A Geeky Lady and Her MacBook Pro

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It was a tough decision.

Do I buy a MacBook Pro during Apple’s Back to School promotion and get my son’s education discount plus a $100 iTunes card? Or do I wait for the new MacBook Pro to be released later in the fall?

I researched, I asked my fellow writers on MyMac.com, I reached out to the 3 Geeky Ladies Google+ Community (please, join us, by the way!) The consensus was to wait.

So I waited.

And waited.

Finally, on October 22, 2013, the new MacBook Pros were announced. And I was disappointed.

I knew what I wanted: 13 inch screen, 8GB RAM, 750GB HD, just like the 2012 models, only with a Haswell processor and Retina screen. But those were no longer available. The base model was 4GB RAM, 500GB HD. Sure, I could upgrade the RAM and HD, but I would be buying last year’s MacBook Pro. The new model’s had the Retina display and better processors, but no hard drive as I knew them. Now all MacBook Pros had solid state drives (SSD) that were much more expensive.

How could I justify spending close to $2000 for a laptop with less space AND no optical drive? Yes, I’m one of the few people left on this earth that burns CDs every now and then. Plus I watch DVDs on my computer. The price difference would be about $500, not exactly chump change.

Now you can see how this was a tough decision.

After much internal debate I laid out the facts to my non-technical husband. I was honest with the pricing and how SSD is actually preferable and faster than a regular hard drive. He felt it would be better to pay more now and get the latest and greatest. No sense in buying last year’s model that’s outdated even before I buy it.

I knew I married him for a reason!

It’s been eight days with my new 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD.

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The speed difference is amazing! To be able to open multiple web pages in a matter of seconds makes my heart sing! And the Retina screen is just gorgeous!

Since I still have a fully functional 2008 MacBook I can use that optical drive if I need it, so I don’t miss it on this MacBook Pro. Spinning beach balls are still a problem with iTunes, but I think many people started having that issue with the iTunes 11 update.

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Mavericks is a big jump from Snow Leopard so I’m still getting used to new behaviors, like no more Save As in TextEdit, where I’m writing this article. I haven’t opened GarageBand or iMovie yet; surprises still await me.

I admit the transition was a bit bumpy; I migrated my data over and a few applications, like Entourage for my ISP mail, did not play nice. With the help of wonderful people from MyMac.com and Twitter I was able to get things sorted out and settled. I’m spending even more time in front of the computer, if that’s even possible!

It was a tough decision, but I made the right decision in the end.

(This article is cross-posted to the3 Geeky Ladies web site.)

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