guruparan Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Been working in PC environment from ~1998. Used Mac now and then in few occasions. I am into core C# development, but that doesn't stop me not to venture into other systems/software. Have been more into research for past 2 years and my personal laptop had worn out. Bought MacBook Pro 13inch (2012) 4GB RAM, 500 GB HDD (not SSD), due to price limitation did not go for Retina. Will use this for home browsing, run ubuntu & windows in VM, Java and Xcode. Music as hobby (will use garageband, had been using it in iPad) I have been using iPad and iPhone for past 4 years. Love the hardware and OS. (Once Yosemite is RTM, will install it, not going to try DP). Any suggestions feedback? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundayx Veteran Posted October 5, 2014 Veteran Share Posted October 5, 2014 Should've gone for Retina mate. The_Observer 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Matthew S. Subscriber² Posted October 5, 2014 Subscriber² Share Posted October 5, 2014 Congrats on the move. The Yosemite is RC1 now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defcon Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Enjoy your new purchase! Just curious, have you used OSX before, and why did you choose to buy a Mac? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guruparan Posted October 5, 2014 Author Share Posted October 5, 2014 Should've gone for Retina mate. Yeap, but I mostly will run and develop apps. Actually I was into getting Macbook Air 13inch. Cost had difference between Retina had a considerable difference (I live in India) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Migra Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 If you're gonna install a Windows VM for development, you might want to increase to 16GB of RAM in order to run it fast, I'm exactly with same specs as you, and my .NET development environment on VM (Windows 8.1, VS2013, SQL2014) runs so slow!!! I urgently need money to upgrade my RAM to 16GB (maximum supported for this model)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guruparan Posted October 5, 2014 Author Share Posted October 5, 2014 Enjoy your new purchase! Just curious, have you used OSX before, and why did you choose to buy a Mac? 2 reasons... 1. My personal laptop is at least 8 years old (HP) and when i purchased it had 2 gig ram, upgraded to 4 gig and had win7 running in., also replaced battery 2 yrs ago. Had loaned it to my friend who is using it wisely (its helping him on his part time job). My family & I don't have PC at home (except iPad) & don't want to use Office laptop (Latitude) for my personal purpose, kids assignments & other personal day-to-day activities etc needed a laptop. 2. Need to work on Xcode, unix env for few weekend personal apps (not that i can't do it in my dell latitude, just that its not my personal and don't want to bring in too much of my off time apps to work pc). Been using Windows for a very long time and will continue to use it for foreseeable future (don't think it will ever move away for next 10-15 yrs). I used MacBooks earlier (initial once @ year 2001). Didn't had money and chance to buy one personally and need did not arise., now above options lead me in here. iMac was good, except that I need portability in use, MB Air is very good, but considering 512 SSD , price was too high for me to invest in. If you're gonna install a Windows VM for development, you might want to increase to 16GB of RAM in order to run it fast, I'm exactly with same specs as you, and my .NET development environment on VM (Windows 8.1, VS2013, SQL2014) runs so slow!!! I urgently need money to upgrade my RAM to 16GB (maximum supported for this model)... I won't be running Windows VM for development (though will have vs.net installed). My work PC has all in for my development. I still have and will need to use Windows to check & use few of our apps (XBAP browser app) & softwares that run only on windows. so 2 GB Win7 is good enough. But yeah, surely will upgrade to 8 GB RAM.. Congrats on the move. The Yosemite is RC1 now. Thx. Quick question.. (will search though in detail). 1. Should i buy a 1 TB external hard disk for Time Machine? (any brand should be fine?). 2. If Mac crashes now, how i can reinstall it? (is there a bootable DVD that i can burn from OS?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosense Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 guruparan, on 05 Oct 2014 - 12:54, said: 2 reasons... 1. My personal laptop is at least 8 years old (HP) and when i purchased it had 2 gig ram, upgraded to 4 gig and had win7 running in., also replaced battery 2 yrs ago. Had loaned it to my friend who is using it wisely (its helping him on his part time job). My family & I don't have PC at home (except iPad) & don't want to use Office laptop (Latitude) for my personal purpose, kids assignments & other personal day-to-day activities etc needed a laptop. 2. Need to work on Xcode, unix env for few weekend personal apps (not that i can't do it in my dell latitude, just that its not my personal and don't want to bring in too much of my off time apps to work pc). Been using Windows for a very long time and will continue to use it for foreseeable future (don't think it will ever move away for next 10-15 yrs). I used MacBooks earlier (initial once @ year 2001). Didn't had money and chance to buy one personally and need did not arise., now above options lead me in here. iMac was good, except that I need portability in use, MB Air is very good, but considering 512 SSD , price was too high for me to invest in. I won't be running Windows VM for development (though will have vs.net installed). My work PC has all in for my development. I still have and will need to use Windows to check & use few of our apps (XBAP browser app) & softwares that run only on windows. so 2 GB Win7 is good enough. But yeah, surely will upgrade to 8 GB RAM.. Thx. Quick question.. (will search though in detail). 1. Should i buy a 1 TB external hard disk for Time Machine? (any brand should be fine?). 2. If Mac crashes now, how i can reinstall it? (is there a bootable DVD that i can burn from OS?) Hold option key before starting the laptop, it should have a recovery partition with osx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Migra Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Quick question.. (will search though in detail). 1. Should i buy a 1 TB external hard disk for Time Machine? (any brand should be fine?). 2. If Mac crashes now, how i can reinstall it? (is there a bootable DVD that i can burn from OS?) You're gonna need a USB Hub (as much ports as possible.... I have a 7 ports Hub), Yes a 1TB for Time Machine (buy a decent brand), You can restore OS X from Recovery partition by booting onto it by turning your MBP on and pressing CMD key until the partitions screen appears... or you can Google for a tutorial on how to make a USB drive bootable, or how to burn OS X into a DVD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guruparan Posted October 5, 2014 Author Share Posted October 5, 2014 Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guruparan Posted October 7, 2014 Author Share Posted October 7, 2014 Yosemite is just week away or so , should i wait till it is GA ? I like yosemite compared to mavericks (Apple did a good job in here bringing up unifying UI), so even i update to open beta , it can be upgraded to final GA once reached right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allannyholm Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 I'd say wait for the final release of Yosemite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsnbolts64 Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Been working in PC environment from ~1998. Used Mac now and then in few occasions. I am into core C# development, but that doesn't stop me not to venture into other systems/software. Have been more into research for past 2 years and my personal laptop had worn out. Bought MacBook Pro 13inch (2012) 4GB RAM, 500 GB HDD (not SSD), due to price limitation did not go for Retina. Will use this for home browsing, run ubuntu & windows in VM, Java and Xcode. Music as hobby (will use garageband, had been using it in iPad) I have been using iPad and iPhone for past 4 years. Love the hardware and OS. (Once Yosemite is RTM, will install it, not going to try DP). Any suggestions feedback? :) Welcome :) Enjoy. Do wait til Yosemite's beta testing is finished and the final version is released. It's risky business. Google "My OS X Yosemite Nightmare" for more info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadrack Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Congratz! Hope you enjoy your MBA! My wife absolutely loves her 2012 11" MBA. I bought a 256GB SDD upgrade for it for her birthday (shhh..its in a couple days). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian M. Veteran Posted October 7, 2014 Veteran Share Posted October 7, 2014 If it's a 2012, it may have Intel HD 4000 graphics. Hold off of Yosemite for now, GMC1 has a dodgy HD4000 driver (has been this way since DP4). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UKer Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 The advice of others here is good, when you can upgrade to 16GB RAM, you'll be thankful in the future. You've got yourself a very nice laptop, amazing build and unlike Retina models - expandable (very easy to expand the RAM and HDD, and with the pice of SSDs falling all this time you can get one for a speed boost in the future). If you're a developer you're probably going to be using an external monitor, so a super nice display on the laptop just isn't as important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikh Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 You can also boot into recovery by holding CMD + R on boot up. If it doesnt find your recovery partition (new hard drive, removed recovery for more space, etc) it'll go out to the internet and do internet recovery. I love apple's recovery system because you can always recover and never need media. If you would like media, get a 4G USB Stick and google who to make a backup of the recovery partition. This will give you a live recovery usb drive you can use anytime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Make sure that hub for your externals is USB3 (or get a Thunderbolt device) regular USB is annoyingly slow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale-Kurt Murray Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Do the memory upgrade as everyone has suggested, I purchased the 13-inch, Mid 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro which I must say is a good choice in comparison to the Retina based on cost and upgradability. Another upgrade to consider is the physical storage, I purchase a 256GB SSD and have installed it as the primary drive. The 500GB HDD replaced the Optical drive, this was mounted using the OCW Data Doubler which is a great upgrade item for mounting a secondary drive. Since my initial MacBook Pro some years ago I realized that I never used the optical drive, so it was the first thing to go when I purchased my new MacBook. My next upgrade for this MacBook Pro would be to upgrade both storage drives to 500GB SSD for RAID. You will see significant performance improvements with the SSD upgrade. My setup has the OS and applications on the SSD and my user home directory on the HDD. There are simple tutorials on how to do that. UKer 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guruparan Posted October 11, 2014 Author Share Posted October 11, 2014 Thanks everyone for the updates and advises. I am holding off till Yosemite is official. Also will get a usb3 external hdd. ~ before this year end, will move RAM to 16 GB. in Q1 probably will update to SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
123456789A Posted October 11, 2014 Share Posted October 11, 2014 Thanks everyone for the updates and advises. I am holding off till Yosemite is official. Also will get a usb3 external hdd. ~ before this year end, will move RAM to 16 GB. in Q1 probably will update to SSD. Does it take 16 gb? Apple's site says 8 is the max, but they've been known to be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dale-Kurt Murray Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 The Apple site does state 8GB maximum, however MBP uses such as myself have successfully upgraded to 16GB RAM memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeadEndAccount Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 I've got a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) and Yosemite is performing remarkably well on it - very fast and reliable, haven't noticed any major bugs or issues but any issues that are found tend to be fixed up pretty quickly. From what I understand many of the issues regarding SMB performance and reliability have been addressed along with SMB3 support being added along with most of the mail issues surrounding Gmail being addressed (but then again compatibility with Gmail has been pretty much a universal issue for all non-Google clients for ages even for clients that make use of open source libraries such as Airmail. Regarding the issue of MacBook's and India - everything is expensive but there is hope that the new prime minister will bring about reforms to reduce tariffs and barriers which make imported products prohibitively expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikh Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Does it take 16 gb? Apple's site says 8 is the max, but they've been known to be wrong. Its not that they are wrong, its that the memory speeds they use (usually always the highest mhz ram available) at the time only have so much ram available. I know when the mac pro came out, finding 64gb ECC 1866 ram was impossible to find. Yet that machine can take 128gbs. The limitation of RAM is the Processor and not the motherboard, apple just recommends what it has tested and is affordable to the average user. Even thou their ram prices are absurd, this is what I believe. The reason I state this is, anyone on neowin would be able to look up a processor spec and see what the max ram supported is for that processor. After doing so, finding that ram with the matching mhz and then putting it in a macbook pro is no brainer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
123456789A Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Its not that they are wrong, its that the memory speeds they use (usually always the highest mhz ram available) at the time only have so much ram available. I know when the mac pro came out, finding 64gb ECC 1866 ram was impossible to find. Yet that machine can take 128gbs. The limitation of RAM is the Processor and not the motherboard, apple just recommends what it has tested and is affordable to the average user. Even thou their ram prices are absurd, this is what I believe. The reason I state this is, anyone on neowin would be able to look up a processor spec and see what the max ram supported is for that processor. After doing so, finding that ram with the matching mhz and then putting it in a macbook pro is no brainer. Ok I agree with everything but the affordable to the average consumer part! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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