[Meelapo]

Originally Posted by pylon

So I pulled the trigger on the 13" Macbook Pro Retina 256 GB SSD 8 GB ram w/Haswell.

Wow what a machine. Coming from a mid-2011 11" Air it isn't even comparable. I looked at a new 13" Air, and the cost difference to go to the Pro was negligible once I hot rodded it a bit, and the size difference even less so. Once I heard the speakers on the Pro, it was a no brainer, that was worth $100 of the $200 difference right there, and the Retina display is worth every penny of the remainder.

Pros:

- Screen in minblowingly amazing. Looks like a glossy portrait, I cannot get my face close enough to see a pixel.
- FAST, FAST, and even FASTER.
- Got 6 hours on my first battery run down, when I took it out of the box it read 61%. I can see that the 9-10 hour battery life is a real possibility. The thing frugally sips power.
- The speakers are incredible. It has some sort of awesome 3D sound effect, and better than average bass for a laptop. WAY better than the Air which was hard to hear without installing BOOM!.
- Typical amazing Apple fit and finish.
- Barely noticeable size difference to a 13" Air, in fact I think it has a smaller footprint. It is just marginally thicker.
- The black screen bezel looks 10X better IMO.

Cons:

$1549 f'ing dollars!

Overall I am super impressed. I got 2 years out of my air, and it worked flawlessly. Ended up getting $600 for it, and so my upgrade netted out at about $1000. I hope to stretch this ones life to 3 years, which I cannot see as an issue. $333/yr for a laptop is more than reasonable in my eyes, as I was replacing annually with PC based machines at a much higher cost. That is one of the things that people forget about with the cost of Apple machines, resale/lifespan, tends to keep ownership costs quite reasonable if you look at the big picture.

Thank you Mr. Pylon for helping me decide. I was going to purchase either the Mac Book Air or the Pro for school. You've steered me in the direction of the Pro.