is the same as that of the Mac and available in 128GB and 256GB. Considering Ubuntu is more lightweight, its understandable that performance is better on it. Try it out for yourself. It comes with a multitouch touchpad too, and installing synaptic-multitouch-trackpad [google it] gives you the gestures on the famous trackpad. Is it as good, probably not, but does it significantly improve the UX when used....very.

I don't know about you, but that sound about parallel to me. For $700 less.

I would say that the screen size and rez are not comparable. That the Macbook Pro Retina has 3 Million more pixels than the Zenbook. And that 11.6" is still awfully small for a primary machine.

I'd also say that the Zenbook has a dual core i7 with 4MB L3 cache. The MBP has a quad core with 6MB L3.

I'd also say that the SSD on a UX32 looks like it's 128MB standard, half what comes standard on the base MBP Retina.

And finally that even Ubuntu/Mint have far more issues than OSX. Things like always reliably coming back from sleep modes. I still have issues with this on Ubuntu 12.04 on my desktop machine.

Look, i think the Zenbooks are beautiful and if all you have to spend on a machine is $1300 then I'd seriously consider it vs the 13" Air. I'd probably go Air because I have a lot of Apple ecosystem but an apple noob would probably go Zenbook.

But you can't compare it to a Retina 15" Macbook Pro. It's not like everybody that buys Apple just mindlessly forks-over an extra $900 for the brand name. The machine packs a punch.

Here is how a good boss would rationalize it.

Boss: Hi new Employee, what laptop would you like to use as your daily computer?

Employee: A $700 Dell.

Boss: Are you just saying that to save the company money? Because it's not about the money. I'm paying you $80k a year and I want you to be productive and happy. I want you to pick something you feel good about every time you use it. You will be using this laptop 40+ hours a week for the next 2 years. Don't forget, this is your job and career.

Employee: Hmm. Well, I do prefer Mac to Windows. Is a $2200 15" MacBook Pro retina OK?

Boss: You tell me. The purchase price is a tax write off. I really don't give a shit.

There's an inherent assumption here that $2200 gets you a significantly better machine. It's true, but you can enjoy a massive jump in quality for probably around $150-1600. I believe that's what lubos is alluding to.

If you're being paid professional programmer rates you should get the best machine, not the one where price-performance hits some sweet spot. If the cost of a developer who wants a Dell is $80,750 and a developer who wants an rMBP is $82,200 (year 1), that developer needs to be 2% more productive over a year to justify it.

Hard to measure these things for a lot of folks but I've definitely saved over 2% of my work time from switching from spinning disks to high-end SSD on unit tests alone. Never mind the reduced boot times, how fast 'brew install' is and the general responsiveness.

If you're buying it yourself, be cheap, if you're paying someone's massive wage bill, get them the best thing you can.

256Gb flash, quad-core i7, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M. ASUS has some slightly better models for a similar price, without the retina display.

If you are buying a premium laptol from any big manufacturer, it will be more expensive. Apple just doesn't offer a "value" line.

I'd go for a lower resolution one now that I read about the slow scrolling thing, that would really bother me...

Before I clicked the link to read the review I worked out in my head what his review would be like. I figured it would be gushingly positive with minimal criticism.

What a joy it was to read the first sentence of that second paragraph. Vindication.

And of course he leaves out the far more damning day to day problem with the rMBP right now -- many popular non-Apple programs including Word and Photoshop look worse than they do on a non-retina display. Anandtech has the story http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-w...

“We’re obviously in the middle of two awkward transitions: toward all-Retina screens…”

Maybe you didn't read the same review I saw. In what I read, he chose the right resolution for different uses, his unique choice out of many potentials. Yes, I'd rather that apps for Macs be written to be apps for ALL Macs. But life has a way of sorting that out.

Maybe you didn't read the same link? Arment did not mention that text in some apps looks worse on the rMBP than on a non-retina screen, which is true regardless of the chosen resolution on the rMBP and is a pretty big issue right now if you use one of those apps frequently -- stopped me dead in my tracks when I saw it at the Apple store. He was using the lower resolutions to avoid the lagginess problem. Eventually this will be sorted out -- although Microsoft's early signals and Mac track record indicate it might be a long wait. But it's relevant information that many potential buyers would want to know.

or, you could buy an AlienWare Aurora mid-range, where $2200 gets you the following:

4.1 Ghz 4 cores. 16Gb 1600Mhz memory Dual 1.5 GB Nvidia 660's 1TB SATA. If you want to spend $75 more you can get a 1TB RAID0 SSD/HD hybrid.

Of course, if you're willing to spend about $4000, you can build a Linux PC that will smoke any Mac product by a 2:1 margin in performance. This is coming from a Mac Pro user, Apple's neglect of this line has disappointed me. When I bought my 2005 Mac pro, it was the best quad-core system you could buy from a cost/performance. Now high-end rigs are ridiculously overpriced.

The only thing you lose with a high end Linux PC is the Retina display and portability, but I do most of my coding at my desk, and I'll take a 30" non-Retina display any day of the week until someone can ship a 30" Retina display. I prize actual number of readable windows I can cram onto the screen over minor improvements in e-Book reading.

Honestly, I'd buy two machines. The cheapest MacBook Air for moving about (or just use an iPad), but a Linux Desktop for real work.

> The only thing you lose with a high end Linux PC is the Retina display and portability

This is far, far from the truth, based on my current experiences trying Linux from an OS X/Windows world. Other things you lose: sane GUIs and desktop environment, quality font rendering (both Mac and Windows do it better), reasonable design sensibilities out of the box, stability, just general freedom from constant frustration.

I'm working on a post about my experiences that will provide more details about my experiences (and for what it's worth, I have not given up on Linux yet), but if you're used to OS X or even Windows, switching to Linux is not an easy trade off. I'm trying to remove the angry from the post so that it can be more constructive, which is proving to be difficult :).

I've been developing on Unix for 20 years, I don't have many frustrations with it, about the same level as OSX, certainly not "constant frustration"

There are two things I like to do with a powerful computer:

1) Play high end performance sensitive games like Battlefield 3. Apple gets crushed in gaming performance.

2) Write code. The slower my computer is, the less productive I am.

I spend 99% of my time in the command line, IDE, and in the web browser.

Look, you are talking to someone who is a big fan of OS/X (but HATED non-Unix Apple OS). OS/X was the Unix I always wanted. But Apple simply is not competitive at the bleeding edge of computing power, they are making devices for consumers, overpriced devices. I care about buying the most amount of computing power I can for a given $. I like getting under the hood of my hardware. With the generic PC, I can build my own systems to spec, I can tune it the way I want.

I'm not saying that this is for everyone, but if you are someone who owned a Mac Pro, a Retina MacBook is not a replacement when other desktops with far more power for the $ are available, and the Retina screen is mostly irrelevant when people with Mac Pros typically had giant monitors attached.

I'm not saying the Retina MacBook is not a good laptop, in fact, it is a great, if not the best laptop. But I don't believe in desktop replacements. Portability trades off power due to weight, size, battery, and heat constraints. People with highend desktops usually don't want to make those tradeoffs, in fact, they typically make the opposite ones: 1000W power supplies, liquid cooling, ultra heavy heatsinks, etc.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying I have some extra requirements, and Linux doesn't come anywhere close to meeting them, at least not out of the box. I suspect that many OS X users have similar expectations to me.

I do the same things as you with my computers, except with the addition that I am very picky about aesthetics and usability. The reason I wanted to use Linux was because I wanted to use my powerful gaming system as a development machine, and didn't want to go the hackintosh route, but my experience seems to indicated that it's going to take a lot of work to bring the Linux install to an acceptable standard.

>quality font rendering

That depends on your distro. You can also install the infinality patches (which are being merged into stock freetype2), and the result is better font rendering than OS X or Windows.

Yeah, I was very excited to see that merge (and of course the patch in the first place.) I haven't tried the patch myself yet, but I will do so when I get the time and motivation. As far as it being better, I was under the impression that Infinality was based on papers published by Microsoft stemming from their work on ClearType.

Are there particular distros you could recommend that have better font rendering compared to Ubuntu?

>As far as it being better, I was under the impression that Infinality was based on papers published by Microsoft stemming from their work on ClearType.

It was, but the author has made several tweaks. There are numerous tweaks you can make, but 3 of the settings are OS X, Windows, and Infinality.

The Infinality settings are fairly different and in my opinion (and a lot of other linux users opinion's) it looks significantly better than either Windows or OS X.

As far as distros there are several that tweak the font rendering Ubuntu being the most obvious, but if you're a typography guy I'd just go with Infinality it's defiantly worth it.

Wow, I'm amazed people are downvoting the fact that

a) Apple has been neglecting updating the Mac Pro line (I've been waiting) b) Because of a) you can now buy a much much better Linux or Windows box

I merely object to the idea that laptops can replace workstations, they can only do that for some people, and although the Retina MacBook is probably the best laptop ever made, it does not suit someone who wants a liquid cooled factory overclocked 4.2Ghz i7 with a GeForce 690 GTX and a RAID.

One thing to keep in mind for prospective buyers that already have a MBP is that the keyboard is really quite different. The travel is a lot shallower. I loved the MBP's keyboard, so for me the redesign was a bit gratuitous. You do get used to it, but it may be best to try before you buy.

How's the Retina MBP heat-wise compared to prior generations of the 15" MBP? That's my only complaint with my 2011 MBP - the thing is an oven on my lap - even with a laptop cooler attached, it's warm.

It's better, but still hot.

I multitask pretty heavily (Eclipse, lots of browser tabs, XCode and such) and haven't noticed it getting hot at all.

I've only noticed it getting warm when the NVIDIA card kicks in when a game is running (not an uncomfortable level however).

It is quite an improvement over the late 2011 MBP, but still gets fairly hot. The fans don't seem to engage nearly as often either.

Oof, here's a list of things I can buy with $2200: A $600 1080p tablet, a $1200 slightly-heavier-but-beefier laptop that runs Linux, a small telescope with the rest.

Give me a break.

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