Macbook Pro Late 2013 13.3" Retina Review

[Crt]

This is going to be a bland review, so bear the rather bland review!

 

I recently got a Macbook Pro simply for college because I needed a durable laptop that wouldn't give me problems in the future and has rather high end specs. Essentially, the 256GB PCI-E storage and the 9 hours of battery was the killer features that drew me towards the Macbook.

 

I'm mostly a Windows User and I'm going straight into OSX, basically unprepared. Brace yourselves as most of my problems is something probably only I would have.

 

Looks - 10/10

The looks and feel of the Macbook Pro is really solid in hand, the aluminum has that nice cold touch to it and the Apple logo lights up when the keyboard is actually in use. It lacks a touchscreen, but it has an amazing glass trackpad. 

 

I've used an Acer Aspire S7 392 that used the Haswell CPU chips. I was a big fan of that Ultrabook, but I didn't own it It belonged to my brother who returned it afterwards because he didn't see the purpose in having a laptop if he was always at work and always at home and when he does leave the house, he has his Galaxy S2 to use. (He currently has a Galaxy S5)

 

Display -

 

I love the display on the Macbook Pro, it's sharp and colors pop. It gets really bright and it gets really dim.

 

Specs - I chose the $1499 Macbook Pro 2013 13.3" which has

• Intel Core i5 2.4ghz (Dual Core)
• 8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 ram
• 256GB PCI-E Storage

Everyday Usage Performance -

 

The SSD is blazingly fast, but OSX Mavericks seems to be plagued with all the problems I've always had with Macs, which is the responsiveness and their "ease of use" halts when Safari randomly decides to crash when I google search something. I really dislike Safari, it's like Google Chrome, I'll give it that, but Safari in general is not my cup of tea and would consistently crash on wikias the most frequently. Sometimes when opening the lid of the Macbook, the unit itself would freeze and it would hang with the swirly circle of doom. Kind of an eyesore because it shouldn't be doing that since it is an SSD. I'll figure out that issue eventually. It does it sometimes.

 

Switching from Safari to Opera was also a stupid move on my part. According to other OSX users, Opera and other browsers on OSX seems to be plagued with a bug that causes the CPU usage to ramp up and thus drain battery life more than it really needs to. Looks like I'm stuck with Safari again. Oh lovely.

 

Also, due to the absurd resolution of the Pro series lineup, I find the display beautiful, but it comes at a cost, especially just opening the Steam client. Everything is pixelated and that's because the Retina Display options scales the resolution down so everything isn't tiny. Literally everything is pixelated and ugly on the Steam client and manually setting the resolution to something more preferable wasn't enough as I could still see all that mess for some reason. Certainly worse than Windows 8's high dpi issues.

 

Surprisingly, I was shocked to see that OSX Mavericks could read my NTFS drive. It can't write to it, but it can read from it. Watching 10bit MKVs with OSX's VLC Player was fine. Just seeking/skipping forward on some files caused some audio backlash which hurt my ears.

 

My trackpad hates right clicking, it just doesn't want to do it. When I first received the Macbook Pro (roughly a few days ago), it would right click sometimes. The way I get around it is by holding the control button and clicking which acts as a right click button. Eventually I just got a mouse.

 

My main issue with using a mouse on the Macbook is that the scrolling is also set to "natural scrolling". This means that scrolling up is down and scrolling down is up, much like a touchscreen on a phone and the same is present in the trackpad. The issue occurs when the option is connected to the Trackpad. So unchecking the option for natural scrolling on the mouse also unchecks the option for natural scrolling on the trackpad. The way I got around this issue took a bit of researching and I eventually ran a program called Reverse Scroller which reverses my mouse scrolling only and leaves my trackpad unaffected. This yields the result that I get the more traditional mouse scrolling while still keeping that natural scrolling on my trackpad.

 

Also the multiple desktop real-estate is amazingly useful. It's like having multiple screens on the Macbook. Initially it was essential because the Macbook's resolution is natively scaled down to the point where I think the actual screen real estate is worse than a 1076 x 768 monitor. 

 

Though once having everything set to my likings and fixing the mouse issue, daily usage is excellent. Safari crashes sometimes, but that's to be expected and using programs such as GiMP is a charm.

 

Multitouch gestures is a lovely thing and it's a nice alternative than using a touchscreen because I fear damaging my display everyday.

 

TLDR:

 

Pros

• The laptop is snappy when it wants to be.
• Safari is nice when it wants to be.
• Most Non-Apple programs that are multi-platform run almost identically.
• Multi-Desktop spaces are welcome.
• Multitouch gestures on the trackpad is nice.

Cons

• Mouse scrolling is stupid. It's reversed and can't be changed unless you want to affect the natural-scrolling of the trackpad. Resorting to 3rd party software fixes the issue and allows you to enjoy both.
• Trackpad doesn't want to right click.
• Safari hates me. Crashes on wikia pages and google searches for no reason.
• Steam's client is ugly because the resolution is all jacked up.

 

Gaming -

Disclaimer - I use purely OSX to attempt to game. I haven't used Bootcamp and attempted to use Windows 7 yet.

 

So my general rule of thumb when using the Macbook is to use the native OS - OSX Mavericks for gaming because of the improved battery life it offers compared to Windows 7 or even Windows 8. My experience for Gaming comes purely from the OSX's Steam client and Blizzard's Battle.net

 

So first off, I downloaded Team Fortress 2 on the Macbook Pro, which surprisingly doesn't run very well. I have the settings set to low-medium and have the resolution at 1440x900. On a regular 24-32 player server, the frame rate would drop from 50-60 to the low 20s and the fan would ramp up really hard trying to run TF2. Worst case scenario, the game actually crashed and my Macbook was frozen for a bit which prompted me to force close the application.

 

Nextly, I downloaded Spiral Knights to see how well the Java game would run on OSX. The game was set on low settings and gameplay with my friend was mixed. The frame rate didn't see to be an issue on regular maps, but dwell into deeper parts of the game such as a snow-oriented level or a lava-oriented level and the game literally dies, too.

 

I tried using an emulator for GBA, VisualBoyAdvance 1.7.6 and it literally froze my Macbook. I guess backwards compatibility is lacking on the OSX department. 

 

Portal 2 runs fine because it's a single-player game and wasn't intensive.

 

Playing on Hearthstone from the Battle.net client yielded amazing results. Hearthstone is basically a less intensive game and it ran great. Battery drain was about what I expected and was completely fine.

 

TLDR:

 

Pros

• Gaming is an enjoyable experience when it wants to be.
• Hearthstone runs like a champ.
• Portal 2 runs like a champ.
• Windows 7 on the Macbook Pro is a better gaming experience.

Cons

• Framerating issue/Optimization issues.
• OSX isn't a viable option for gaming.
• Lack of games for this platform.

Battery Life -

 

The battery life is as expected. Using 70-80% brightness and having Wi-Fi on and Bluetooh off, I was able to yield roughly about 9 hours or even more just web browsing. So this laptop does extremely well for casual usage. 

 

However, the battery life is mixed when you use applications other than just Safari and Pages (OSX's MS Word?). Having Steam in the background while chatting with some friends taxed the battery life for some reason with noticeable drops from 80% battery to about 65% battery within about 15 minutes. Kind of bizarre.

 

The next day, I used Safari and used the Steam messenger online service to message a few of my friends from Steam there. Battery didn't drop at all and after about 30 minutes of typing to my friends, my battery from 100% went to about 95-96%. So Steam is either unoptimized or resource heavy. Though Steam looks like complete garbage on OSX anyways.

 

The Magsafe charger that is supplied with the Macbook Pro surprisingly charges the laptop really fast. I went to about 34% to about 70% in less than an hour. 

 

 

Conclusions -

 

I gave the Macbook Pro a shot. Most of my problems are kind of affecting my experience of OSX. Safari crashes occasionally, using non-Apple software seems to have a detriment to the battery life for some reason and the gaming experience on the more less intensive games such as TF2 and Spiral Knights seem to be subpar at best. Gaming on Hearthstone was completely fine.

 

Thankfully, third party software did fix my frustration, especially with the mouse scrolling. I'm not bashing on Apple, but when Safari crashes on a PCI-E SSD and starts to hang a lot, your general experience isn't going to be that great.

 

Just a disclaimer, I came into OSX blind straight from using a Windows PC. So there was a learning curve that I needed to learn and it was fine learning the operating system.

 

Despite my struggles with the operating system, after setting it to my preferences, the Macbook Pro isn't a bad laptop at all. It's perfectly fine for what it was designed to do. It serves to be a portable laptop that offers a decent powerhouse when needed. Just, if you're into gaming, you might as well do bootcamp immediately after getting it because gaming on the OSX isn't that ideal of an experience with its lackluster library of games. The performance excelled in everything when it comes to basic tasks such as Pages, Safari Web browsing, chatting, light gaming, and using GiMP. I used to use a 2007-2008 Dell Inspiron, so this is leaps forwards better than that. 

 

My advice if you're interested in the Macbook Pro is to be aware that you're going to be offered an amazing sharp display, an amazing chiclet keyboard, an excellent trackpad, and a nice build. The performance of the Macbook Pro is definitely nice. Most of my issues come from transitioning and just the web browser being a pain. But everything else serves to be mostly identical to my Windows Desktop. GiMP was basically the same, Safari is basically a Chrome clone, and the Steam Client is almost like the Windows' Steam client, but suffers from resolution problems.

 

To be fair, the Macbook Pro is not a gaming machine if you're interested in raw performance. There are other options like ASUS, MSI, and Razer laptop products that serve a better purpose than a Mac.

 

I give the Macbook Pro 2013 13.3" Retina an 8/10.

 

 

Additional Notes

 

6-21-2014

On my way to Burbank, California and Little Tokyo, California, I used my Macbook Pro in a very bumpy ride in a tight car. The Macbook would bump into everything and It bumped straight into my hands. Trying to use a laptop on a bumpy ride yielded expected results, but no visible damage or scuffs is present on the Macbook which I'm thankful for.

[pew41]

Hi nice review......I too went from windows to a macbook pro retina.

 

• "Trackpad doesn't want to right click"...........
• this can be solved by going into "system preferences, trackpad, & then enable secondary click & choose an option"
• or you can do a key combination of "Ctrl + click trackpad"

 

 

to change the mouse scrolling?

 

If you want to change it, you have to go to "system preferences, trackpad (not mouse). Then go over to "scroll and zoom" and unclick the so-called "natural" scroll direction!

[nick99n]

nice review

i think i will stay at windows hehe

[Sauron]

Intel Core i5 2.4ghz (Dual Core)

 

so first off, I downloaded Team Fortress 2 on the Macbook Pro, which surprisingly doesn't run very well.

 

Not very surprising to be honest

 

Very good review. I also like the fact that you pointed out the scaling issues with retina when some Apple fanboys constantly claim scaling on osx is perfect and vastly superior to windows (even though it's just for steam it's enough to show it's not "perfect"). I would have preferred it if you had mentioned the fact that the price is a bit high for the performance offered, so if people are going to buy it it shouldn't be for performance alone.

[Crt]

 

Hi nice review......I too went from windows to a macbook pro retina.

 

• "Trackpad doesn't want to right click"...........
• this can be solved by going into "system preferences, trackpad, & then enable secondary click & choose an option"
• or you can do a key combination of "Ctrl + click trackpad"

 

 

to change the mouse scrolling?

 

If you want to change it, you have to go to "system preferences, trackpad (not mouse). Then go over to "scroll and zoom" and unclick the so-called "natural" scroll direction!

 

 

 

I prefer the natural scrolling on the trackpad, but I prefer conventional scrolling on the mouse. But for some reason, OSX links the trackpad and mouse settings for natural scrolling. So unchecking one of them, unchecks both of them and checking one of them checks both of them.

 

 

Not very surprising to be honest

 

Very good review. I also like the fact that you pointed out the scaling issues with retina when some Apple fanboys constantly claim scaling on osx is perfect and vastly superior to windows (even though it's just for steam it's enough to show it's not "perfect"). I would have preferred it if you had mentioned the fact that the price is a bit high for the performance offered, so if people are going to buy it it shouldn't be for performance alone.

 

The price tag isn't that bad. Personally, the only other alternative I see is the Acer Aspire S7 392 is more or less the equivalent to the Pro: http://www.amazon.com/Acer-S7-392-9890-13-3-Inch-Touchscreen-Ultrabook/dp/B00D4AX780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403357638&sr=8-1&keywords=acer+aspire+s7+392

 

I'm not entirely sure what Intel Iris graphics are, but they're supposed to be better than the Intel HD 5000 which the model of the Acer S7 392 above doesn't have as it uses an Intel HD 4400. 

[Sauron]

I'm not entirely sure what Intel Iris graphics are, but they're supposed to be better than the Intel HD 5000 which the model of the Acer S7 392 above doesn't have as it uses an Intel HD 4400. 

 

Oh iris is just a branding intel uses for their "higher end" integrated graphics, for games they are just as bad though they are designed to allow you do do everyday tasks without a dedicated gpu, but in games they are almost useless. For that price you could get something like an asus g550jk which would perform MUCH better, but of course there are other features the mbp has and the asus doesn't. So what I meant is that for those seeking raw performance this isn't a great choice, it's better if you prefer longer battery life and very high resolutions (not in games though).

[Crt]

Ah, well I'm going to do an extended review on the Macbook and how well it fares against being a young adult's backpack all day just traveling and walking around and see if performance and anything else improves or worsens!

[ManWithBeard1990]

For NTFS, there was once an NTFS-3G driver for OSX that had read-write capability, based on the Linux NTFS driver. I found a GitHub page on it here:

 

https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/wiki/NTFS-3G

 

I can't say how well it works nowadays since my Mac broke three years ago. All I can say is it did, back then.

FAT filesystems should be read/write out of the box though. Also, Safari, Opera and Chrome are all to some extent WebKit-based. Maybe you'll have better luck with a Firefox as it's in no way related to the other browsers, at all.

 

Personally I can see the appeal of Mac hardware, but I don't really get OSX anymore. I feel it was nice up to Snow Leopard, and after that they started adding bloatware. That said, Windows isn't really that different in that respect.

[Wano97]

The scrolling is reversed by default, but can easily be changed in the settings... Scrap that in your review please

Also, does safari really crash? Because I've been using my MBP for a VERY long time (Until I sold it, recently), and It rarely/never crashed. But I started using chrome anyways after a while, no idea why I changed.

[Crt]

The scrolling is reversed by default, but can easily be changed in the settings... Scrap that in your review please

Also, does safari really crash? Because I've been using my MBP for a VERY long time (Until I sold it, recently), and It rarely/never crashed. But I started using chrome anyways after a while, no idea why I changed.

 

The option is there, yes. But the mouse setting for reverse scrolling is connected to the trackpad. I prefer the natural scrolling on a trackpad, but I prefered a more conventional scrolling for my mouse. That option does not exist at all. If you uncheck natural scrolling on the mouse, it'll give you the conventional scrolling, but it also changes the trackpad and has its natural scrolling unchecked as well.

 

TLDR - The options are linked to each other, which like I said in my review, checking either boxes will check both of them and unchecking them will uncheck both of them. 

 

So I used a program called Reverse Scroller where I set it not to affect my trackpad, because natural scrolling on that trackpad is wonderful. I had the reverse-scroll option on the mouse option which made the mouse scrolling more conventional which is my preference when I use a mouse with the Macbook.

 

I realized I didn't make my point clear at all in my review, so I'll try revising what I intended to say.

 

Safari crashed in my experience for unknown reasons. I'm mostly an editor for the wikia pages and it just randomly crashed sometimes for no reason. I never had that issue with Chrome or Firefox ever, so it irritated me. It did crash a few times, but I'm not saying it crashes every two minutes, but it happens occasionally throughout the day. It's just my experience that I've had with it so far.

[ShadowCaptain]

@Crt, Good review, keep this thread updated with your thoughts as you get used to life with your macbook retina pro

 

Just for everyone here are a few peoples observations on gaming performance on the 13" retina pro (mostly using bootcamp I think)

 

Also it is strange you are having crashing and freezing issues with it.. have you tried contacting apple? you get 90 days free telephone support even if you did not take applecare. Perhaps there is a fix for these, its generally not an issue I have seen personally with many years of apple experiance

 

OP are you planning to run bootcamp/parallels on the macbook for gaming?

[Crt]

@Crt, Good review, keep this thread updated with your thoughts as you get used to life with your macbook retina pro

 

Just for everyone here are a few peoples observations on gaming performance on the 13" retina pro (mostly using bootcamp I think)

 

Also it is strange you are having crashing and freezing issues with it.. have you tried contacting apple? you get 90 days free telephone support even if you did not take applecare. Perhaps there is a fix for these, its generally not an issue I have seen personally with many years of apple experiance

 

OP are you planning to run bootcamp/parallels on the macbook for gaming?

 

I personally think it's just wikia. The one I usually go to have lots of addons on their wiki and then all the ads, I don't blame Safari for crashing. 

I don't recall getting Applecare. I just went in the Apple store, bought it and left.

[ZacDaMan72]

Dude: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ $20 and has full NTFS OSX support.