I bought a 2.3 Base from an authorised retailer here in Malaysia; the system has no issues cosmetically, functionally, or with software, and the display is simply fabulous. Very pleased with the package as a whole, upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion was seamless and improved the fluidity of the GUI. As i brought the system up loading app`s and data never encountered a problem.
I simply disregarded all the negative posts here; some are genuinely valid, however I do believe that many are just blown out of proportion. If your system works for you in the scope of your normal workflow there is no issue, however if you a have to replicate a fault by sitting in a completely blacked out room, looking for display issues with a magnifying glass, scrolling through poorly written graphically complex sites as fast as humanly possible, randomly zooming in and out at high speed, spending hours looking at the display at oblique angles - you might want to spend a little time looking at yourself, as there`s more to life trust me
The Retina is not perfect and wont work for everyone, however it does successfully make the "step change" between the Unibody MBP and the "Next Generation" MBP and in principle it delivers what Apple promised, at the cost of user upgrade of RAM & standard SSD, you either live with this or don`t, the standard Unibody is still there as an option for the time being.
I have the best of both worlds with a Retina, a Late 2011 15" 2.4 i7 and a Early 2008 15" 2.4 Penryn, equally if I had to make a choice of one it would be the Retina. Bottom line is the Retina is like all other computers is a tool, if you select the right one for your purpose working with the system will be a pleasure.
Enjoy your new Retina, forget about all the nonsense here, if it works for you thats all that matters, not the opinion of someone who may only have spent five minutes at the Apple store before making their expert analysis of Apples latest offering
