The rMBP 15 is, in my opinion, a bit large and heavy if you are regularly mobile, especially if you want to use it "on the go" outside of an office environment (e.g. coffee shops, on transport - especially airplanes, or in educational environments).
I changed from a MBA 13 to my rMBP 15 and really feel the difference in weight if I have to commute with it on public transport or carry it for more than about 30 minutes.
The physical footprint can also be a challenge in public transport.
The up-side is that has a lot more grunt than my 8GB MBA 13 (2013 i7), and doesn't grind to a halt if I have have a gazillion applications and multiple VMs running. The MBA was fantastic 95% of the time (with the exception of the rather lacklustre screen), but couldn't handle 5% of the jobs I have to do, which ultimately proved too frustrating.
As many others have said, you have to decide between power and portability. A quick decision table might be:
1) Rarely move the computer and need a quad-core CPU, with 16GB RAM or need a dGPU -> rMBP 15
2) Travel regularly, but don't have to carry the computer for most of the journey, and want a good desktop-replacement once you get to a static location -> rMBP 15 or 13 depending on required computing power [this would suit people who commute by car, or don't have a long walk]
3) Regular travel involving walking while carrying your computer for more than 30 minutes a day -> rMBP 13, MBA or rMB depending on required power (unless you're used to carrying a lot of gear with you - ex-Marine or similar athletic type!)
4) Carry your computer throughout the day to multiple locations, in transport or other confined spaces: MBA or rMB.
If I had unlimited funds, I buy one of every size, and use cloud storage to synchronise my work, but then you have to predict what computing jobs you will be doing each day in order to decide which machine to take....
Until we get a radically new user interface that removes the need to have a fixed size physical screen and keyboard (some kind of virtual reality interface to a cloud computing device, or similar), then we'll have to live with the compromises. First world problems!
I changed from a MBA 13 to my rMBP 15 and really feel the difference in weight if I have to commute with it on public transport or carry it for more than about 30 minutes.
The physical footprint can also be a challenge in public transport.
The up-side is that has a lot more grunt than my 8GB MBA 13 (2013 i7), and doesn't grind to a halt if I have have a gazillion applications and multiple VMs running. The MBA was fantastic 95% of the time (with the exception of the rather lacklustre screen), but couldn't handle 5% of the jobs I have to do, which ultimately proved too frustrating.
As many others have said, you have to decide between power and portability. A quick decision table might be:
1) Rarely move the computer and need a quad-core CPU, with 16GB RAM or need a dGPU -> rMBP 15
2) Travel regularly, but don't have to carry the computer for most of the journey, and want a good desktop-replacement once you get to a static location -> rMBP 15 or 13 depending on required computing power [this would suit people who commute by car, or don't have a long walk]
3) Regular travel involving walking while carrying your computer for more than 30 minutes a day -> rMBP 13, MBA or rMB depending on required power (unless you're used to carrying a lot of gear with you - ex-Marine or similar athletic type!)
4) Carry your computer throughout the day to multiple locations, in transport or other confined spaces: MBA or rMB.
If I had unlimited funds, I buy one of every size, and use cloud storage to synchronise my work, but then you have to predict what computing jobs you will be doing each day in order to decide which machine to take....
Until we get a radically new user interface that removes the need to have a fixed size physical screen and keyboard (some kind of virtual reality interface to a cloud computing device, or similar), then we'll have to live with the compromises. First world problems!
