Seeking users opinions on 2014 MBP

[mcoltezo]

Hi,

I'm looking to finally upgrade from my mid-2009 MBP to something newer. For my budget and desire for certain ports, I'm looking at 2014s. I'm wondering what folks think of this machine:

2014 MBP Retina, 15" with 256GB 2.2 GHz 4-Core i7 with 16GB RAM

I want the size of a 15" because I'm doing video editing. I'm currently using iMovie but do want to get back to FCX or some other better program. I'll use an external HD for more storage.

I also do online video tutoring and my current machine starts chugging/moaning (expressing disgruntlement with the task) after an hour. It's fine when given a break from the intensity of the screen time but I'd like to do more than an hour at a time.

Any thoughts? Do you use this? Does it work well? Any issues?

thanks!

 

[pshufd]

I'm typing this on a 2014 15" 2.2. It is a perfectly fine machine which I use for personal and work use. I would recommend looking for 2.5 or 2.8 Ghz models as you may get a pretty good deal for more performance. Also, I'd go with Discrete Graphics too. I took too long placing a bid on a 2014 2.8 Ghz, Discrete, 1 TB for $950. I also have a 2015 at 2.5 Ghz with discrete and it's great too.

 

[mcoltezo]

Hi pshufd,

Thanks for replying! I haven't heard of Discrete graphics but will check it out. I was also contemplating battery cycles.

I'm seeing a lot of the 2.2s but not many 2.5s or 2.8s. That sounds like it was a sweet deal at $950.

One thing I was wondering was if I should look at a better/newer processor (2015) with say 8gig ram....or would an older one (2014) with 16 gig ram be better for the video work I want to do? Any thoughts about that?

Thanks again!

 

[BLUEDOG314]

2014 15" machines didn't have discrete gpu failures right?

 

[goslowjoe]

My 2014 15" is awesome... but if you have a chance to get your hands on a 2015 model, go for it. It has a much faster SSD, and a force touch trackpad. I have had the chance to use them side by side as I purchased a used one for someone else and spent a lot of time with it before handing it over. While there is nothing externally that differentiates them, inside there are some big differences, notably the faster SSD and RAM, and different graphics, NVIDIA GeForce on the 2014 and AMD on the 2015.

These differences will not make me trade in or trade up, but if you can get the 2015 model with discrete graphics, much better.

Oh, and the keyboards work...

 

[pshufd]

Hi pshufd,

Thanks for replying! I haven't heard of Discrete graphics but will check it out. I was also contemplating battery cycles.

I'm seeing a lot of the 2.2s but not many 2.5s or 2.8s. That sounds like it was a sweet deal at $950.

One thing I was wondering was if I should look at a better/newer processor (2015) with say 8gig ram....or would an older one (2014) with 16 gig ram be better for the video work I want to do? Any thoughts about that?

Thanks again!

I think that dealers have picked up a lot of the 2.5s and 2.8s and, yes, they are harder to come by. I'd get a 2015 if your budget allows for it. I have not heard of issues with Discrete on the 2014 though I have heard that the 2015s are better. You can drive 4K monitors with the 2015.

I love both my 2014 (without discrete) and my 2015 (with discrete).

 

[mcoltezo]

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts and experience! They've really helped!

While I seriously considered the suggestion of the 2015, I'm going to go with a 2014. I think that coming from a 2009, I'm going to see amazing speed and ...well, it fits the budget better too. I do appreciate the insights and have filed them for future reference!

Re the keyboards, that had me do a wee search and I came across issues with the 2015 butterfly keyboards not the 2014s. Did I miss something or were you saying that they've now been fixed, as in problem solved?

 

[leman]

If you get a good price on it, its a decent machine which is still very much relevant performance-wise. Better than anything that you can get sub $1000 for new these days. The 2015 has a faster GPU, but it probably won't make that much of a difference for you — I certainly wouldn't pay a premium for it.

Did you also consider Windows machines? There are plenty of premium laptops nowadays that come close to Apple's build quality and can be had for less.

 

[mcoltezo]

Sitting on the fence.......I'm contemplating a 2014 MBP 2.2 at $879.00 USD and a 2.5 at $909.00 USD. The rest of the specs are the same (15" 256 GB 4-Core i7 and 16 GB RAM...and even the battery cycles) and essentially the condition of each machine is supposed to be very good to excellent.

I'm torn. People have said I wouldn't likely see much difference in speed and from what I'm coming from anything will be faster than my mid-2009! LOL

Should I spend the extra $40? Do they last longer, better or something?

I haven't considered Windows as I've been with MAC for a very long time and prefer their set up to what Windows is set up like now. Wouldn't trade my Mac OS for Windows 10. I appreciate the suggestion though as it is an option for sure now for doing the video work I want to do.

 

[leman]

Sitting on the fence.......I'm contemplating a 2014 MBP 2.2 at $879.00 USD and a 2.5 at $909.00 USD. The rest of the specs are the same (15" 256 GB 4-Core i7 and 16 GB RAM...and even the battery cycles) and essentially the condition of each machine is supposed to be very good to excellent.

If its just $40, I'd get the 2.5Ghz... does any of them come with limited warranty? Is it from a professional shop or private owner?

 

[mcoltezo]

No warranty but both are from the same Top-rated seller with 100% positive feedback from over 309 people. I'm not sure how to tell if the seller is a pro shop but they've done a lot of laptop business.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[pshufd]

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts and experience! They've really helped!

While I seriously considered the suggestion of the 2015, I'm going to go with a 2014. I think that coming from a 2009, I'm going to see amazing speed and ...well, it fits the budget better too. I do appreciate the insights and have filed them for future reference!

Re the keyboards, that had me do a wee search and I came across issues with the 2015 butterfly keyboards not the 2014s. Did I miss something or were you saying that they've now been fixed, as in problem solved?

The butterfly keyboards are on the 2016 and later models. The 2015s have the old keyboards that started with 2013.
[doublepost=1552254767][/doublepost]

Sitting on the fence.......I'm contemplating a 2014 MBP 2.2 at $879.00 USD and a 2.5 at $909.00 USD. The rest of the specs are the same (15" 256 GB 4-Core i7 and 16 GB RAM...and even the battery cycles) and essentially the condition of each machine is supposed to be very good to excellent.

I'm torn. People have said I wouldn't likely see much difference in speed and from what I'm coming from anything will be faster than my mid-2009! LOL

Should I spend the extra $40? Do they last longer, better or something?

I haven't considered Windows as I've been with MAC for a very long time and prefer their set up to what Windows is set up like now. Wouldn't trade my Mac OS for Windows 10. I appreciate the suggestion though as it is an option for sure now for doing the video work I want to do.

I'd go with the 2.5. A faster processor will do work more efficiently potentially giving you a bit more battery life and/or running a bit cooler. $40 is not much - you should check out what the original delta between processors was. It was likely far more than $40.

 

[mcoltezo]

pshufd and everyone, thanks for your comments! I really appreciate being able to discuss this with others and get feedback as well as clarification on things such as the keyboards. I'm still debating on the purchase. Not that I need it, I'm pretty much at that point. But it's still a lot of money for where I'm at so...can I limp along a bit longer is what I'm wondering. BUT, thanks to your help, I feel certain about what to get and that's really, really helpful. I'm waffling a bit also on the "no returns" stated by the seller but ebay apparently does honour returns. I don't figure I'd return it and the seller gets very good ratings but I find that indication a bit disconcerting. Anyway...now to decide...... buy or save pennies a little longer....? (I've been doing this the old-fashioned save for it way, knowing that I'd have to replace it at some point)

 

[pshufd]

pshufd and everyone, thanks for your comments! I really appreciate being able to discuss this with others and get feedback as well as clarification on things such as the keyboards. I'm still debating on the purchase. Not that I need it, I'm pretty much at that point. But it's still a lot of money for where I'm at so...can I limp along a bit longer is what I'm wondering. BUT, thanks to your help, I feel certain about what to get and that's really, really helpful. I'm waffling a bit also on the "no returns" stated by the seller but ebay apparently does honour returns. I don't figure I'd return it and the seller gets very good ratings but I find that indication a bit disconcerting. Anyway...now to decide...... buy or save pennies a little longer....? (I've been doing this the old-fashioned save for it way, knowing that I'd have to replace it at some point)

I am shopping for a 2015/2.8/1TB/Discrete myself and am considering selling my 2014 to fund it (I don't really need to but I don't need 3 MBPs either). But I am considering waiting until after the Apple March event. If Apple really does release something reliable, such as a MacBook Pro 16.5 with a good keyboard and no Touch Bar, then I'd guess that a decent amount of the demand for 2014/2015 models will go away and that prices will eventually decline. It could take a while for that to happen though. If the 2019s are really that good, I might get one of those too. I'd have to wait to see a teardown, though, to get a feel for reliability. I will not buy a MBP with a TouchBar or with the Butterfly keyboard.

 

[mcoltezo]

Ah....I hadn't even thought of any Apple 'events' coming up! That's interesting and maybe worth waiting for! Give me time to save some more pennies! oh...and maybe the ones I'm looking at would come down in price.

Going to 1TB would be awesome! I'm figuring on externals plus I'm hoping to swap out my current 500 GB SSD to the new machine if I can. We put it in my 2009 MBP to extend its life and it has helped! If we can't, I'll just have to live with externals. They are nice and small now!

I appreciate your mentioning the possible upcoming event. ....btw...that's a lot of MBPs you have! I still have a G4 and a G5 kicking around! Planning to part with the G4 as soon as I clear the HDs. Maybe get a few bucks for it.....maybe not?

 

[akidd]

The 2015 is the best laptop since ‘The One’ it did not release pre the switch to Intel. If you can get a 2015 do, yes they are more expensive but for a reason: worth it. $40? Just go for it. The new 2019 ones should drive down the price of older models but it might not depending on what we are presented with...

 

[mcoltezo]

akidd, what was 'The One'?

Is the 2015 that much better than 2014? I'll have to do some more saving if it's to be a 2015....though maybe prices will come down if there are any announcements re 2019s MBPs at any upcoming Apple events.

....the $40 was for a 2014 2.5 GHz over a 2014 2.2, not for a 2015, sadly.

 

[lixuelai]

I am still using my late 2013 MBP 15 which is near identical to the 2014. Still plenty fast and don't see the need to upgrade yet.

 

[R2FX]

top spec'ed MBP 15" 2014 w GT 750m here hooked to 4k NEC using eGPU (GTX780) w Thunderbolt 2<->3 adaptor - perfect setup for years to come for me our brains register 2^2 performance jump as 2x only... mid 2014 scores over 14k in Geekbench and it flies in OpenCL on eGPU, I honestly don't know what photography based tasks I would need to be doing to bring it to its knees

Plus I can still Mavericks for the more pleasing UI

if I still didn't have 2xMBP 17" (2006 and 2008) I would get one more of these 2013-2015 babies

 

[mcoltezo]

R2FX....how 'bout for video editing? I'm just doing regular HD. No 4K for me anytime soon.

 

[R2FX]

R2FX....how 'bout for video editing? I'm just doing regular HD. No 4K for me anytime soon.

Not sure to be honest, I don't do anything video related, just still photography and 2D graphics... but with beefier GPU inside the eGPU box (Vega 56 or 64) this machine would still be more than sufficient for 1080 videos. Check egpu.io or youtube for some reviews

 

[pshufd]

R2FX....how 'bout for video editing? I'm just doing regular HD. No 4K for me anytime soon.

You're going from dual-core in 2009 to quad-core in 2014. You're also getting a lot more RAM and a very fast SSD. I used to do video editing on my 2008 MBP and it was really slow. The same stuff takes 1/6th the time though I'm not doing HD.

You're also getting more advanced SIMD instruction sets for parallel acceleration. I don't know whether or not your video editing program uses the discrete graphics card but the SIMD stuff will accelerate integer image handling. I used to do SIMD image programming and it's a lot faster than scalar programming.

 

[lixuelai]

One thing to note is that the 2013/2014 MacBook Pros with discrete Nvidia gpus will have issues when used with an AMD egpu. It will work, but you will not have brightness control and sleep. Best to just get one with no discrete graphics.

 

[mcoltezo]

One thing to note is that the 2013/2014 MacBook Pros with discrete Nvidia gpus will have issues when used with an AMD egpu. It will work, but you will not have brightness control and sleep. Best to just get one with no discrete graphics.

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[andreabellini]

I'm looking to buy a 2014 MBP 2.5 or 2.8/16GB/1TB off eBay, but I'm really confused about the prices: e.g. there are many of the 2.8 MBPs in excellent condition selling for around 1000 - 1100 GBP (no bid) on eBay UK, while on eBay Germany there are just a few of the 2.5 and prices go from 1600 € or more. Is 1000 GBP ("buy now") for a highest specced 2014 MBP a bit suspicious, considering the Greman prices? Also, many of them have low seller's feedback (20 to 30 stars), but 100% positive... If anyone can help on this - I'd much appreciate it! Thanks a lot