Macbook Pro 15 retina for coding

What exactly are you coding that you need a 17 inch screen to do it?

15 has always been alright for me, but if you're used to 17 it can be difficult to make the switch.

 

In my opinion you need an external monitor for serious coding work.
As far as performance goes, RAM will probably be more beneficial than CPU.

If I concentrade on code, I need a real monitor to look at.
But that's only my opinion.

Also, the retina Wow factor wears off quickly. I could do the same work on a non-retina. The scaled resolutions don't buy you that much more space.

If you want one, nuy one. But get a nice external monitor.

 

I use an MBP to code in both Visual Studio and XCode. My 17" recently died, and I've been using a new 15" for about a week now. I set the screen resolution to 1920 x 1200, same as the old 17", and barely notice the difference.

What I do notice is how sleek and light and _fast_ the new one is, compared to the old one.

I had the same concern you do, but it turned out to be completely unfounded.

 

That probably helps the somewhat smaller text to not feel smaller. The retina screen definitely has more "snap" than the old one.

 

I'm a newbie high level programmer but when coding things with Netbeans + Java, the 1920 x 1080 resolution works more than well for myself. Web design is more my thing and while the screen size can get irritating testing multiple browsers and such, its more than sufficient.

 

I recently switched from the 2011 matte 17" macbook pro to a 15" retina, and i don't have the slightest regret for switching.

While i would still prefer a matte screen, one thing i will say that is huge on this new screen is the lack of motion-blur when scrolling text compared with the 17". MUCH better refresh. And what you lose in screen area you more than make up for in accuity in my opinion.