Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

M

Matt Vivlamore

Senior
Jan 11, 2011
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Southern MD, USA
www.meerkatsound.com
I'm giving in and replacing my '06 MacBook Pro with another MPB. It'll be used for home and on gigs (no bar shows, Lenovo does that). I'm in debate on which 15" version I should go with; I was pretty much going to stick with the stock builds. There are a couple differences, but mainly its in the screen, also the Retina display doesn't come with a CD drive, but can be purchased for $80.

Screen/Display:
1,680-by-1,050 Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display
Retina display (2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch)

LED screen build: $2250 (includes Apple Care, Antiglare screen)
Retina screen build: $2630 (includes Apple Care, SuperDrive)

I'm also considering Refurb units from Apple, they are about 15-20% cheaper.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

Matt Vivlamore said:
I'm giving in and replacing my '06 MacBook Pro with another MPB. It'll be used for home and on gigs (no bar shows, Lenovo does that). I'm in debate on which 15" version I should go with; I was pretty much going to stick with the stock builds. There are a couple differences, but mainly its in the screen, also the Retina display doesn't come with a CD drive, but can be purchased for $80.

Screen/Display:
1,680-by-1,050 Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display
Retina display (2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch)

LED screen build: $2250 (includes Apple Care, Antiglare screen)
Retina screen build: $2630 (includes Apple Care, SuperDrive)

I'm also considering Refurb units from Apple, they are about 15-20% cheaper.
Click to expand...

The Retina display is fantastic. I went from a 2009 17" anti-glare to the Retina last summer, and love it. The "non-antiglare (glare?)" screen hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it would - as part of the Retina deal, there isn't an extra piece of glass on the front like in older glossy models, so there are a lot fewer surfaces to contribute to glaring.

There is a significant performance difference due to the SSD drive in the Retina models, if you can live with whatever capacity of drive you can afford. The thickness (thinness) is amazing as well.

The external optical drive is OK, but I've found it's a little more movement sensitive than an internal drive, so you can't bump it while you are using it. I hardly ever use mine - USB drives are so ubiquitous it takes extra work to bother to burn a CD/DVD.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

TJ Cornish said:
The Retina display is fantastic. I went from a 2009 17" anti-glare to the Retina last summer, and love it. The "non-antiglare (glare?)" screen hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it would - as part of the Retina deal, there isn't an extra piece of glass on the front like in older glossy models, so there are a lot fewer surfaces to contribute to glaring.

There is a significant performance difference due to the SSD drive in the Retina models, if you can live with whatever capacity of drive you can afford. The thickness (thinness) is amazing as well.

The external optical drive is OK, but I've found it's a little more movement sensitive than an internal drive, so you can't bump it while you are using it. I hardly ever use mine - USB drives are so ubiquitous it takes extra work to bother to burn a CD/DVD.
Click to expand...

TJ, that is good to know. I only use the CD burner every so often.

My 2006 is A1226; 2.2GHz Core 2 Dou/2 GB/128 VRAM/120GB 5400rpm version. I did upgrade the 2 GB of ram to 4 GB of ram.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

Silas Pradetto said:
Wow. And your budget was $1500 for lights?
Click to expand...

yep... I run a "wash" light system and didn't want to spend much. Also, lights are the lowest importance on the food chain for me.

The only time lights become semi important to me is when the wedding has "uplighting" around the room and I'll match the stage color to that during band breaks. And when people come up to talk, I have to have Amber/White to make the see able.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

Matt, I have never regretted buying refurbished from Apple. I don't get my laptops that way because I want to build them a particular way, but my Time Capsules and other hardware are all refurbed. Never a problem, always like new.

As for the display, when I got my new MPB at the very end of 2011 I went with the higher resolution matte screen. I'm really glad I did, it's much easier to use in a wider variety of circumstances. The new retina display wasn't available yet, and I don't know what the equivalent screen resolution would end up being, but the 1680x1050 makes things about as small as I'd ever want them to be. In comparison to the Thunderbolt display the laptop spends most of its time driving the internal display is dim, the colors are worse, and it's small. But you knew that already. Personally I would take a look at the glare on the retina display, then you can choose to use those extra pixels or not, sometimes the extra real estate is worth the strain on your eyes. I'll probably end up getting it the next time around, maybe 2015.

P.S. I was thinking about the CD-drive thing and you know what? I wouldn't even miss it. The only reason I use one any more is to burn CDs for my car.
P.P.S. Fit all the HDD space and RAM in that computer you can. It's the only thing that ever really makes me need to buy a new computer, running out of one or the other. I got 8GB RAM in this one and it's enough for now. The processor speed really isn't important.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

The Retina display has variable resolution. Actual is 2880X1800 (2X 1440X900), but you can select screen scaling to give effectively 1920X1200, 1680X1024, 1440X900 (default), and even a couple smaller resolutions. Normally running an LCD at anything other than the native resolution is a disaster, but with the Retina implementation, it looks great. I run at 1920X1200, which was what I was used to with my previous 17" and I love it. In the year since the Retina tech has come out, most of the big apps have been updated to work well with Retina - apps like Photoshop use the scaling for menu elements, but the working canvas always runs at the native 2880X1800. It looks great.

I can't think of any reason not to buy the Retina other than cost.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

There are 4-5 ones I am looking at:
$1600: FC975LL; 2.3Ghz Quad i7, 8GB mem, 256GB HD, 6/12 build, refurb
$1850: FE664LL; 2.4Ghz Quad i7, 8GB mem, 256GB HD, 2/13 build, refurb
$1950: G0MKOLL; 2.6Ghz Quad i7, 16GB mem, 256GB HD, 6/12 build, refurb
$2000: ME664LL; 2.4Ghz Quad i7, 8GB mem, 256GB HD, CURRENT
$2020: FC976LL: 2.6Ghz Quad i7, 8GB mem, 512GB HD, 6.12 build, refurb
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

I bought my 11" mba back in December "new" because that was the only way to get it with 8gb ram. It's not upgradable so you've got to do it at initial purchase. [I think the fact that the apple refurbs rarely have maxed ram is telling about the general computer buying public.] I have bought a few refurbs in the past and have not been disappointed except with an airport express that I've found is basically unusable. If you buy a computer refurb I suspect you'll find most issues pretty quickly whereas my airport express was barely used for the first few months so I didn't realize it was funky. btw, I'm just now getting used to the tiny dot pitch (and the resulting tiny text size) on this mba. And I do use the zoom functions a lot more than I used to with the 17" 2006 model or the 13" 2010 models that preceded it. But, it's really small and light. It fits on smaller tables around mixing consoles and other junk and I think it's better on my back when I haul it in a backpack. The glare isn't usually an issue for me but if the retina's are indeed a little more "anti-glare" then that sounds inviting.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

MOST of the time, the refurbs from Apple are just fine. However, once in a while, you'll end up with a machine that just doesn't seem right. It'll pass all the tests, and seem to be O.K, but then just does weird stuff, like lock up, or act slowly at times, etc. These machines are a pain to fix, as you don't know what the source of the problem is. Our re-repair rate on refurb machines that come in for service is many times higher than that of stock new machines. My techs HATE working on refurbs for this reason.

The Retina machines are amazing in performance and quality. If you don't use the CD drive regularly, that's the route I'd recommend.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

Brian, I clicked on the link to your company's web page. It looks like Happy Mac is a third party Apple repair center. It's not completely clear, do you also repair other brands?
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

I'll just add that the 16gb of RAM is probably a worthy upgrade; if I was buying that's what I would get. As a side note, most of my computer work is related to my school(Computer Information Systems degree) and my day job(IT Support); for both of which I use Windows VMs frequently and the extra RAM would be really nice(I have my '09 13in maxed out at 8gb). For audio stuff it might not as important, but the Retina models can't, as far as I know, be upgraded.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

Tommy Peel said:
I'll just add that the 16gb of RAM is probably a worthy upgrade; if I was buying that's what I would get. As a side note, most of my computer work is related to my school(Computer Information Systems degree) and my day job(IT Support); for both of which I use Windows VMs frequently and the extra RAM would be really nice(I have my '09 13in maxed out at 8gb). For audio stuff it might not as important, but the Retina models can't, as far as I know, be upgraded.
Click to expand...

I would just add to make sure to check the price to upgrade/install the RAM yourself. You might save a couple hundred bucks.

Apple is pretty notorious about over charging for RAM upgrades on new systems... it is always cheaper to buy and install RAM after it arrives.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

Mike Brown said:
I would just add to make sure to check the price to upgrade/install the RAM yourself. You might save a couple hundred bucks.

Apple is pretty notorious about over charging for RAM upgrades on new systems... it is always cheaper to buy and install RAM after it arrives.
Click to expand...

It's not possible to upgrade the RAM in a Retina. It's soldered on the main board.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

drew gandy said:
I bought my 11" mba back in December "new" because that was the only way to get it with 8gb ram. It's not upgradable so you've got to do it at initial purchase. [I think the fact that the apple refurbs rarely have maxed ram is telling about the general computer buying public.] I have bought a few refurbs in the past and have not been disappointed except with an airport express that I've found is basically unusable. If you buy a computer refurb I suspect you'll find most issues pretty quickly whereas my airport express was barely used for the first few months so I didn't realize it was funky. btw, I'm just now getting used to the tiny dot pitch (and the resulting tiny text size) on this mba. And I do use the zoom functions a lot more than I used to with the 17" 2006 model or the 13" 2010 models that preceded it. But, it's really small and light. It fits on smaller tables around mixing consoles and other junk and I think it's better on my back when I haul it in a backpack. The glare isn't usually an issue for me but if the retina's are indeed a little more "anti-glare" then that sounds inviting.
Click to expand...


I bought a 13" MBP i7/8gb a few months ago and I love it. I haven't had too hard of a time seeing the screen at shows, despite no anti-glare and no retina display. It would have been at least another $300-$400 to jump into the 15" tier, and even more for retina which I really didn't need. I'm very happy with it so far, I use it for multitracking, and I'm looking into trying out Waves MultiRack as well. I still have my EDU email from college, so I managed to get $200 off list price with education discount, which ended up being cheaper than a refurb model with similar specs. I love it.
 
Re: Apple MacBook Pro - Antiglare vs Retina

Matt Vivlamore said:
I'm giving in and replacing my '06 MacBook Pro with another MPB. It'll be used for home and on gigs (no bar shows, Lenovo does that). I'm in debate on which 15" version I should go with; I was pretty much going to stick with the stock builds. There are a couple differences, but mainly its in the screen, also the Retina display doesn't come with a CD drive, but can be purchased for $80.

Screen/Display:
1,680-by-1,050 Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display
Retina display (2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch)

LED screen build: $2250 (includes Apple Care, Antiglare screen)
Retina screen build: $2630 (includes Apple Care, SuperDrive)

I'm also considering Refurb units from Apple, they are about 15-20% cheaper.
Click to expand...

The Retina MBP is a fantastic machine. I use it in a fairly bright environment and the glare is noticeable, but it doesn't bother me. The real advantage for me is that I can drive 3 external displays with it plus the laptop screen itself, it makes it a great desktop replacement. I haven't once missed the optical drive. I did get mine as a refurb unit from apple, no problems there aside from not being able to customize it.

That all being said, the product is already over a year old and apple is likely to refresh these in October, so probably worth waiting a month or two and get the latest and greatest when its available.
 
Tommy Peel said:
It's just on the Retina MBP's; the non-Retina models are still user upgradeable although I think they max out at 8gb so if you need more than that the Retina is the only option.
Click to expand...

The newer non-Retina MBP's will take up to 16gb of RAM, depending on the model. Mine is a late 2011 15" model, and happily accepted a 16gb kit from Amazon.

Sent from my SCH-I605 2
 
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