Haswell rMBP 13" first impressions

[gus6464]

It's been 5 years since I had a macbook and have been looking for a laptop for work for about 5 weeks now and couldn't find anything in PC land worthwhile for what I wanted which was:

high-res screen
thin and light
ssd
great battery life

Didn't think I would end up coming back to a mac as now my new job revolves around windows server with a couple linux boxes here and there.

So went to apple store and got the mid range 13" which has 8gb RAM and 256gb SSD for $1399 and was able to get edu discount thanks to my father-in-law who is a teacher.

The SSD is made by Samsung according to the model number.

The first thing I noticed is that the SSD on this thing is fast. I couldn't find a good ssd speed benchmark tool other than blackmagic which is not the greatest but this is what it was clocking the SSD at:

Read - 850 MB/s
Write - 650 MB/s

There is no lag that I could see when scrolling on the retina display unlike the last gen model which they still had in the store on display so Iris sure helps. As far as battery life goes it's too early to tell but the machine came out of the box with 59% battery left and while I was installing some apps it was saying I had 6:50 left on the battery. From this I am pretty sure I can easily get 10 hours from normal workload.

Cord works great when logging into work servers remotely and viscosity install went through without a hitch which are the two crucial apps I need to get work done.

I just have a couple of hours with the machine but I have to say this is an exceptionally well built machine. If anyone wants to me run any type of benchmark or test let me know and I will post it.

 

[Eug]

Nice. Try SunSpider 1.0.2 and Peacekeeper HTML5, as well as Cinebench if you have time. And keep the posts coming. BTW, have you tried non-native resolutions?

This machine is Apple's best current model for me and I'll probably get it but the most ideal for me would be a 12.1" 2304x1536 or something. That is a 1.5:1 aspect ratio with a 114 ppi pixel density, and interestingly is exactly 4X the resolution of the original PowerBook G4 Titanium (1152x768).

 

[gus6464]

SunSpider 1.0.2 (Chrome)
http://www.webkit.org/perf/sunspide...string-validate-input":[5,8,6,8,8,8,6,7,8,9]}

Peacekeeper HTML5 (Chrome)
4382
http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/results?key=7vmt&resultId=3704579

Cinebench R15
OpenGL - 20.4 FPS
CPU - 259cb

 

[Eug]

Thx. Did you use Chrome for both browser tests? ...because I suspect Safari would be faster... although I'm guessing you used Safari for SunSpider since that's pretty damn fast already.

 

[gus6464]

Thx. Did you use Chrome for both tests, because I suspect Safari would be faster.

Yeah Chrome on both tests. I will try with safari.

 

[gus6464]

SunSpider (Safari)
http://www.webkit.org/perf/sunspide...string-validate-input":[5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,6,5]}

Peacekeeper HTML5 (Safari)
4262
http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/results?key=7vnH&resultId=3704703

 

[manurk112]

Hi,

and what about the general feeling? has the lag disapeared when you scroll on Safari, or when you use mission control?


Thanks,

 

[JAG87]

Hi,

and what about the general feeling? has the lag disapeared when you scroll on Safari, or when you use mission control?


Thanks,

There is no lag in the 2012 model. Please stop believing the FUD, the hardware is plenty fast.

The browser scrolling lag was addressed by a webkit update in both Safari and Chrome and is basically all gone. The UI lag (including mission control) is almost entirely gone with 10.9. There is still a bit of stutter when resizing windows that have very complex composition (like the app store), but overall there have been huge improvements from ML to Mavericks. So for the nth time, it's not a hardware issue, it was a software rendering issue.

And welcome to Anandtech.

 

[Smartazz]

How high do you keep the brightness? Those are some amazing battery life numbers.

 

[Smartazz]

There is no lag in the 2012 model. Please stop believing the FUD, the hardware is plenty fast.

The browser scrolling lag was addressed by a webkit update in both Safari and Chrome and is basically all gone. The UI lag (including mission control) is almost entirely gone with 10.9. There is still a bit of stutter when resizing windows that have very complex composition (like the app store), but overall there have been huge improvements from ML to Mavericks. So for the nth time, it's not a hardware issue, it was a software rendering issue.

And welcome to Anandtech.

Agreed. With Mavericks I can force only the HD 4000 to be used and there's no lag for every day uses.

 

[Spicedaddy]

There is no lag in the 2012 model. Please stop believing the FUD, the hardware is plenty fast.

The browser scrolling lag was addressed by a webkit update in both Safari and Chrome and is basically all gone. The UI lag (including mission control) is almost entirely gone with 10.9. There is still a bit of stutter when resizing windows that have very complex composition (like the app store), but overall there have been huge improvements from ML to Mavericks. So for the nth time, it's not a hardware issue, it was a software rendering issue.

And welcome to Anandtech.

No lag but a bit of stutter?

 

[gus6464]

There is a bit of lag when scrolling through the mac app store but that's just the app store I think. I haven't messed with the brightness it's set to default. In extremely heavy media sites like the verge I will get some stutter when scrolling if I up the res but on the recommended setting it does not lag.

 

[JAG87]

No lag but a bit of stutter?

You know what I mean, the resize transition is not smooth. But again it happens because the rendering process is not optimized, not because HD4000 is not fast enough.

There is a bit of lag when scrolling through the mac app store but that's just the app store I think. I haven't messed with the brightness it's set to default. In extremely heavy media sites like the verge I will get some stutter when scrolling if I up the res but on the recommended setting it does not lag.

The verge is one of those sites that lags on every platform.

 

[Eug]

The Verge doesn't lag on my 12 GB iMac Core i7 with 1 GB ATI Radeon HD 5750.

 

[JAG87]

The Verge doesn't lag on my 12 GB iMac Core i7 with 1 GB ATI Radeon HD 5750.

Are you smooth scrolling with a touchpad or step scrolling with a mouse wheel? Smooth scrolling lags on any machine and OS I've tried to date.

 

[Eug]

Smooth scrolling with Magic Mouse.

However, you are right. Mostly it is smooth, but I notice in one spot it did lag ever so slightly. I guess it depends on what is on their website at the time.

 

[JAG87]

Smooth scrolling with Magic Mouse.

However, you are right. Mostly it is smooth, but I notice in one spot it did lag ever so slightly. I guess it depends on what is on their website at the time.

There's so much flash on that site, it's ridiculous. Sure it looks content rich, but it also drains my battery faster just by staring at it.

 

[gus6464]

So the SMB2 implementation in Mavericks is kinda buggy but here is a workaround to force SMB1 which works on my share without having to disable SMB packet signing enforcement. Also make sure that the time is somewhat synced with your domain controller or it might fail because of that.

http://cammodude.blogspot.com/

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I'm really thinking of buying the 13" rMBP.

5% Cashback from Discover this period.... yum.

 

[RampantAndroid]

There is no lag in the 2012 model. Please stop believing the FUD, the hardware is plenty fast.

The browser scrolling lag was addressed by a webkit update in both Safari and Chrome and is basically all gone. The UI lag (including mission control) is almost entirely gone with 10.9. There is still a bit of stutter when resizing windows that have very complex composition (like the app store), but overall there have been huge improvements from ML to Mavericks. So for the nth time, it's not a hardware issue, it was a software rendering issue.

And welcome to Anandtech.

Initially I DID see lag on my Retina...but after a reboot it seems perfectly fine.

 

[mmntech]

I'm really thinking of buying the 13" rMBP.

5% Cashback from Discover this period.... yum.

It's very tempting to replace my five year old MacBook with that. I just don't use it enough anymore to justify the expense though.

 

[Koing]

There's so much flash on that site, it's ridiculous. Sure it looks content rich, but it also drains my battery faster just by staring at it.

Can the rMBP play page full of gifs without grinding to a holt?!

I don't think I've ever owned any machine that didn't

Koing

 

[Koing]

It's very tempting to replace my five year old MacBook with that. I just don't use it enough anymore to justify the expense though.

Bro needs to email me back with the student discount..

Base
rMBP 13, 2.4, 4GB, 126GB, £1099
rMBP 13, 2.6, 16GB, 512GB, £1659 f0ck!

Seems insane, +0.2GHz, +12GB, + 384GB for £560 considering I'm managing on 4GB and 256GB...will have to think long hard on if I need the 512GB...

Koing

 

[Eug]

It's very tempting to replace my five year old MacBook with that. I just don't use it enough anymore to justify the expense though.

Same here. I really want the 13", but I'm still undecided, and the only things holding me back are the faint hope of a 12" Pro model (extremely unlikely) and of course the cost:

Edumacation pricing (CAD$):

$1249 - 2.4 GHz i5, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD
$1339 - 2.4 GHz i5, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD
$1449 - 2.4 GHz i5, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD
$1629 - 2.4 GHz i5, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD
$1749 - 2.6 GHz i5, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD
$1929 - 2.6 GHz i5, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD
$2199 - 2.6 GHz i5, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD
$2379 - 2.6 GHz i5, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD

I need none of the above, as my Core 2 Duo is fine, just heavy with no USB 3 or Retina. I want one of the above in bold.

P.S. I posted this in the Oct. 22 event thread, but I may as well post it here too:

The MacBook Pro teardowns are up!

15" Late 2013 Retina

Broadcom 4360 802.11ac chip
Samsung S4LNO53X01-8030 SSD controller with Samsung NAND flash
Intel Core i7 2.0 GHz with Iris Pro 5200 <-- i7 4750HQ Quad-core 47 Watt
Repairability 1/10

13" Late 2013 Retina (A1502)

Broadcom 4360 802.11ac chip
Marvell 88SS9183 SSD controller with SanDisk NAND flash.
Intel SR18A Core i5-4258U Processor with Iris 5100 <-- Dual-core 28 Watt
Repairability 1/10

For reference, the old 13" Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz P8400 in my 2009 13" MacBook Pro has a TDP of 25 Watts.

 

[JAG87]

Get either the $1339 (if you 128GB is enough for you, it is plenty for me) or the $1449 machine, don't bother with anything higher. Remember that with Mavericks, 8GB of physical ram is like 12GB in practice (if 4GB = 6GB...), so getting 16GB is complete overkill, unless you have specific reasons for doing so (like running VMs or extreme photoshopping). And a 512GB SSD is huge overkill (IMO). But to each their own.