I’ve had two Macs for the past two and bit years; an iMac 27 for in-the-office work, and a MacBook Pro 13 for out-and-about work. The balance has worked well, but as I’ve been doing more workshops and seminars, I’ve been noticing that the 13″ screen was getting too small for seeing what the next slide was going to be. Perhaps it’s something about being 40 now. Anyway, I’d been hoping that Apple would release a MacBook Air 15″, but while such a device under that name didn’t materialize, the 15″ Retina Display MacBook Pro did. When the hard disk on my iMac 27 died, it seemed like the perfect time to make the jump. The iMac 27 is gone, and the 15″ Retina Display model is my new main machine, for both in-the-office and out-of-the-office work. In the office it’s attached to a large screen.

The device arrived last week, and I had it out for its first test this week at a user adoption workshop in Wellington. There’s only one word for it, and even that doesn’t do it justice: stunning. The screen is amazingly clear, and it’s very possible to have two pages side-by-side in Apple Pages for writing. Even at that density, you can’t see the pixels. The words are perfect. For presenting throughout the workshop, it was a dream.

6 out of 5 Apple … awesome work.