Macbook pro?

[Adcadet]

Anybody have opinions on the Macbook pros? Looking for a nice laptop, wouldn't mind the jump to OSX. Would want to run some VMs (Linux distros, maybe Windows). Want Retina display. Thinking MacBook pro, 256 GB SSD (how much room does the OS take?), 16 GB RAM. Might do some light gaming but not enough to justify a graphics cards beyond the Intel Iris Pro. Big question is CPU. Might do some photo editing and video editing, so thinking i7, but whats the real world difference in their dual core i7 vs quad core i7? I think I'd prefer 13" for portability but if this becomes my main computer maybe the 15" version would be better.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm not a fan.
The screens are nice and OSX in and of itself is fine as a marvelously consistent *nix. I like OS X just fine. Spotlight is fantastic and I wish search on Windows worked half so well.
But I don't like the touchpad, keyboard or uncomfortable metal finish of the Macbook Pro. I think they get a lot of human factor stuff just flat-out wrong. Like the human factor that my wrists shouldn't hurt where they rest on the edge of the wrist rest.

I also don't like a machine that I can in no way fix. I know that's not a concern for most people, but I don't think Apple should be rewarded for selling machines with soldered-in RAM, no ethernet port and a battery that's glued in and actively dangerous to replace. I also don't like having to argue with Apple over how it should handle my support needs, which is what has happened every single time I've had to deal with it.

For what it's worth, you can probably get away with an i5 unless the VMs are a full-time need. The lighter machine will travel better and when the system is at home it can of course be connected to a proper display anyway. The dual core i5 still has two virtual cores as well (the mobile i7 has four real cores and no vcores), and short of serious content creation or a permanent need for a guest OS, even those four cores will probably be lightly used for 98% of the machine's life. If you're thinking this machine will be your new main computer, go ahead and spend $200 to get a Thunderbolt dock so that you can run multiple displays, ethernet and USB3; the extra I/O ports will probably be worth more than a few extra CPU cycles.

 

[Handruin]

My new work machine is a MacBook Pro 15" with the Core i7, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD. Overall I don't feel like it's worth the premium. It's sleek, the screen quality is very nice, it's reasonably fast, but I find OSX slows me down too much to make use of the system. The one notable thing I've appreciated is the good battery life.

The things that bother me about the MacBook are as follows:

1. Keyboard layout is too non-standard which makes it a pain in the ass to adjust from years of conventional PC (win/linux/unix) layouts.
2. Keyboard size is small and based to fit form over functionality. There's no page up, page down, home, end, etc which I use all the time. The OSX equivalent is a multi-finger-carpaltunnel-inducing-fingerfuck of an operation.
3. Keyboard specialty keys take priority over functional keys. For example F2 adjusts brightness or something useless like that vs renaming a file or directory. At least they left F5 alone.
4. Power cable is magnetic and falls out while connected with the notebook in my lap. Again, it's cool at first, annoying all the rest of the time when you have to pick it up off the floor to reconnect.
5. No Ethernet port means I have to consume a thunderbolt connection for a 1Gb dongle because form was preferred over functionality. Originally I didn't mind this, but having to always reconnect/disconnect is annoying.
6. OSX has really annoying GUI traits that I'm likely biased from years of using windows. The windows 7 and windows 8 snap to top or snap to side is something I greatly miss. I also miss having a hover-over from a given app to pick the alternate instances of a browser or terminal.
7. The fonts don't look as nice in my browsers (Chrome) as it does on windows. It has the lesser quality feel like when I use most distros of Linux. The precision of the mouse is also lacking which bothers me.
8. Finder doesn't let me browse what I want to see. I spend more time in the damn terminal than anything else.
9. The stock terminal is stupidly bright white and tiny text. It was the first tool I replaced. Why can't I select and have auto-copy of text like PuTTY? This is 2014...
10. Open source software or free software for common utilities seems to be far less available and in lesser quality. This could be just from years of bias and exposure with windows, but for many different tools I've grown used to over the years, I've found I'd have to pay decent amount of money to get an OSX equivalent. To me this is a huge point because I like a lot of specific tools because they help me in productivity but I'm not willing to pay for it in OSX land where it's free in Win/Linux (I'm looking at you SVN utilities).
11. Windows RDC doesn't work as well on OSX as it does on windows. It's another pain.
12. MacBooks were purchased in my new company because of some alleged reduced support from our IT department (which is one guy). I've had more hangs and lockups with my MacBook pro in the past 1.5 months than I ever did with years on my Lenovo's. Some of these hangs and issues seem to be related to the Ethernet dongle and external monitor attached via thunderbolt.
13. I'm not a fan of the all-aluminum monoshell. I got one bump on the top edge and now I can feel the metal nick every time I pick it up or slide it in my hand. It's also slippery. Again, it's form over functionality.
14. It's annoying that I get reminded all the time to update "apps" and software but it requires me to sign in to an itunes account.
15. The default keyboard character update rate is stupid-slow. Things like repeat character entries (spaces), or deletions take an eternity at the default rate. I boosted it to the max setting and it's almost tolerable.
16. The Mac magic mouse is not as good as it sounds. The tracking is sub-par and the right mouse click doesn't always work.
17. The Mac bluetooth keyboard is as functional as the built-in. I find it's too tiny and cramped for my liking. All the same keyboard issues apply...and a few more because of battery life and connectivity issues.

Things I like about the Macbook Pro:

1. Screen resolution and visual quality.
2. Battery life seems pretty good. I went almost a full day of work in our lab off and on the notebook with 45% battery left at the end of the day.
3. Weight is decent.
4. Trackpad (partially). The gestures take a little getting used to but I actually like the way they function throughout the OS. If you are in need of an actual click and drag to move a window or resize, or select something, this trackpad sucks ass.
5. Reasonably performance. I don't notice that the MacBook is slow which is nice. However I spend most of my day in a terminal and part of it with 20 browser tabs open. Our email/calendar/sharedrive is all google-based so it works well.
6. Completely quiet. I've never heard a mechanical noise out of the unit be it a fan or anything.
7. Reasonably cool under simple use. I rarely notice the temperature for the type of work I do with the system.

 

[Mercutio]

Handy, do you find the wrist rest on your MBP uncomfortable?

My generic advice for people who want Macs is to look long and hard at the Mac Mini or Air or to consider some sort of mobile device instead. Most of the time, people who want OSX machines are doing so because "It just works", because they think itunes will work better, or to get away from the security hassles of Windows. Since they're probably going to wind up using their Macs as internet terminals anyway, there's really no point in buying the more expensive products.

AD wants the high-res display that's only on some models of Macbook Pro, but in general I'd say that the most humble of current Apple products are good enough for everyday computing needs.

 

[Handruin]

I find it to be ok for the limited amount of time I use the laptop but I agree with you on the hard edges. It could also just be that I'm used to laptops from Lenovo that aren't covered in aluminum in all the spots I rest on it.