Apple MacBook Pro MJLT2LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (512 GB)

Great high-end laptop, maybe the best Macbook ever (updated 4/4/2015), March 18, 2015

By 

Ron Cronovich (Kenosha, WI) –

  

I’ve used my early 2015 13″ Retina MBP pretty intensively every day. I’m evaluating it relative to my 11″ recent-year fully loaded MB Air and the most recent non-retina MB Pro, which I used for a year at work.

Here are my impressions of the 2015 rMBP so far, relative to these other Macbooks:

* Display

This is the main reason I bought the rMBP and I’m absolutely thrilled with it. It blows away every other Macbook’s display except of course the 15″ retina MB Pro. (The 15″ Pro is too big and heavy for my needs, and is overdue for a refresh.) For years, I’ve been running my MB Airs with an external monitor, a pretty decent 25″ 1080p IPS display, and I was happy with this setup. No more! The external monitor and obviously the MB Air’s display are a major step down from the rMBP’s display. I’m spoiled – it would be really hard for me to go back now that I’m used to the MBP’s gorgeous high-res display.

* Weight

The 13″ rMBP weighs 3.5 pounds. Whether that feels like a burden or a breeze will depend on what you’re comparing it to.

I’m coming from a 2.4 pound 11″ Macbook Air, which I brought with me almost everywhere, including to work every day. The extra pound of the 13″ Pro is very noticeable. The weight of the pro was the only reason I hesitated choosing it over a 2015 MB Air.

If you’re comparing the Pro to the 13″ MB Air, the Pro is only 1/2 pound heavier. If you’re comparing the Pro to similarly configured Windows laptops, many of which weigh 3 to 4 pounds, it’s in the same ballpark in terms of size and weight. If you’re comparing the Pro to the 13″ non-Retina Macbook Pro (yes they still sell these), the non-Retina Pro weighs a full pound more than the 13″ rMBP.

For me, the Pro’s extra weight relative to the MB Air is a compromise I’m willing to make in order to have a much more powerful machine with a much better display. Plus, I no longer need to bring my laptop with me everywhere now; sometimes it’s fine to just bring my iPad mini 2 and external keyboard. (It helps that MS Office is available on iPad now, and IMHO it’s pretty good.)

* Force track pad

The “force” part — pressing the track pad harder to activate different features — is not supported in most applications now, but more and more applications will support it in the coming year. Until that happens, it works great as a regular trackpad – better than the (already excellent) trackpad on previous MB Pros and Airs. I like using the new trackpad pretty well. But it’s not a killer feature, and in the future when more apps take advantage of it it will probably be like having a third mouse button–handy, but hardly essential.

* Speed & Performance

The 2015 rMBP has a newer generation of processor and graphics. Everything feels very fast, including bootup times, app startup, running apps, ripping music CDs, etc. That said, the 2014 model feels very fast, too, and I don’t think most people will notice any speed improvements with the 2015 model over the 2014 model in normal everyday usage.

Apple claims the 2015 model’s flash SSD is twice as fast as the SSD in the 2014 model. Independent testing from professional review sites have verified this. However, in normal usage, I don’t notice much difference – the SSD in last year’s model is pretty dang fast.

* Battery life

Apple claims 10 hours to a charge, compared with 9 hours on last year’s model. Independent tests by professional reviewers largely support Apple’s claim: Laptopmag.com reports 12 hours 4 minutes; PCMag.com gets 11 hours 10 minutes; CNET gets a whopping 15 hours 42 minutes.

These figures are stellar, but the testing conditions are not realistic. In real-world usage, there are so many things that affect battery life.

During my first 10 days with this machine, I never got more than 8 hours and usually more like 7. After much research & diagnostics, including a visit to the Genius Bar, I tried what all of you reading this must think is the obvious thing to try: I turned down the screen brightness. It turns out that you get a couple extra hours of battery life on 50% brightness compared to 80% brightness. I can now get close to 10 hours, maybe a bit more. I *prefer* having the screen brightness at 80%, and often leave it there while running on battery as long as I know I won’t be away from an outlet for more than 6 hours. But for those rare times when I do need maximum battery life, I know I can get it by dialing back screen brightness to 40-50%.

* Summary: should you buy one?

Buy a retina MB Pro instead of an Air if you want a MUCH better display, more connectivity, a more powerful system, and don’t mind an extra 1/2 pound relative to the 13″ MB Air (or full pound relative to the 11″ Air).

If you choose the 13″ retina MBP, I’d encourage you to shop…

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It’s the BEST of times, It’s the WORST of times (to buy a Mac laptop), April 21, 2015

This is really a strange time to be shopping for a Mac laptop. There appears to be so much choice, but when push comes to shove, there’s actually very little choice. You’re going to have to be a patient reader to see the big picture here — so I apologize now for the length of this.

THE BEST OF TIMES

When I say it’s the best of times to shop for a Mac, I’m talking about the operating system. Yosemite. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty much the best OS X since it’s introduction. Once you set up Yosemite your way, it will become your best friend and typically leave you alone.

Unlike Windows 8.1, you won’t fear updating your system. Updates aren’t constant. And you won’t need to run an antivirus program or malware program. You won’t need to restore your computer to a prior state. You won’t have to deal with a touch interface that doesn’t belong on your laptop. You won’t have to look forward to the ‘next’ operating system’s bells and whistles and promises that should have been given to you a decade ago.

In a nutshell: your computer isn’t a teetering Jenga Tower. It’s not a PC. It’s a Mac.

THE WORST OF TIMES

So Apple has this killer operating system and eco-system. And Windows doesn’t. So you’d think Apple would JUMP at this moment to grab a better share of the home user market by lowering prices a little.

Please note I said ‘a little’ before comments come flying in below. For you see the apologist justification for Apple’s high prices is that “once you start trying to match PC prices, it becomes an unprofitable RACE TO THE BOTTOM”. But I didn’t say ‘match’ now did I? I said I’m surprised Apple hasn’t dropped prices A LITTLE.

If you look at the three main choices for 13 inch-ish Macs, you realize you have a choice of either the new anorexic $1299 MacBook 12 incher, a $1299ish MacBook Air, or a $1299ish MacBook Pro. Not much of a choice if you’d prefer to spend $999. Right?

What Apple is doing at the moment is taking features away from one laptop to add them to the other… but never do you get all the features you might want. Or to get those features they add a pricey feature you don’t want… and still… you’re paying $1299ish somehow.

I’m a lifelong Mac user. Since 1986. I’ve never owned a PC. (Well, I did briefly recently. If you spy my reviews you’ll see what I’ve already said: Windows is terrible.) Anyway, I worked in Apple Store for years and was respected for shooting straight. Telling it like it is. So here we go.

In this day and age of computing on a 13 inch device, here’s what most users should get in modern spec —

1. A Full HD screen (1080p)
2. 8 Gigs of RAM
3. 256 SSD onboard
4. A processor which can handle your needs

THE SCREEN — Why would you want a full HD screen? That sounds like a judgment I’ve passed but actually isn’t. Apple asks you to accept either lower res (720p I think) or higher (Retina). And so 1080 is already in the middle there somewhere — and more than sharp enough for most users. But if Apple offered you that,in some cases they’d have to drop prices. And they don’t want to do that.

THE RAM — I have a famed review of the prior MacBook Air on this site. Where I say 4GBs is not enough RAM. Oh did the apologists attack me for saying as much. But the discussion is now moot. Why? The new MacBook 12 inch includes 8 gigs of RAM. Why oh WHY would Apple do that if it wasn’t necessary? Apologists will tell you that the system runs ‘fine’ on so little RAM because of Yosemite memory pressure and compression tricks. If that’s true, then why did Apple include 8 GBs of RAM on the new unit? Both can’t be true.

256 SSD: This is the modern solid state storage on phones and pads. You want this in a laptop because it means you can drop your laptop without fearing the old school spinning disc will die upon impact. And SSDs make systems FEEL much faster, since access of the information on them moves much quicker. If SSDs were dirt cheap, you’d want a a terabyte of such storage on board. Since they’re still a little pricey, 256 is better than 128 but nowhere near as expensive as 512. It’s a decent compromise for most users, which can be augmented by either an external hard drive, iCloud solutions, or both for data hogs.

PROCESSOR: your choice is between Intel power house CPUs and the new Intel Core M. Both are fine but you have to decide if you’re going to be a ‘light’ computer user or a serious one. More on this in a bit.

If you look at Apple’s current lineup of 13inch-ish laptops, you can’t get all of those specs on one unit. Without a special order that takes you off of Amazon and to Apple’s site. (Ahem.)

MacBook Air — you can get the fast enough processor and 256 SSD storage, but you win a low res screen (not even 1080p)…

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