I was also not sure whether the 15" retina display would be as good as the 17" 1920x1200 display. I now use my 15" Retina in scaled 1920x1200 equivalent most o

I was also not sure whether the 15" retina display would be as good as the 17" 1920x1200 display. I now use my 15" Retina in scaled 1920x1200 equivalent most of the time when I'm doing programming work (when I'm not at my desk using a large external monitor), and it's actually better than the 17" in that mode -- due to the way they did scaling, fonts and widgets render with more detail. That said, there are situations where the 15" Retina 1920x1200 scaled is not as good as the 17": When I am sitting in bed (or maybe a couch), and the display is further away than it would be if I were sitting on a desk. In that situation it's not ideal, because the fonts become harder to see. But there are two potential solutions to that: If the app I am using supports zooming, just zoom the content (e.g. web browsers all do this) OR switch to the best-for-retina 1440x900 equivalent. I usually use best-for-retina when I'm not doing programming. But, I still have my 17" MBP, and it is my designated programming in bed laptop. One of my favorite things about the Retina display is that I can arbitrarily choose resolutions without any perceived decrease in quality. This is something we had with CRTs, and didn't really have with LCDs until now. Another potential downside: Apps that don't support the retina display look pretty terrible. They look best in scaled 1920x1200, but still not that great. The only app I use that doesn't support the retina display is Ableton Live (and it's entire UI is vector-based and can scale via a zoom setting, so you think it wouldn't be hard).