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.