No, all MacBook Pro 15" since 2012 have a Retina Display. I would not even consider a computer that didn’t have a Retina/high-DPI display these days, especially for graphically-intensive applications like Dorico that really benefit from the additional clarity.
Please be careful to confirm you are getting a quad-core processor if you decide to buy a 2012 mac mini, though. Just as today’s mac mini is available with either a 4- or 6-core processor, those in 2012 were available with either a 2- or 4-core processor and the lower-cost dual core models are far more readily available as used computers today.
Many thanks to all 
. UPDATE…
I’ve been reading up, been all over eBay and EveryMac. There are two types of choices, Mini or MBP. The 2018 Mini looks amazing but I don’t think it works for me in price. So, I could pop for either a 2012 Mini (MD388LL/A, that’s late-2012 quad core i7 and the rest of it), or for a few hundred USD more a MacBook Pro 2014 (MGXC2LL/A or MGXG2LL/A) or 2015 (MJLT2LL/A or MJLU2LL/A). I won’t go into descriptions of all of these, the moderators would balk at that and rightly, I worry I’m already pushing it with this subject as it is.
All of these listed above are wonderful machines, a big improvement over where I’ve been. There’s pretty much no way to get around these MacBooks ending up at or near $900 if they are to be well stocked and from a reliable seller, so far as I can tell. One thing I wonder is, when I see two computers with price and all else the same but one has a faster CPU and the other has greater storage, is it right to say the faster processor is always the way to go even if just jumping from say 2.5 to 2.8?
The Minis look like they’d be about 200 USD less in just about every case, sometimes better. The savings is a tempter for sure but I am taking a special sort of plunge here, I don’t want to be penny wise and pound foolish. The Mini is only less tempting because it’s not a laptop and besides I’d have to get a keyboard and trackpad, and yeah they’re not very expensive but they’re not so cheap either; actually when I add it up they together would come close to making up the price difference which makes me feel like I may as well get a laptop.
But still I do wonder if there are reasons to prefer a Mini over a MacBook Pro, all things being equal for the sake of argument; I wonder if you have any thoughts one way or another on that. They’re so physically accessible, and all those ports; I don’t know if I’m mistaken but they seem like a smart machine and like they could be a better investment (remember from my OP, I’m a guy who got a couple of dog’s ages out of his laptop already!). I found out that I could just share the keyboard and trackpad (and probably built-in monitor) of this old macbook I’m typing at now with the Mini, using the setting in System Preferences > Sharing. But then I’d be running all this electricity for such a small purpose, but perhaps it’s a temporary solution anyway should the Mini be the wiser of the moves. Thoughts?
You can swap out the SSD blade on the 2014 and 2015 MBPs, so you could buy a larger one later. (Though you have to be careful about the right sort.)
All other things being equal, I’d go for the 2014/5 MBP models over the 2012 Mini. It’s just a couple of years extra before obsolescence, and slightly newer technology all round. The Mini uses SATA for the storage, instead of PCIe, Thunderbolt 1 instead of 2 (though both fairly obsolete), worse graphics, slightly older generation of CPU, etc, etc.
Don’t go for the 2014 Mini.
Speaking strictly on the Mini: in the words of (I believe it was) Michael Palin, 2014 is “Right Out!”
Quick update, I think today I’m buying a MacBook Pro 2014 MGXG2LL/A, the one with the 2.8 quad core MacBook Pro 15-Inch "Core i7" 2.8 Mid-2014 (DG) Specs (Retina Mid-2014 15", MGXG2LL/A, MacBookPro11,3, A1398, 2881): EveryMac.com.
Of the many options we discussed I like this one most on the bang-for-buck spectrum. Sure it’ll be more money than I wanted to spend but I see literally no way around it, especially since the opera score I’m now doing—which is for hire, btw—is just not working on my old machine running Dorico 2. I mean it is slower than the slowest snail, even froze when last I added the 5th clarinet “player” or whatever it was just to account for all the jiggery one must do without the proper condensing features of Dorico 3. A newer machine running D2 may be fine with that for all I know but combined with such an old Mac as mine, the wall has definitely been hit. Finally, it was bothering me esthetically—with the layout page becoming horribly bloated and desperately inelegant, it’s just the sort of thing it seems to me a Dorico project should NOT be.
My peripherals are pretty simple. My Glyph external HD has a USB 3.0 on it already that I’ve not been using (been using its FW800 until now) so that’s already there. My USB-powered MIDI device/keyboard setup should hopefully connect right into the other USB 3.0 port so I can enter notes etc.
Massive thanks to everyone in this thread!!
Sorry, but I think this is revelatory enough to justify my popping in once more. I’ve discovered something which has me thinking people would be wise to opt for the 2015 MBP over the 2014 and it may not be common knowledge. As always through this, if I’m wrong I welcome being educated…
It was stated along the way in this thread that the 2014 and 2015 MBPs are virtually identical apart from the haptic trackpad thingy. I found that to be true in every respect until just now; I think I found an important difference and I wanted to share it. I wanted to understand SSD blades and upgrading better, so I wondered what differences there might be if any between the two years. In terms of what’s used in them there may not be much; it’s true these are incredibly similar machines in terms of the materials, drives and memory used. But there is a difference in. This is all from an article on Beetstech, “The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs.” Apple Proprietary SSDs: Ultimate Guide to Specs & Upgrades | BeetsBlog I’ll break out the salient points below. I fully admit that I knew nothing about all this just days ago, so I’m doing my best to stick with the found facts (I hope they are facts!).
The article provides the results of what was apparently a deep investigation into Mac SSD. For what concerns this thread, both 2014 and 2015 MBPs have those great PCIe interfaces. The SSDs in 2014 models are Gen.3 and in 2015 are Gen.4. Nothing surprising in a generation forward for a year. Gen.3 was a real breakthrough and Gen4 uses the same connectors, but there are further improvements that go untapped in some machines. Plus there’s an even more important difference in the PCIe connections, 2014 being 2.0 and 2015 being 3.0.
Generation 4 brought massive increases in speeds when compared to their Gen. 3 counterparts, with read and write speeds that are roughly twice that of the previous generation. All the laptops and desktops released during this period could make use of the four channel PCIe connection, but only a few select models could reap the benefits of the PCIe 3.0 technology. For devices that did support a PCIe 3.0 connection to the SSD, read and write speeds were more than doubled.
And those devices that did support a PCIe 3.0 include our friend the MBP 2015 15-inch. Under the section on the “MacBook Pro (Early 2015 - Mid 2015)”…
The 2015 releases of the MacBook Pro laptops were also relatively minor upgrades, but again the SSDs brought about a huge speed boost, especially for the 15″ model A1398. Both the 13″ and 15″ computers support the full range of drive capacities and supported four channel connections, but the 15″ MacBook Pro also supported PCIe 3.0.
This is already interesting, and then the kicker…
Both the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pros also support the NVMe protocol and upgrading to Gen. 5 SSDs can bring a modest speed boost to the 13″ model A1502, but the 15″ model A1398 with its PCIe 3.0 connection really allows the NVMe technology to shine. Read speeds increase by ~40% and write speeds can increase by ~60%.
That’s a strong reason to plunk for the 2015 over the 2014 
. I would even go so far as to just get a 256GB SSD for now and know that later on I can get not just a larger capacity drive but an amazing rate upgrade. Fro those of you who don’t know—or who have forgotten with all the numbers and letters buzzing around a computer user’s head—the model distinction A1398 is very wide and incorporates both years and more, so to be more exact I’m talking here about the MJLT2LL/A (2.5 GHz) or MJLU2LL/A (2.8 GHz) as being the best in terms of features and upgradability. I hope I’m right to trust Beetstech here—and if I am, that this info helps others.
My first reason for not buying a 2014 model is the lack of user upgradeability. Unless you can find a machine with 16G RAM, it’s not worth it IMO
To sum up the Beestech article: you can upgrade the stock SSD in both models, and get faster speeds. I have the 2014 MBP, and I’ve upgraded to a 1TB Gen 4 SSD. Blackmagic speed tester gives me c. 1400 Mbs Write and 1600 Mbs Read. You’d get similar on a stock 2015 MBP, and if you can find a Gen 5 SSD, speeds can increase to 1800 / 2000, tops.
There also third-party blades for both models that now claim to be much faster than Apple units, on both models.
When Dorico has a document open, it’s not using the disk at all. Also, speed test performance is not the same a real-world usage, in which lots of small files are much slower than one big one.
Yes, obviously, each generation of Mac is in some way faster than the previous one. (Except for the 2014 Mini!) But the speed bump between these two is very slight. The 2015 MBP uses 4th generation Intel i7 CPUs, which are the same as in the 2014 model, though base clock speeds are slightly improved. And the question is whether these differences will represent a limiting factor in your usage.
I guess I was trying in a clumsy way to suggest that for the most part, a 2014 MBP was just as good, if you’re under a budget.
Apologies though for not giving you all the details. I did mean to link to the Beestech article, as a means of identifying upgrades for whatever Mac you chose.
Benwiggy, I worried about seeming like I was faulting you personally. I swear I wasn’t. What shows here is a difference between us, in that you just have greater practical knowledge by every indication. So I’m very, very happy you took the time there to write throughout this thread and just now.
You say “if you can find a Gen 5 SSD…”, implying they’re hard to come by? The other thing, about not using the disk at all when Dorico has a document open, is sobering as well. I saw to that the speed increase from 2014 to 2015 is very slight, but it looked from the article like the move from PCIe 2.0x2 to 3.0x4 was really adding something.
One thing I’m looking at is that the price of a 2014 2.8GHz can sometimes be about the same as a 2015 2.5GHz. If I’m hearing you correctly, you’d go for the faster processor over the newer year.
Okay, still thinking here.
I have heard reports of problems running the 2015 MBP with an external monitor on HDMI.
Frequently, the discrete GPU option is a cause of various issues and not worth it.
The article says that the 2014 MBPs shipped with 2-lane PCIe SSDs, but if you fit a Gen 4 SSD in the 2014, then it will run at 4-lanes. There do seem to be lots of Gen 4 SSDs and not as many Gen 5s on eBay.
As for the choice: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I guess I’m saying that there’s actually not that much in it, and if there’s other compelling factors: price, condition, then let those guide you. Given two identical 2014 and 2015 machines, I would have preferred the haptic Trackpad…
Ah, you get around, my friend! I’ll take a minute or 60 to wrap my head around the issue raised there. I am running an external out of necessity with this old 2008 I’m on, but wouldn’t strictly need to with a new lap though it’s nice having the second big screen at a higher elevation.
The haptic trackpad, I’ve never used one so I don’t know what I’m in for.
Interesting and compelling, as well as a bit scary. I noticed in my researches how the range of A1398 machines (15" MacBook Pros, Core i7, Retina) span 2012 to 2015 and share most of the same features as they go through (memory and processor differences aside, naturally). This is no place for a whole round up but, apropos of our talk, one thing that would alter with the occasional machine was including one GPU or two. I saw this, thought it was strange, and figured two must be better than one so I summarily ignored all the single GPU units when pricing computers. But now you have me thinking, if they’re defendable as good machines AND, judging by that post you put up, don’t have this terrible issue with an external monitor, then that’s very good news for used/refurbished computer buyers because they tend to be less money. I definitely do want to use an external monitor; having a second display cannot be beat during a project. And I’m not making movies or gaming so maybe I don’t care if there’s only one graphics processor instead of two.
The following is all according to EveryMac. If you count the configure-to-order models as separate, there are a total of 15 different A1398 MBPs between late-2013 to mid-2014 (Gen3 SSD) and mid-2015 (Gen4 SSD). The six with dual graphics processors have an “integrated Intel Iris 5200 Pro graphics processor with 128 MB of ‘Crystalwell’ embedded DRAM (and shared system memory)” as well as either “a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory” if they’re late-2013 to mid-2014 or “an AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory” if they’re mid-2015. When they have a single graphics processor they have only the “integrated Intel Iris 5200 Pro graphics processor with 128 MB of ‘Crystalwell’ embedded DRAM (and shared system memory)”.
Here’s a full list. Note that the first three units came with only 8GB SDRAM unless upgraded at time of purchase and could not be upgraded later. Basically you want 16GB SDRAM. I’m leaving out SSD and other differences/details here. IG is for single integrated GPU; DG is for dual graphics processors.
A1398 MacBook Pro 15"
Part number or config-to-order (CTO) — MacBook Pro model identifier — i7 quad-core processor speed — IG or DG.
- late-2013
ME293LL/A — 11,2 — 2.0 — IG
CTO above — 11,2 — 2.3 — IG
CTO above — 11,2 — 2.6 — IG
ME294LL/A — 11,3 — 2.3 — DG (NVIDIA)
ME874LL/A — 11,3 — 2.6 — DG (NVIDIA)
- mid-2014
MGXA2LL/A — 11,2 — 2.2 — IG
CTO above — 11,2 — 2.5 — IG
CTO above — 11,2 — 2.8 — IG
MGXC2LL/A — 11,3 — 2.5 — DG (NVIDIA)
MGXG2LL/A — 11,3 — 2.8 — DG (NVIDIA)
- mid-2015
MJLQ2LL/A — 11,4 — 2.2 — IG
CTO above — 11,4 — 2.5 — IG
CTO above — 11,4 — 2.8 — IG
MJLT2LL/A — 11,5 — 2.5 — DG (AMD)
MJLU2LL/A — 11,5 — 2.8 — DG (AMD)
Benwiggy, just to be sure I understand things I want to follow up with you. Near the bottom of the stackexchange post you pointed to, you addressed answerer tkp:
“I note that you have the model with a dedicated GPU. I wonder if that’s a factor. I have the 2014 15” MBP just with Intel graphics, and I use an external monitor very occasionally, but have not seen this issue."
Looking at tkp’s graphic charts from his test I reckon from his top speed that he had the last one in my list, MJLU2LL/A. So am I right that by “dedicated” you were referring to his AMD processor, as opposed to your model which you seem to say is an IG, so has only the Intel “integrated” processor?
Thanks!
The Intel unit is actually ‘integrated’ into the CPU unit itself (by Intel). As a result it’s cheap, and power efficient. It shares memory with the CPU, typically taking 1.5 GB.
A dedicated GPU is a separate piece of hardware, with its own RAM, and usually has a lot more performance.
The MBPs with 2 GPUs can switch between one or the other, if you need more performance or more battery. They don’t use both at the same time.
While it’s true that the Intel units are less good, (and the early ones c. 2010 - 2012 were a bit weak), the ones in the 2014 MBPs and upwards are perfectly good, unless you’re a radical gamez dood or trying to fold protein structures or making the next Pixar movie.
The dedicated unit on a 2015 MBP will let you run 1 x 5K external; otherwise it’s 1 x 4K (3840 x 2160) whatevs.
That sounds great to me! Yeah, no higher-dimensional modeling or world-simulating going on here. I’m now looking into 2015 “IG” MBPs, but also 2014 when the price is just that much better sometimes. By the way if anyone out there has a refutation to voice or whatever, I am all ears. I hope this has been of help to others.