Macbook Pro for Art & College: Retina or Regular?

[shelbycube]

I'm going to college in a month, so I've started looking into getting a 15" Macbook Pro. I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of a regular Macbook Pro vs. a Macbook Pro with Retina and things have gotten...pretty confusing.

I'll be majoring in illustration, so I'll be taking a number of graphic design courses...which means heavy use of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Dreamweaver. I figured the better display and ability to get 16GB RAM would be great for running CS6...but these programs aren't really compatible with the Retina display and it doesn't seem like Adobe will be coming out with versions that will be anytime soon.

The other issue here is storage. I primarily store any image files and Word/PowerPoint/etc. documents on an external hard drive, but I've got about 35GB worth of music that, well, kinda needs to be on the computer for easy listening access. I'm not sure how much space the programs for CS6 Design & Web Premium and Microsoft Office Suite take up, but I'm assuming 256GB would be cutting it close.

(I apologize for going on so much, so I'll get to the ultimate question here...)

Would it be better to go for the significantly more expensive 2.6GHz Retina to have 16GB RAM and 512GB storage in hopes that Adobe eventually creates a Creative Suite that utilizes its pixel-dense display or the cheaper regular model that comes with much more storage (I still don't know how much I need, but even with 1TB of storage it's a lot cheaper than the Retina) but has a worse display and 8GB RAM?

Thanks in advance to anyone who took the time to read that giant blurb. ^^;

 

[Charlaux]

Here is my personal opinion about macbook pro retina.First of all,it is newly released and even the stores in New York started to have a decent amount in stock and i think since it is new it will take some time to develop the programs to retina version.On the other hand you'll be using this for a whole college year or maybe more and i guess it'll perform the tasks easily at least you ll be able to do your work until retina apps will be ready.Another adventage of getting macbook retina is that a 200$ discount (on the normal macbooks its 100$) yet a gift card that you can buy some amazing stuff.İts not heavy,actually a great size and weight and if you just buy an external cd drivef it would just be fine.İ am currently using macbook pro retina and it really fits to my needs as a normal user and i am not thinking of leaving until the eventual death of mbpr arrives.My last suggestion would be checking the ultimate version or the customized version of the base or the high end and then click to the check out )