The late 2008 MacBook Pro I had been using since early 2009 had started to show its age. Adding 8GB of RAM and an OWC Mercury Electra SSD extended its life for a bit longer, but it was time.
I was tempted by the first generation Retina MacBook Pros, but talk of laggy UI performance and my old laptop performing well enough for Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign — my main programs — kept me from pulling the trigger. (OSX Mavericks has supposedly alleviated much of that lag.) But I’ve been doing more and more video and animation work in grad school, and that’s where my late 2008’s performance really suffered.
So I waited for the second generation, and when it was announced and released, I jumped. (Thanks for the Apple Friends & Family discount, Andy. My student loans are paying for this guy, but it was nice to save a couple hundred bucks.) Here are the specs of the model I got:
• 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display
• 2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (upgraded from the stock)
• 512GB SSD for storage (stock)
• 16GB of RAM (stock)
It’s in my greasy little hands now, of course — or, rather, sitting on my desk — and I’ve used it for a couple of months, so here’s how it’s been doing for me so far: