Quote from: sugarcrook on September 01, 2012, 02:48:57 PM
I expect to get exactly three years out of my laptops and I buy the AppleCare for the duration of that period. After that, it's usually time for an upgrade anyway.

Your Honor, I rest my case.   

I bought an 11 inch i7 air and a thunderbolt display. That way I have both awesome graphics and awesome portability.

Quote from: MacDuck on September 01, 2012, 01:29:21 PM
I'm doing a double take and may go for the regular MacBook due to serviceability issues. The Retina was dubbed the least serviceable laptop ever built and unleashed upon a public that worships at the alter of high tech without researching the long term aspects of the product that they are buying.  

the only "service" i've ever done on a macbook is a memory upgrade and a hard drive upgrade. the memory is soldered to the board on the "thin" macbooks, so buy it maxed out. the hard drive is a ssd and should be infinitely more reliable than a "mechanical" drive.

if you decide you want to upgrade in the future, it's not impossible:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/owc-mercury-auro-pro-ssd-for-retina-mbp/

Quote from: MacDuck on September 01, 2012, 01:29:21 PM
It costs $200.00 to replace a battery in the Retina and it can only be done by Apple.

fwiw, that's only $70 more than what they charge for a replacement battery for the non-retina macbook pros. i'd also expect there to be some third party options (like owc's ssd upgrade/replacements).

that said, i've never had to replace a macbook battery. my current one is still "going strong" three years in. if you have one "die early," it should be replaced under applecare ($349 if you want protection past the first year).

Quote from: sugarcrook on September 01, 2012, 02:48:57 PM
I expect to get exactly three years out of my laptops and I buy the AppleCare for the duration of that period. After that, it's usually time for an upgrade anyway.

I've had my Thinkpad T61 for five years now. It has more than enough compute power for my needs, since I bought it with a decent CPU for the time (Core2 Duo@2.3 GHz), and nVidia discrete graphics. I can comfortably run Solidworks on it, and my PCB design tools, so never found the need to buy a new one. When things got a little touchy (PCB tools required more memory), I bumped the RAM up from 2 to 4 GB. I've replaced the main batteries twice, and now also have an Ultrabay battery replacing the DVD drive. Hard disk was bumped from 100 GB to 200 GB (to dual-boot Linux), and I used an old 200 GB hard disk I had lying around at work. I've replaced the original wireless with an A/B/G/N model after we got 802.11n at work. It came with a 1680x1050 screen with a matte finish (so I can work in a brightly-lit office without having to tilt my head funny to avoid glare). The whole glossy-screen thing is a disturbing trend kicked off by Apple, and now it's virtually impossible to find matte finish screens.

tl;dr version:
Bash Lenovo all you want, but this is exactly why I love to use their products: I've been able to stretch the lifetime of that laptop for far longer than any of my Mac-using colleagues. Less money spent on tech, less e-waste filling up some poor kid in India's lungs with heavy metals.

Quote from: derby on September 02, 2012, 07:14:31 AM
the only "service" i've ever done on a macbook is a memory upgrade and a hard drive upgrade. the memory is soldered to the board on the "thin" macbooks, so buy it maxed out. the hard drive is a ssd and should be infinitely more reliable than a "mechanical" drive.

if you decide you want to upgrade in the future, it's not impossible:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/owc-mercury-auro-pro-ssd-for-retina-mbp/

fwiw, that's only $70 more than what they charge for a replacement battery for the non-retina macbook pros. i'd also expect there to be some third party options (like owc's ssd upgrade/replacements).

that said, i've never had to replace a macbook battery. my current one is still "going strong" three years in. if you have one "die early," it should be replaced under applecare ($349 if you want protection past the first year).

I have to laugh a bit.  After my previous Luddite type old man's rant I succumbed and bought the darn Retina anyway. The 8G RAM & 256 SSD should far and away exceed my needs. The pro/con arguments all have merit and I was pretty much up to speed on the comments made here. One thing that kind of surprised me though was the Apple guy told me that running the unit off the charger/power supply was not good for the battery and wouldn't extend the life of the battery either. Oh well........

Yes I got the Apple Care and also the One on One.  It will take me a while to learn all the new stuff but I like it so far.

You could have bought a track bike 

I never thought it was a good idea to run off the charger with a laptop.  Confirmed I suppose then.

JM

Quote from: the_Journeyman on September 02, 2012, 11:59:38 AM
I never thought it was a good idea to run off the charger with a laptop.  Confirmed I suppose then.

JM

It's not a good idea to ALWAYS run them on the charger. You should fully cycle them at least once a month.

Quote from: muskrat on September 02, 2012, 11:59:00 AM
You could have bought a track bike 

True that but we don't have any tracks around for over 2,000 miles. The storage & airfare to CA would be killer.

Quote from: the_Journeyman on September 02, 2012, 11:59:38 AM
I never thought it was a good idea to run off the charger with a laptop.  Confirmed I suppose then.

If you have a removable battery, slide it out once its fully charged - this keeps it from being accidentally overcharged (unlikely, since the charge controller should prevent it), but also keeps it away from the heat produced by the laptop, which improves its life.

Quote from: tuxicle on September 03, 2012, 09:44:35 AM
If you have a removable battery, slide it out once its fully charged - this keeps it from being accidentally overcharged (unlikely, since the charge controller should prevent it), but also keeps it away from the heat produced by the laptop, which improves its life.

some laptops won't run w/o the battery in place.

many modern batteries (like the ones in the macbooks) have a controller that gradually conditions the battery to keep it optimally charged w/o overheating.

My new I pad does not have retina and it looks just fine to me. However the camera seems to take IZ shots so maybe I should have gone for the more expensive I pad.

Thoughts so far?