Another 13" vs 15" MacBook Pro Thread

I'll try to make this as short and simple as possible so as not to tire anyone.
So I'm planning on buying a new MacBook Pro very soon and I've been shopping around the past few days trying to collect all the info I can about this machine to help me decide which one to buy.
I'm mainly going to use it for:
-internet browsing with multiple tabs open, youtube, netflix, tumblr, etc.
-playing & downloading music
-skype, or other video chat sites
I know that's not much at all, but tumblr is actually a pretty heavy site to run. I'm constantly loading hundreds of photos, gifs, and videos just scrolling down the main page. There's also an editor section where you customize your blog using html and css, so I'm constantly refreshing the page. The worst part that always seems to clog any computer I use is loading other people's blogs, because everyone's is customized differently.
I also want to do a bit of gaming. Really the only game I want to play is Dayz. It's Windows only but I've heard of people paralleling it or something.
My budget is a little over $2000, but I'm hesitant to fork out that much for the beefy 15" if a 13" would be suitable. If not for wanting to play Dayz, I would just grab the cheapest 13" and upgrade to 16gb of RAM.
Obviously a bigger screen would be nicer for gaming. But will the 13" dual core have any issues with my planned use?
And I still don't fully understand the GHz on these computers and the real world differences.
Hopefully I didn't miss anything. Thanks in advance!

Hi,
I've been using my new 13" MBP for about a week now. I've been using Parallels to run XP/Vista/Windows 7 betas and occassionally Server 2003/8 on my MacPro for a couple of years and wanted a similar portable environment. I'm a .NET developer so I use VS2005/8, SQL Server 2005/8 and IIS for testing mostly C# code and database driven ASP.Net web applications.
I was sceptical about all of the above being achievable on this tiny machine (it replaces a much-loved Powerbook G4 and a one year old 15" Acer Aspire, which looks like a breezeblock in comparison) and was initially bracing myself to take the hit of the 2.6Ghz 15" machine with 256MB dedicated graphics. But the people at the Apple suggested I give the smaller, cheaper machine a fourteen day trial and so here I am building a Silverlight site with SQL server backend in Vista. It runs just fine and the sheer portability of this 13" machine along with its cheeky, pint-sized charm means that I'm sticking with it thanks very much
I may yet use bootcamp and run XP/Vista natively to squeeze out some performance gains, but this would be more due to geekish tendencies on my part than genuine need for a faster os.
I urge you to try the 13incher - you won't regret it!

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columbus new boy wrote:
How crap is that?
It's not crap at all.
It's not that simple. For example, I've 3500 songs on my MacBook but don't want them all on my phone, so I have to manually select each song again???
There has to be a solution.
Why not simply make a playlist with the songs you want on the iPhone?
and maintain a current backup of your computer.

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Or you can be guided bt this 'officail' Apple support document:
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Ciao.
Csound 1 greetings: Nothing wrong with a little plagiarism.

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Macbook Pro threads - The good and the bad

For many weeks I waivered on if I should sell my barley 2 year old G5 now and just jump on the Intel Dual core bandwagon. I finally put the word out to all my Mac buddies that my G5 was for sale and I ordered my MBP 17 on May 9th. Days went by. My order sat in the Order Processing que for about a week. Then it sat in the Sent to Manufacturing que for another 4 days. Over the 4 days I began to obsess with all the Mac fanatic websites reading one bad thread after another all talking about how bad the noise was and the heat. many of those thread were right here on apple.com.
It drove me nuts thinking that I just bought somthing thats riddled with problems. I called Apple to find out what the delay was about. They said my order was on hold due to the fact that they now offer glossy displays and were probably wondering if I wanted mine to come with the glossy screen. I was bit annoyed because they never reached out to ask me that. I had to come to them. In a moment of feeling that I should have just waited, I canceled my order on May 19th. Based on all the bad crap I read I felt good about putting it off a little longer.
A good friend of mine bought his MBP 15 on the day it was announced. I went to go see him the yesterday. He had to send his back once for the recall but over all he loves it. The firmware update drop the temprature to a noteable difference. We used it for a while and I heard no odd noise or moo-ing. The machine was rock solid. apps were lauching wicked quick. He was installing games and ripping Movies to DVD. The hour we used it was a total blast and made me think " What the heck was I worried about?"
I'm over my obsession with my worries and will be ordering a MBP 15 in another week or so. I wanted to share this story with you guys because I heard very few good stories about the MBP 15 and 17. Apple released the firmware update in response to the many people that returned there MBP. In my experience Apple has always aimed to give us the Mac community the ultimate buying experience. Even if there are a few bumps in the road, I'm confident apple will continue to pave the way of fixing them.
I will post again after I have my MBP for a few days.
Regards,
D
G5 Dual 2.5 Mac OS X (10.3.8)
G5 Dual 2.5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

There was a recall- I don't remember where I got this info but here is an Email I sent to my friend from when it became public. Sorry I can't recall the source.
Email Starts now.......................................
Users feel the pain of being early adopters, thankfully Apple gives hope
Apple has been doing quite well lately, especially when it comes to drumming up support for new products. It's MacBook Pro is no exception to the rule -- but rightly so. The popular notebook has been receiving praise from various publications and orders have been flying.
Despite its popularity as a "must have" Apple product, the MacBook Pro is encountering a lot of issues. Many users are reporting similar issues to the ones I pointed out. To recap from my blog:
AirPort does not automatically rejoin a preferred network after waking up from sleep mode. This does not happen with my PowerBook. Settings are the same.
AirPort would drop down to nearly 1 block randomly once in a while. This also does not happen with my PowerBook.
At the lowest screen brightness setting (one block), the LCD's backlight flickers noticeably. This is pretty annoying.
Heat is a big issue. The MacBook Pro gets so hot that I cannot place it on my lap if I'm wearing shorts. And even if I am wearing pants (instead of shorts), it's still very uncomfortable. Using the AC power, the palm rest area becomes very warm, and the area above the F keys is very hot. I do not notice this with the PowerBook.
We have confirmed with several MacBook Pro owners that these problems do in fact exist, and are not just isolated issues. While being at the forefront of technology is great, early adopters often find themselves with products that have shipped with a few quirks yet to be addressed.
I spoke with Apple over the weekend, and to my surprise, some of the issues are well known. Known well enough in fact, that Appe has already started addressing these issues in updated MacBook Pros. According to Apple, it has begun replacing the mainboard inside its MacBook Pros with a new revision.
It calls the udpated product "revision D", which is indentifiable by product serial number.
Serial numbers starting with W8611: revision D Serial numbers starting with W8610: revision C Apple said that revision D MacBook Pros have many issues addressed and improvements made, including fixes to the above mentioned issues. We were also able to get a hold of a MacBook Pro that just arrived during the week with a serial number starting with W8612, which did not exhibit any of the above issues. Many users are also reporting that their MacBook Pros become extremely hot to handle, especially in the area above the F keys and underneath the notebook itself. In fact, my MacBook Pro gets so hot that placing it in your hands is almost unbearable, and leaving it on a bare lap is next to impossible. According to Apple, the MacBook Pro should never become hot to the point of being uncomfortable. The representative I spoke to said "that should not happen. If it is, bring back your MacBook Pro and we'll give you an updated version."
Besides the problems that we are seeing, other users are also reporting that their MacBook Pros create a very uncomfortable whining noise, which is fixed by launching a widget or by using PhotoBooth -- oddly enough this solves the problem until the next reboot.
Those who are having issues with their MacBook Pros should first check for the identifying serial number, and then contact Apple to address the issue.

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I recently purchased a brand new 15" MacBook Pro to replace my old one. I was told when ordering it that I would be able to hook up two external monitors to it using the Matrox DualHead2Go hardware. So, I also bought a 27" Cinema Display (non-Thunderbolt since it wouldn't work with the DH2Go). However, when I contacted Matrox they said their products don't support screens as large as the 27" ACD.
Bummer!
So, my question is: does anyone know how I can hookup a 27" Apple Cinema Display at 2560x1440 and a Acer 22" monitor at 1685x1050 (or, anything less really) to my new MacBook Pro?
I've looked around and haven't been able to find a good answer.
Thanks for your help!

Will something like this work? A USB to VGA adapter? Can I use this at the same time that I have a Cinema Display plugged into the Mini-DVI port and will they both work at the same time? Anyone know?
http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-Monitor-External-Adapter-USB2VGAE2/dp/B002FJQXXC/ ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1329870330&sr=1-2

Yet another battery issue on macbook pro 15''

Okay, so before posting this I searched the community for battery problems same as mine and I found some, but they weren't suggesting any solutions other than replacing battery. I want to consider changing battery as a worst-case-scenario, so I'll re-ask a question with some more details about the problem. I would be really glad if somebody can help me solving it in any other way.
I have a macbook pro 15'' purchased on july 2011, and the battery is at 180th cycle. The problem came out of nowhere, yesterday I sit down in front of my computer and it did not open, so I plugged it in in case the batteries are emptied somehow. Then it was opened, but I got a warning like "date has been reset to pre-2008" (something like this) just after seeing desktop. Then I noticed the magsafe light is green, and saw "not charging" notice next to the battery indicator. It also says "condition: change now". Then I looked at the properties of the battery and saw it has %92 percent of charge already. So I unplugged the magsafe, and boom, my computer just went down as it has no battery.
The funny part starts here: I could not again start up the computer by just pressing the power button, so I had to plug in the magsafe, and as soon as I plugged it in my computer started without pressing it. after booting I shut down normally, it did stay shut down until I unplug and re-plug - it started automatically again! and it just crashes whenever I plug it off.
So upon my research, I learnt that this might be because of SMC, so I reset it as instructed but the problem persists. I also booted from one of the dvd's that came out of the box and perform a hardware test, and it said: "Alert! Apple hardware test detected an error. 4XXX/1/40000000: ´®'^! Battery" (the symbols were not exact, but they did not mean anything to me). And now I continue to use my computer plugged, without any other weird behaviour.
So, can anybody have any advice for this? thank you very much in advance.
ps1: I purchased the mbp in one of the apple stores in US and I use it in Turkey now.
ps2: I can make lots and lots of conspiracy theories from the fact that I bought my computer in 15th july 2011 and it broke in 19th july 2012

I am sure you also tried resetting PRAM?
My macbook's battery also died suddenly without warning, so it is possible for batteries to die suddenly.
I know that you are looking for a different answer, but battery replacement is probably the only solution to your problem. If you are lucky, it is possible that your battery connector is loose due to vibrations or something like that.
If it was a software problem, your hardware test would not have given you an error.
BY the way, the "date has been reset to pre-2008" error message makes it sound like your CMOS battery is dead. The CMOS battery is pretty small, and cheap. It is different from your main battery.

Can i buy another version of the macbook pro,

I don't like use an external device to write my dvd, or use only the wi-fi, i need have the option to connect to my router using a wire.

We're users here, not "Apple Inc."
For newer MacBook Pro Retina display models and MacBook Air models without a built-in Ethernet RJ45 jack, there is this Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter so you can connect by wire to your router:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD463ZM/A/thunderbolt-to-gigabit-ethernet-adap ter?fnode=dcf41cf3a356f39cdee7b76a869944…
And Apple sells an external USB-connected CD/DVD drive:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD564ZM/A/apple-usb-superdrive?fnode=337ec62c8 50df0e4f4e8aa9ecae2332b2b01c2fbdf5661589…
Apparently you didn't select the best MacBook Pro model for your needs. If the MacBook Pro was purchased within the last 14 days, you can probably return it with all original packaging to the Apple Store where you purchased it for a full refund.
At the present time (Nov-08-2014) Apple still sells the previous generation of MacBook Pro that INCLUDES both a built-in DVD and an Ethernet RJ45 jack, but without Retina display:
http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MD101LL/A&step=config

The "I own a new C2D MacBook Pro" Thread!

Throughout the world many people are getting the new C2D MacBook Pro every day. I know all ready you can pick up the 15"s at a number of Apple stores and the 17"s will be arriving shortly. Please post a *short comment* about your experience whether good or bad with the new notebooks so that may all benefit from your purchase.
Not looking for a long review, just a quick chime in one way or the other about your experience with it.

I too wish I could say I was in this club. What is the logic is anouncing the availability of something without a minimum level of stock available at the stores? And what is the point in the stores saying "we'll have them in the next couple days" at first and then "we'll have them in a couple weeks" and then "we have no idea when we'll have them because everything is auto shipped"?
So after believing the local store for the first week I put my order in by phone yesterday and can now expect mine on the 17th!
How bad at planning, inventory management and the message surrounding can Apple be. They probably wont loose me as a customer but they aren't helping me convince anyone I work with to stop paying more for a comparable Dell. Honestly, if they release OS X for any PC then I probably would have bought someone else's C2D laptop a month or more ago.
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Another 13" vs 15" MacBook Pro Thread

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