if you want to hook up the notebook with one or two external monitors, then the laptop screen becomes less important. The build quality, performance and heat dissipation of the notebook are more important. My setup is a thinkpad T430 (a great notebook with an average display) hooked with a 24" external monitor, thus get the best of two worlds.
No unless you put windows on it with bootcamp. The retina display on the OS X scales the ui, so it's bassically the same as 1440x900 but much sharper, but can decerease the scale so it will look like 1920x1080 res.
I have no experience with Macs, but I'm sure they're great (I do not like their version of MS Office). I use a Thinkpad T420s. I've always bought thinkpads and been pleased with them. I have a temporary setup with a dock that drives 3 monitors in full HD. Sony Vaio Z is slick, and has the high res screen, pricey though.
this is tough. i think apple is overpriced, and too many companies don't build software that works as well on a mac. i've heard bad things about almost all laptops. either bad sound, screen, build, durability, mouse, keyboard, etc... only samsung remains, but i haven't pulled the trigger yet. i have a ridiculous PC, but i now need a laptop for traveling. if you could care less about a good GPU and don't mind throwing an extra $1000 away....choose apple. but also remember apple's manufacturing plants may not treat their people well. this is an ethical decision, but I think important.
Macs are bulletproof. My son dropped my MBP 13" (no SSD) down a flight of stairs and all it did was reboot. Works like a charm. He dropped an HP laptop on the carpet and it BSD, terminal motherboard. He no longer gets to carry computers. Not a large sample, but MBPs tend to have a longer service life on the OS side.
AAPL margins are what 31%? Foxconn is less than 2%. Tim Cook is a f*cking moron for not sweetening their pot.
focus on a clock or a doorknob,ten-fifteen feet away,then focus on a pen in your hand,after about ten reps you will feel it,it strengthens the muscles behind the eye,should improve vision,then go to more reps
Macs are good consumer grade notebooks, however, as far as I know, Macs have not passed any of the military tests where thinkpads have passed seven. For one thing, Macs' key-board is not spill proof, unlike thinkpads, Dell's lattitude. Also, Macs has fell behind in terms of reliability http://www.rescuecom.com/news-press-releases/Computer-Reliability-Report-2012.aspx