The other night, after quaffing a couple fine Czech style pilsners at Gordon Birsch (highly recommended, I might add), I wandered the 100 or so feet to the Gilbert Apple Store. I am usually cautious at an apple store, because sometimes reason evades me and I find myself whipping out my plastic to upgrade to a new computer.
I have studiously avoided getting up close and personal with a retina display MBP, simply because I figured I would “have to have one” and then I would be $2700 poorer (I would want the bigger SSD, and the 16G ram.) Having seen one, and played with it for a little while, I can say that they are really nice. Well put together, and very very snappy. They had one on display wit the 16G ram and the 512G SSD, loaded out the way I would like. Applications loaded almost instantly, and it was super responsive. The Retina display was gorgeous, but not “must have”. I loved the thin-ness and the lightness of it. The fact that it has no optical drive is not a detriment (my current MBP has a SSD in the disk bay, and a 750G 7200RPM spinning rust disk where the DVD drive would be).
It was nice, and a fully loaded system would do me well, but alas, I don’t feel the burning need to replace my current MBP. With the SSD + spinning disk, it has plenty of oomph, and it has been upgraded to 16G ram, so it works pretty nice.
So call it a strong case of the “likes” on the Retina MBP, but not a “gotta have it”. Of course I am talking about the 15″ version. I just find the 13″ MBP’s to have too little screen real estate.
