Back In The Day, when I was still buying ThinkPads, I purchased upper-end models because even at the pace that Moore's Law was going, I played the occasional FPS, HTML renderers were becoming more and more complex (try running a modern web browser and then visit a current web site on a Pentium 2 sub-GHz machine...some people "just browse the web", but rarely do people think about what that actually means and the kind of horsepower that something seemingly so simple and supposedly computationally non-intensive actually requires), and hard drives were still slow as dirt (so any little gains in performance there were important). I swore off desktop PCs before the new millennium, because portability was important to me, so yeah, you pay a pretty penny in order to be able to have both portability AND power.
The truth is, though, that these days, it feels like modern software's ability to outstrip the hardware it is being used on is becoming less and less of an issue. People who "just" browse the web, use a word processor, fire up the occasional game, and even use a VM or two could EASILY get by with a lower-tier machine and never miss the maybe 10-15% performance gain that comes with a 50%+ greater MSRP. I could probably get by with a MacBook Air, and actually, often when I travel, I end up bringing JUST my Air with me (an older 2010 model). As thin and light as the rMBP is, the Air is still that much more portable and easy to travel with and carry around, and for the most part, it does all the stuff that I need it to do.
But I *still* bought an rMBP on release day (2012 model) and use it nearly every day. Not because I needed (or thought I needed) the quad-core i7. Not because I needed all of that RAM. Not even because I needed the slightly faster SSD when compared to the one in my Air (and, yes, I am SO glad traditional spinning disks are a dying breed...if Apple only offered flash storage in higher-end Mac laptops, then I wouldn't even bother with the Air), or because I thought I would benefit from the extra performance of the discrete nVidia graphics chip.
I bought it solely because of the screen.
If the Air came with a Retina display, then I would be perfectly content with a Retina Air. But it doesn't (...yet...), so guess what: I bought an rMBP. And the 2012 rMBP still suits me just fine here in the good ol' year 2014, and will probably continue to suit me just fine until a Retina Air is introduced, at which point I will probably transition over to that.
Despite all of the problems that Apple's LCD suppliers have had with refining the technology (uneven calibration/white point, backlight bleed, image retention, etc.) and the resultant "display lottery", it is still absolutely worth it. I have been using high-ish-DPI IPS LCD displays since *2004*, when I got my ThinkPad T42p with a 15" UXGA (1600x1200) "FlexView" (IBM's trademark for their IPS option) display. By today's standards, 133 DPI isn't so amazing, but boy, that was some panel when that generation of laptop hit the market. Back then, IBM were actually innovators. IPS wasn't even a twinkle in Apple's eye at that time, and the PowerBook and MacBook Pro lines shipped with crappy, low-res displays for *years* after that (as did most other PC laptops). Reading text on that ThinkPad was a revelation, as was looking at photographs. I could never go back after that.
Then the iPhone 4 came out, and I knew at that point (and also after the iPad which, despite note being Retina-density, was still IPS) that Apple had to be looking at ways that they could bring higher-DPI and more color-accurate displays to their personal computers. I vowed that whenever Apple finally released a portable with a high-DPI IPS display, they would earn my business. And they did.
It's true that I also own and use an Air, and while I'm traveling, I do get by just fine with it. But every time I go back to using the Retina MacBook, my eyes thank me.
-- Nathan
