MacBook Pro non-retina question!

Shaunh3374 · 25-07-2014 11:57pm #1

Hi ,
I am considering buying the non-retina 13" MacBook Pro for college.
I am buying the non-retina model as I unfortunately can't afford the one with retina display and secondly i would like to have an attached SuperDrive.
However I understand this model hasn't been updated since 2012. I am wondering what does that mean for the future? Will I still be able to get all the new upgrades into the future? Basically when will its upgradability run out and stop?
Many thanks for your help in advance

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shanec1928 · 26-07-2014 8:51am

for the sake of a 100 euro go for the retina.I can count the amount of times on one hand that ive used the dvd drive since i got it in 2012 thats including two years of college. an external dvd player costs 20 odd euro.

if it was me i would go for the retina. the regular mackbook is heavy enough lugging around all day. look at the education store for extra discount.

holystungun9 · 26-07-2014 9:34am

I'm sure if you got it, it would be fine for upgradability of the software for the next 4 years. After that I'm sure you will be looking for a new laptop anyway.
Even though that model is two years old I'm waiting to see if there is going to be a price drop as Apple presumably seek to discontinue the model (Sept? Oct?).
if there is a price drop of say 150 or 200 euros I will def pick one up.
I'm currently on a mid 2009 macbook pro 13".
It has a core 2 duo chip but still does all that I need.
Not everybody wants to be able to open up their laptop but I still do. In this one I have removed the superdrive to put in another hard drive, I've upgrade the RAM and hard drive also.

Doodah7 · 26-07-2014 10:50am

I have a mid-2012 cMBP which I chose over the retina for a couple of reasons. One was the DVD drive which I have use for.

Secondly sine getting mine I have upgraded the RAM to 8GB and replaced the hard drive with a 512GB SSD. You can do neither of these things with the retina version. I also have a Nifty Minidrive with a 128gb microSD card in it giving me 640gb of space. This is all much quicker than thr original 750gb HDD.

Shaunh3374 · 26-07-2014 2:53pm

When apple unveils new software and operating systems (ie like mavericks) do all the macs recieve the upgrade for free or do you recieve it for a few years free of charge and have to pay for the ones after that? How does upgrading your system work on the mac?? X

holystungun9 · 26-07-2014 3:23pm

You upgrade via the App Store. Laptop and internet and that's it. I think all future updates will be free. Mavericks was a free up grade from mountain lion.

holystungun9 · 29-07-2014 6:33pm

Price dropped to 1150 for base model today.

Simon201 · 31-07-2014 11:20am

I'm in the same predicament as the OP. In some ways doesn't seem logical to buy the machine that came out two years ago but I've to upgrade from my 2007 Macbook and I've a 512gb SSD that I want to use in the new laptop. As good as the retina machines are its not too easy or cheap to upgrade the SSD's in the early retina laptops and as of this moment there are no third party SSD's available at all for the current retina laptops. It's not my main machine as I'll be sharing it with daughter for her college work. She's in Chicago for three months right now so I'm going to get her to pick up a refurb or chance her arm at getting educational discount at the retail store....
So, as holystungun says I'm hoping that it will stay compatible with a few OS updates plus the optical drive could still come in handy.

MacBook Pro non-retina question!

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