Well, it depends on who you ask.
MG Siegler says that he uses “the 13-inch all the time now as my primary machine. Right combination of size, performance, and yes, retina. “
MG and John Gruber are both of the same thought. I have diametrically opposite views compared to the two of them. I find the 15-inch Macbook Pro with Retina screen is a more complete machine and provides a better bang for the buck. It has superior performance, better visual real estate and has overall a better feel to it.
I tried living with the 13-inch Macbook Pro with Retina for about six weeks. I took it on a trip as well. The weight differential between 13 and 15 inch Macbook Pros (with Retina) isn’t that much (less than a pound.) Compared to the 256 GB 13-inch machine powered by a 2.5 Hz i5 processor, an extra $200 you get a 2.3 GHz i7 processor, more shared L3 cache and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 640M graphics.
The portability isn’t that much an issue, though the only annoying part is that I have to carry a bigger bag to fit the 15-inch machine.
For traveling overseas or when I am out of town in the US for a few days, I prefer something really light as these days, all I use the machine for is blogging and writing longer pieces. I can get by with the Logitech bluetooth keyboard for the iPad, but sometimes it is hard to write for longer periods of time. So, I find it easy to drop the lowest end MacBook Air 11-inch in my bag along with an iPad (or iPad Mini) and still come under the weight of a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina. A day trip means I can just leave home with an iPad.
My advice to others has been go with the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina.
It’s not about “who you ask”, it’s about “what you do”. If you are going to hack code, you might need an editor, debugger, web page all up at once. The 15″ Retina in scaled/high res mode (screw the retina nonsense) is the way to go. When you are done hacking and just surfing and dealing with email then drop back into retina mode.
That is a fair point @mark. Since I edit multiple documents at the same time it is very helpful and useful to me. I love that I can browse and email or make notes at the same time.
I think neither until Apple fixed the LG panel retention issue which appears after about three weeks of use.
One more point to add to… your point. For the $200 you also jump from a dual core to a quad core processor.
Does the 13″ suffer from the same image retention problems the 15″ did? I returned two of those before giving up and getting a 13″ Air. And get this… I use it primarily to develop software. It’s a whole lot easier to travel with, that’s for sure.
Jeff
I didn’t have the problems you mention. Sorry for not being able to help.
Cheers
I went from a 2011 – 17″ MBP to the 15″ Retina, and I love it. No ghosting, and the 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD means no compromises. I have enough disk space to setup a 100GB bootcamp partition for gaming (X-Com, Far Cry 3, Dishonored, all run great), plus a 64GB windows 8 install in Parallels with lots of space left for a ton of apps and data, without having to constantly prune files.
The quad-core processor is great for converting movies and TV shows for my iPad / home server.
I miss the extra USB port though. One USB for my external keyboard and one for the time machine backup drive, and I’m stuck with no ports for another external drive or USB sticks. There must be space to stick in a couple of more USB ports Apple!
MKS