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Need Mac Laptop - Advice

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McGrace

Member
Joined
Dec 21, 2006
Hey all,

I am working on writing iOS apps, and have a nice Mac Mini with the quad core i7 in it (2011 model). It had 4GB ram, and was absolutely useless, so I upgraded to 16GB, and it's fine again.

I am going to start working out of another property we own for the sake of quiet, and would like to purchase a OSX laptop so I can bring it back and forth. I started looking at MacBooks, and apparently there is a level of involvement in them that rivals eqyptian hieroglyhics and ancient Sumerian cuneiform.

For example with the Mac Mini, apparently the 2011 and 2012 server models like I have are highly sought after because they stopped using the quad core i7. God forbid they make things better every year.

Also, from what I am researching, one has a faster CPU, and another has a better display, and a third has a better whatever. There is apparently no clear, this is the beast.

What I am looking for:
- Core i7, as many cores as able.
- Max RAM. 4GB Ram would be a no go. I am ok with upgrading RAM after the fact myself.
- SSD is nice, but the Mac Mini I have does not have one, and it's actually pretty damn fast. Development is not a hard drive heavy workload.
- Larger is better. Or at least the ability to attach a larger keyboard/screen at the office without major hassle or access to voodoo magic and ritual sacrifice.
- Battery time does NOT matter, I am always near an outlet.
- For travel, would it be durable, and which case / backpack would be best to go with?

I am asking for help since it is just not a matter of getting the latest and greatest. Apparently between the changes between model years and model types, it's a clusterf---.

I am especially interested in the opinions of anyone currently developing Apps on the latest versions of OSX and XCode.

It may help that my Apps are mainly back end development, and not largely focused on the GUI. Lot of coding, not a lot with the Interface Builder. (I can see issues with Interface Builder on a tiny laptop)

Also would be interested in a good place to purchase. I saw a location that sold lots of mac stuff used, but not sure if the product is ok or not. I frankly don't want to spend a ton of money if it does not really get me much more.

Very kind regards,

DB


PS: If this can only be accomplished with ritual voodoo sacrifice, please let me know which barnyard animals are preferred.
 
You mentioned wanting a Mac laptop, with as much high-end hardware as is available. A Macbook Pro, configured on Apple's retail site yield's the following specs:

13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display

3.1GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz
16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
1TB PCIe-based Flash Storage
Intel Iris Graphics 6100
Force Touch trackpad
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide

Price: $2699

I know that Best Buy, and some electronics retailers sell Apple products, not sure if they would have top end configurations in stock, or if they would be willing to special order upgrades.
 
I lucked out and found a company via Amazon that is rated extremely high by a lot of users (like 12k+). They are 30 minutes from my house. I called them and chatted a while. Looks like the 2011-2012's are the best. Apple is putting slower stuff in their systems, trying to ensure that their users have to buy new every 4 years. They started that in 2013.

So I am waiting on them to get a new batch of 2012's in to pick from. Will be 900 bucks ish, and faster then anything new. They run a benchmark tool on them, and the new ones now are still benchmarking sub 2012 levels in performance. I have a 2011 server mac mini that still kicks ***. It's a quad i7, and they stopped putting in quad i7s in the mini's. Same reason, they want it to be slow in a few years so you have to buy another.

I was an engineer in an different industry. Yes, this is a real thing companies do. We did it absolutely.
 
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