What to get? Help appreciated

It seems you are looking for a desktop replacement, correct? The 15" rMBP's are considered desktop replacements usually. The 13" rMBP are powerful as well, but not as much as their bigger brother.

In this case I would normally say go for the 13" MacBook Air or Pro, since you probably don't need a lot of power. Unless you want a big 15" screen of course.

The MacBook Air's are your safest bet as far as I know. Both the 13 and 15" Retina MacBook Pro's can sometimes have problems, especially the 15". But of course there is a large chance you get a perfectly fine machine, if you don't you can always return/exchange it within 14 days without any questions asked.

 

Unless you need the extra power, I would recommend the 13" rMBP. If you need the ultimate portability, you would want to go for a 13" Air. The 13" rMBP is really light and thin. It's quite powerful and the screen is to die for.

The build quality is impeccable and there are minimal faulty issues, especially in the 13" rMBP. The SSDs are fast, the screen is amazing and the OS is worth the switch.

Best of luck.

Raptor

EDIT: As for specifications, I would recommend the middle model of the 13" rMBP (2.4GHz / 8GB / 256GB)

 

As far as I know, there aren't any "extra" problems with the 15". They have fixed the IR in both models, as well as scrolling lag with Mavericks. There is a possibility of dead pixels, but I don't think there any any extra chances of them just because you have a 15". My new 15" rMBP is running flawlessly since the day I got it in October.

 

BC,


Budget? Will you make purchase and company reimburses you for any amount? If so, naturally get a loaded 15" Retina Macbook Pro with 16GB of memory, hottest CPU, and 1TB of SSD space.

If all you are doing is using Pages or Word to write documents, that will not need much more than an entry level machine. But if you are going to use the laptop's screen...and not an external monitor....I would want the 15" Retina screen, not a 13" or Macbook Air 1" screen.

 

Based on what you are saying, this sounds very reasonable.

 

Very reasonable. However I think you should just go into an apple store (or any other reseller) and take a look at the 13" and 15" macbook pro retina. Personally I think the 15" is a much better desktop replacement (even if the quadcore i7 is overkill and you don't need the 256GB SSD)

 

Hi,

That's a wonderful decision. Definitely get the 8GB RAM. The 256GB SSD will be worth it since the 128GB SSD will only give you around 95GB of useable space.

If you have an external monitor handy, the 15" is really not required. The 13" will meet your needs and more, and will be a lot more portable.

Regards
Raptor

 

What's extra on the 15" are the Yellow tinted screens + creaking of the body. Both happen much more often on the new 15" models then on the 13" ones. There are big threads around here about both of these two problems.