Ben and I made a trip out to Flatiron Crossing today and stopped in at the Apple Store to check out the company's latest orgasm-inducing creation, the 15" MacBook Pro with retina display.
At the risk of losing my fanboy status, I have to say that after picking it up and thoroughly examining the machine, I came away rather unimpressed. While it is indeed a beautiful piece of engineering, and nothing I opined the other day has really changed, I was expecting to be blown away by the retina display and it simply didn't happen. I guess the best way to sum it up is that any envy I might have felt as a 13" MacBook Air owner prior to actually having seen the new laptop has completely disappeared.
Yes, it's thinner and lighter than its predecessor. But in that regard it's no Air. And as for the display? Maybe it's just my eyes but I didn't see enough of a difference between it and a regular display to justify the added expense. So to be completely honest, it was a very nice machine, but not nice enough to make me want to rush out and buy one.
That being said, would I refuse one if it was given to me, or—if I had a few thousand dollars laying around—not buy one for Ben as a graduation gift? Of course not. But it's definitely not that much of an improvement over what I currently own to leave me pining away for one.
If you're just surfing the web and reading email, it probably isn't much of an improvement (though I'd argue that the super-smooth text on a Retina Display will be quite a but nicer to read)… but if you are using the laptop to actually get work done… well, it's about as amazing as it gets. The high-density display will allow you to edit/work with more of an image/video at a time… it's like a 30-inch display in a 15-inch space! The super-speedy SSD makes HD-intensive apps (like Photoshop) SO much faster. The stronger video and CPU will make processor-intensive tasks a lot quicker. I cannot WAIT for my custom-configured beauty to arrive… working on the road will be easier than ever before.
I'm sure you will love it, Dave. It's just that for me personally after seeing it, I can't justify the added expense.
Good to know!