I have no idea why anyone would buy a "Retina" MacBook any time in the near future. There are a huge number of popular apps that still don't support it. Lack of Office & VirtualBox support by itself would be a non-starter for me.

The #1 reason to buy it is if you want a 15" MacBook Pro with an SSD that's larger than 128GB and want to pay as little as possible for it.

At the moment, the 2.3 GHz "Retina" MBP is $2199 with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD (bare-minimum specs)

A "non-retina" 15" MBP with bare-minimum specs (4GB RAM, 2.3 GHz processor) but with the same 256GB SSD is $2299.

At the other end of the spectrum, a 2.7GHz "retina" with 16GB of RAM and the 768GB SSD is $3299. A worse "non-retina" laptop (only 8GB of RAM, since that's all Apple will let you put in those, and only 512GB SSD for the same reason) is $3349.

Oh, and for the non-retina machine I assumed you get the cheaper 1440x900 screen. Of course the "retina" machine can be easily run at 1680x1050 if desired.

If you don't want/need the SSD, the numbers look quite different, of course.

That said, I'm not sure what you think is "unsupported" by Office and VirtualBox. They won't run at 2880x1800, but they'll run no worse than they would on a 1440x900 15" mbp.

I wasn't aware of that price difference. Why is the Retina MBP so much cheaper, despite the more expensive screen?

And when I say unsupported, I mean that they look crappy because they don't have Retina support.

I can't tell you for sure on the price difference.... Maybe not needing the extra stuff like the SSD housing and whatnot matters? Or maybe it's just arbitrary pricing? Or maybe a way to encourage people to buy retina machines? Who knows, outside Apple.

> I mean that they look crappy because they don't have > Retina support.

Well, more precisely they look just like they do a non-retina mbp. Which is worse than Safari or Terminal on the retina mbp, of course, but not any worse than you'd deal with if you got the non-retina machine. Or am I missing something?

Yes, they would look the same as on a non-retina MBP. The point is that when placed right next to the Retina apps, the difference would be jarring/distracting.

That's possible. Assuming you use any retina apps, of course. I'm looking at the apps I'm using right now, and none would actually be making full use of the retina display on a retina mbp.

I guess if/when I ran iPhoto it might look jarring. If I weren't running it full-screen on its own desktop, of course.

All of which is to say that it really depends on individual usage patterns.

Because it's a thin, light 15" Mac laptop with a sharp high-resolution display?

I lugged a 2011 MBP 15 laptop around a lot. Now I lug a 2012 rMBP around, big difference in weight. Plus, I can jack the screen resolution up to 1900x1200 or whatever when I need it.

The other big (First world ) "problem" is that once you get used to the retina display, looking at the older display is almost as jarring as looking at a SD transmission after you've gotten used to HD. Both of those were perfectly fine before you got used to the new stuff. What takes me aback is the difference in iTerm/Terminal ( that's where i spend most of time ) between the old and the new.

Of course the non retina apps like firefox, thunderbird, opera show up exceedingly fuzzy. I'd like to continue to use them but they're just hideous and i have to revert to Safari/Chrome

Viewing photos, or similar graphics-related work.

I just replaced my 2008 MBPro with the Retina MBPro, and all I can say is that if you use it for actual work, you need to upgrade ASAP. The difference in performance is HUGE..

If your old MacBook didn't have an SSD, that is probably what most of the difference is.

Or do you mean that the retina screen makes you perform better? :)

I had the first generation MacBook Air, and if I was using it outside, it would shut down the instant sun peeked from behind the clouds.

They later solved this in a firmware update, but still, first-generation Apple products are usually best to be avoided.

There are exceptions, of course. For example, I've heard of no major defects in the 1st gen iPad.

More of a deliberate cost tradeoff than a defect, but the first iPad only included 256MB of RAM, which is woefully inadequate for the number of pixels it has to drive. As a result, it will not get new OS updates starting with iOS 6, and a lot of other software is unhappy on it. It's not bad, but the second version was considerably better.

True, for instance Mobile Safari is very crashy on it. This is of course not unique to just iOS, at least on Transformer Prime a lot of Android applications like GMail tend to crash a lot. So I'd count it more as a defect from a still young platform.

The 2010 iPad is still a great piece of gear and despite not having iOS6, will still run games and apps pretty well.

By 2013, a lot of apps will have migrated to iOS6, and the iPad1 might start to lose some of the platform benefits, but will still be a solid device.

I've had my Retina MBP for a month an a half. Only issues I had were graphical glitches in Lion which were fixed when I upgraded to Mountain Lion.

Sure, some apps don't scale their resolution for the screen yet. Photoshop is the biggest problem for me but isn't a deal breaker since I don't spend that much time in PS.

As for the OP's problem, I've never experienced it. Keep in mind he didn't say it was a retina model. I ride a motorcycle with my laptop on my back every day. It gets bounced around and jostled a lot. I've been on 4 flights with it. I've never had it turn on when closed.

As the owner of a first-generation MacBook Pro, I heartily concur. Those things had very high failure rates. My extended family owned 3, and all 3 failed within 3-4 years.

I was excited about the prospect of a 13" MB Pro Retina. But I'm going to say that not having upgradable memory or SSD is a huge deal killer for me (right now I have a 512 GB SSD that I'm going to throw into my new MB Pro). I can deal with carrying the extra pound around. The Retina screen isn't a big deal to me as I use an external monitor most of the time, and I wasn't really that impressed when I saw it at the Apple Store.

Don’t buy. Not as long as they horrific image retention problem isn’t solved and acknowledged by Apple. (It isn’t.)

What? I'm about to buy, what problem are you speaking of?

After ten minutes or so of displaying the same image (e.g. your browser UI), a faint (but very noticeable, even readable if you had displayed text) afterimage remains on the screen for a few minutes. It's visible on any dark gray background and even just dark backgrounds in general.

This problem frequently shows up with MBPr screens from LG (I'm not aware of any problems with Samsung screens, which is the other supplier). It may take a few days of use until the problems show up and it may also be heat related (so machines that have been running for some time are maybe more likely to exhibit the problem).

I'm at the moment letting Apple replace the second screen, if the problem remains I will withdraw from the contract of sale.