MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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I'm looking at a new mac book, PC world currently have the mac book pro 13" for £1099 (£200 off) but the sales lad couldn't confirm which model it was etc. the website shows it's the latest SSD version but it seems rare to offer £200 off. I needs the retina display and will primarily be used for colour proofing at clients premesis, plugging into their printers, rips, or linking to my large monitor at home and bringing work home. It also needs to be from PC world as work are supplying a voucher.
Have a look at the Apple Store at apple.com/uk.
The one there priced at £1099 presumably the PC Worlsd one. Personally I value disc space more that the retina display. I have a 15" retina model at work but my own is the bog standard 13" one, upgraded to 8Gb RAM and 1Tb hard disc. You probably can't specify the upgrades through PC World though and you want the retina display. Maybe my poor old eyes are past it but I don't see much difference.
Goto store, click apple icon, click 'about this mac', click 'more info'. Now you know more than the sales guy 🙂
Could be worth holding off as mac book pro line is due for a refresh.
[s]Buy form the Apple Store or John Lewis (2yr warranty). I strongly suspect the PC World machine is old stock.[/s]EDIT: I see you have no choice but PC World, get the RAM upgrade to the 256 model.
Get the 13" rMBP ([b]r[/b]etina [b]M[/b]ac[b]B[/b]ook[b]P[/b]ro)and 8gb RAM, if you can afford it get the 256SSD one. List price is £1250-ish from memory. The new USB3 connections are superfast and any external drive you buy will run as fast as if it was inside the machine. So you can get away with 128SSD and add say 500GB USB3 external harddrive. The extra RAM will future proof the machine for years to come.
I find the macrumors forum's very useful, have a look there under the specific MBP threads.
http://store.apple.com/uk_edu_5000800
They don't check if you are a student or not if you order using the above education link... Done it myself a few times.
Could be worth holding off as mac book pro line is due for a refresh.
As far as I know the only change will be next year at the earliest. Can't remember the name of the chip now but supposed to a big change (as usual). The chip inside now will be there for the rest of the year, so unless you want to wait that long, go for it.
Broadwell is the new chip. You can read about it here...
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/21/intel-chip-roadmap-2014/
Looks like the 13" rMBP has the same guts for the rest of 2014.
Cheers everyone off to PC world in the morning 🙂
I have been working on retina based machines for a while, I think it's value hugely depends on your intended use for the machine. For me it's a must.
For anyone else considering a purchase, John Lewis are offering 3 year warranty on Macs & iPads until 2nd May, rather than their usual 2.
I think you've answered this already, if its a works machine then do what you've got to do, if money/spec is important to you then don't bother with the RAM upgrade, just order new RAM from crucial and put it in yourself. Loads cheaper and easy easy job.
Is this still true? I heard the latest retina ones aren't so easy to upgrade.
RAM upgrade not easy or indeed possible with latest rMBPs though?
For anyone else considering a purchase, John Lewis are offering 3 year warranty on Macs & iPads until 2nd May, rather than their usual 2.
The education link above saves you money and you get 3 years Apple care 😀
I would definitely go for an SSD if you do a lot of photo / video work, makes a huge difference when processing lots of data, upgrading my 2010 MBP to a 500 Gb SSD was worth every penny.