Say hello to my new little friend.
Why did I replace my MacBook Air with a MacBook Pro Retina after only about a year and a half of ownership? Most importantly, it was because I got tired of feeling like I had to treat the Air with kid gloves every time I picked it up, and worrying that the slightest little thing would crack the display panel (yeah, it really is that thin). Secondly, having come from a regular MacBook Pro, I was never completely happy with the quality of that ultra-thin display. In comparison to the Pro, the colors were washed out no matter how much I messed with the color profiles.
There was also issue of case noise. Almost from the very beginning, the Air suffered the most horrible squeaking from the bottom case whenever it was picked up. Some creative engineering on my part minimized it, but even then it still required periodic attention and was by no means a permanent fix.
When the display started developing small "oil slicks" under the glass a few weeks ago I knew I it was time to at least start considering a replacement for those other reasons, even if Apple Care would cover the replacement of the display because of the Newtonian Rings.
When I started looking at replacements, I wasn't immediately sold on the retina display models per se; I just wanted something more robust than the Air. There was also the issue of image retention, or "ghosting" that plagued the first generation of Retina machines that came out. Additionally, at first blush my aging eyes really didn't see that much of a difference in the display to justify the price difference, but when I priced out a regular MacBook Pro with a SSD (having had one in the Air it was now an absolute requirement for all future machines) it was actually cheaper to get the equivalent Retina model. (Apple ain't stupid, people. They want to move these Retinas.)
Of course now that I have it, I love it. I also appear to be among the lucky ones who have a flawless display. (Or maybe it's because I have one of more recent models and the issue has been corrected.)
Wow. Glad I didn't buy an Air. Enjoy!!
LG and Samsung provide the displays for the current batch of Retinas (since February). I think the first generation was just Samsung. Here's the terminal code to see who made your screen.
ioreg -lw0 | grep \"EDID\" | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4034848?start=945&tstart=0
Congrats!
I'm still trying to figure out this "ghosting" issue. I bought my MBP Retina the very minute Apple's store went back online. So mine is definitely first generation… and yet I have never had a single problem. It's been flawless since day one and continues to be awesome!