MacBook Pro Retina or non Retina?

[billythakidd]

Hi guys, first of all many thanks for such awesome resources on the forums I've learnt a lot over the past few weeks. I'm a long time but still fairly basic Ableton user about to make the jump to Apple and wanted recommendations on whether it's worth the extra $ going for the new MBP retina or stick with the old non retina model. I'm looking to use both at home and live, and from searching the forums the main cons of the retina appear to be the apparent fuzzy display for Ableton, lack of CD drive (although I can't remember last time I used or burnt a cd) and extra $ for increased flash memory (non retina has 500gb vs 128gb retina). On the other hand I feel weird buying 'old' technology given Apple seem to be phasing out the non retina versions, and also see benefits from faster flash hd. Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Tarekith]

I don't regret going retina at all. Live looks fuzzy, but it's usable, just annoying. Everything else looks great for the most part.

[jbw]

I'd go for the Retina one. Faster hard drives are great and well worth it. The display might not align with where Ableton is at right now, but what about when the developers eventually update Live with Retina support? I think it's a pretty safe bet to assume that day is eventually coming... Eventually.

[Moosebear]

Despite the fact of how stupid it is that Apple chose to brand their hi-res screen, as if it's somehow special... personally the "retina screen" is so amazing in every other program other than Live... I'd say unless you are going to be working in Live most of the time, right now (before Ableton fixes it) then maybe the older tech...

But if you are working in other programs with your box as well... hi-res is awesome. It's hard to go back, it looks so crisp.

[gorskkr]

Definitely go for the Retina. I picked up my MBP Retina 15" last September and it's been great. Yes the screen is fuzzy on ableton but it looks good on everything else- and I'm told it will be fixed soon anyway..???? You also get the 8G of Ram which is perfect especially when upgrading to Live 9 64 bit (btw, do you intend to use 64 bit version?) Also, not sure if you checked your specs correct, but my MBP is also SSD and its 256 Gigs and this was stock...

[billythakidd]

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated. I was planning on using 32 bit for no other reason than Ableton seem to recommend it. Soft Synth wise I use Massive and Sylenth which can be a bit hungry on my current set up. Then again my current set up is a 5 year old PC running Vista, so I'm sure anything is an improvement! At the moment I plan on using mostly for Ableton, but I'm sure once I get comfortable with the OS I won't be able to handle my current 2 minute load times for movies etc so will make use of the Retina then.

[gorskkr]

The difference between 32 bit and 64 bit version of ableton boils down to how much RAM it can handle. 32 bit can handle up to 4 gigs of RAM, while 64 bit can handle more RAM than is even possible in current computers. I'm assuming your MBP is 8 gigs of RAM (just like mine) so it would be beneficial to run 64 bit version. The only way this would not be advisable is if you use many 3rd party plug ins that don't have 64 bit versions or compatibility. If your primary plug ins are Massive and Sylenth, as you mentioned above, then I'm pretty confident they'll have 64 versions or will already work fine. I personally just use all of abletons native instruments and effects (i have live 9 suite) with the exception of guitar rig 5 which works fine with 64 bit as I didn't have to update it to work with 64 bit. Enjoy your MBP brotha!!

[Lil Linux]

What is the battery life on these MBP Retina running Live?

[gorskkr]

the battery life of the new retina MBPs should be better albeit still not that good by any means. I bought mine in September of last year. I was told a month or two later by a friend that the new MBPs to be released had a much better battery life, so perhaps OPs MBP has a better battery life than mine. My sister just bought a base model MBP and she thought something was up with her battery life (it's says 8 hours on the apple site, although I think they're grossly overstating). I can't give you an exact time of length, but lets just say if I start working on a live set at 100%, within two hours it will probably be down to maybe 40% life. This is not an exact figure, although I'll try to come up with a specific for you over the weekend. If you were asking bc you wanted something that you could work on for over 6 to 8 hours w/o charging, then you'll probably be a little disappointed with the battery life. Either way the MBP is awesome (I actually switched over from PC) and its so thin (no CD/DVD drive) and with Solid State Drive and i7 processor, the computer turns on and everything opens up instantaneously. I seriously never saw any spinning beach balls until I updadted to OS X Mavericks, hmmm....?

[Lil Linux]

the battery life of the new retina MBPs should be better albeit still not that good by any means. I bought mine in September of last year. I was told a month or two later by a friend that the new MBPs to be released had a much better battery life, so perhaps OPs MBP has a better battery life than mine. My sister just bought a base model MBP and she thought something was up with her battery life (it's says 8 hours on the apple site, although I think they're grossly overstating). I can't give you an exact time of length, but lets just say if I start working on a live set at 100%, within two hours it will probably be down to maybe 40% life. This is not an exact figure, although I'll try to come up with a specific for you over the weekend. If you were asking bc you wanted something that you could work on for over 6 to 8 hours w/o charging, then you'll probably be a little disappointed with the battery life. Either way the MBP is awesome (I actually switched over from PC) and its so thin (no CD/DVD drive) and with Solid State Drive and i7 processor, the computer turns on and everything opens up instantaneously. I seriously never saw any spinning beach balls until I updadted to OS X Mavericks, hmmm....?

Cool.Thanks. I would be satisfied with close to 5 hours of life. No need for an exact figure. But, if you ever do test it someday, please post.

[Quez]

I personally dislike the choices Apple have made for their Retina-display laptops, you can't add RAM later, they can hardly be recycled or even repaired... even if overall they are good machines.

[Sage]

Non-Retina and upgrade the RAM and hard drive afterwards. The difference in cost means you could easily do that and possibly still have change afterwards.

Nothing over all wrong with the Retinas though and doubt anyone would regret buying one, but I'm not sure they are a good sign of where Apple is going.