Is a macbook pro good for student use?

Apologies then, I just saw you using TL;DR which came below mine (I also signed off with that) and assumed it was you being sarcastic.

No, I turn the resolution down when I want to play a more graphically intense game than something like Diablo 3. The actual UI performance and general use for Video/Photo editing is perfectly fine and doesn't tax the dGPU at all. You're not understanding how the OS deals with a 2880x1800 resolution. Basically 2880x1800 native is way too small for the average person to use so it is scaled to a resolution which works like 1400x900, where it is given a ratio of 4:1 for pixels. This is what gives it the clearer/sharper images and typography. Likewise you can scale up the resolution to 1920x1200 to show off more screen estate. And so on.

Really? I'd be curious to see a trackpad from 5 years ago which has the likes of two finger scrolling anywhere on the pad etc or a unified trackpad button which can act as a left click or right click depending on where the pad is touched or how many fingers press down.

The only 'multi touch' I can think of (granted I only really follow Android/iOS/Mac/Thinkpad recent news) is that the likes of tapping the pad for a click and scrolling by moving to the right hand side to scroll has been around for a while.

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In relation to your point about the 650m and gaming: Well the MBPR is stock over-clocked to perform like the 660m (see above posts for the source) so it would be worth checking notebook check and for their FPS checks (obviously bearing in mind it isn't going to be testing the Retina resolution). It's a very capable high end card. Of course we have to consider that some games aren't even Retina ready and simply just don't detect the super high resolution.

Why did I get it then? Because first and foremost playing games at 2800x1800 all the time was never my priority. It's mainly because I get 25% discount which made it a steal and the Retina screen is fantastic for editing (there are numerous articles on this if you're interested in why exactly etc). Playing games in 2800x1800 is simply a bonus to me. I guess thats because it's never going to be the be all and end all considering it's on OSX which isn't a gaming platform in reality considering it's poor use of OpenGL + games available and I'm not really interested in heavy gaming anyway, if this were the case I would have bought a windows laptop/desktop.

What do you expect when people are constantly ridiculing them for buying a Mac? Do people who buy Vans over those H&M shoes I posted constantly get people laughing at their decision and calling them stupid for paying three times the price? People pay premium for things all the time. I bet you have done so in the past and will continue in the future. It might not be with a laptop. It could be anything from clothes to a car.

you're still getting the price of the alienware wrong. with the weakest i7, 1gb gfx card, 8gb ram, 256gb SSD you get £1,448. (apparently you also get a "free flight" with this. we'll just say that matches whatever "app discount" apple gives you for buying the macbook)

anyway, the price difference here is still £80 - and once again, this is with the Apple student discount (assume once you're not a student you're going to think about the real price?). dell is a bit stupid and won't let me copy the settings for the computer in the URL but you'll have to build it up from the cheapest laptop...

so you say that £80 covers the Mac having a nicer screen, looking better, having a better mousepad, and having SLIGHTLY better battery life (see: TechCrunch link below)

BUT ignores that the dell has: 3 USB ports, better speakers, optical drive, HDMI port and an ethernet port. This is hardware, you can say that you don't necessarily need any of them because you live in a house with wireless and download all your software and never use your tv with your laptop, but that's akin to saying battery life doesn't matter because i can always find a power plug somewhere.

http://laptops.techcrunch.com/compare/121-830/Alienware-M14x-vs-Apple-MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-with-Retina-Display-mid-2012 (for the dimensions and battery life - the only significant difference in height, weight and battery life is in height, weight and battery life are only slightly in MBPR's favour)

by HDD favours alienware I meant that if you config with HDD, the price difference becomes even higher than the £80 we have with the super expensive SSD. you might prefer a laptop that can boot up fast, but the fact is that it's an expensive tradeoff once again that favours the HDD based laptops. They're £300 cheaper, you don't need to buy an external drive and you don't need to spend one of your two ports plugged in. the main point I was making here that is that you've found a very specific configuration that makes the difference between the two computers £80 - in most cases it's much higher (and without the student discount it definitely is). Well, whatever your preferences are, my main point it - with the Alienware, you can choose, with the Macbook Pro Retina, you can't. Either way, your computer will be cheaper, though whether the price difference is £440 or £80 is up to you.

well i know nothing about spec or anything in depth about software but from a relatively uninformed point of view, i used pc's up until i was about 14, to be honest i didnt know any better, but i used to get annoyed by the fact they always crashed, and were a little slow and got virus's easily despite having updated norton etc. my dad was actually a computer technician at the time so it wasnt like we were operating on run of the mill machines. they were fine for gaming, word processing etc was fine and they were simple enough to use and applications functioned well when the computer wasnt being attacked by a virus (which i have to admit was a majority of the time, which was a mystery to everyone because as a family computer with technology conscious users was a little confusing) and it served us sufficiently.
when our pc broke down, we tried a mac desktop. it eliminated any problems with virus' and without the investment of norton, which was inefficient on our pc anyway. in general that computer has been far easier to maintain - its never gotten a virus and hasnt been in need of a repair at all. that said however, four years on, it is suffering a little, but nothing a memory tidy up wouldnt solve. i also have a macbook pro which i personally love. it functions well, is surprisingly hardy, has done me well through secondary school and sixth form and the applications available for download are impressive. it also looks nice which is a plus (although not important).
i still work with pc's at work and worked on them in college. i prefer my mac, but pc's suffice for browsing and schoolwork. i personally find microsoft office on mac easier to navigate, but thats possibly just what i'm used to. an addition which is worthwile investing in is applecare. i'm not sure if microsoft offer a similar thing, but with applecare, apple will repair your product free of charge (in most cases as far as i know) which at uni will be a life saver if something drastic happens and you cant afford to pay for a product to be fixed.
my dad who has been a pc user his whole life and was once pretty anti mac now wants to buy a mac. his work supplies him with pc's of the highest spec and he says he is constantly disappointed by the deterioration of the laptop within two years.
to be perfectly honest, if you can afford a mac, i'd buy one, purely for the quality of customer service. if anything goes wrong, mac will sort it asap. in that sense i think macs are less hassle, however in terms of general student use, you'd be fine with either. maintain a pc and spend time on making sure it is functioning to its best and i'm sure it will survive long enough to last you through uni

As I said above, for the reasons listed above, putting myself in a scenario where I am not a student had a budget of £1800 and my priorities of a laptop were the same I would rather spend the £1800 on a laptop given that it is 1/2 the size and lighter. Rather crucial for me as my laptop isn't treated as a workstation, it's taken out and around with me in a bag frequently. Then factor in the SSD which I'll be happy to pay extra for as it is quite clear our priorities differ as it's purely subjective what you want from your storage. I have my own private cloud network I use as a file server and I can always tether my phone connection so I'm always with my data so the big 1tb isn't really needed for me.

I understand your reasoning now over the HDD/SDD but as I keep on saying, I am comparing hardware to hardware not the personal preference of wanting a spinning disc or not. The fact still remains if someone wanted the speed over storage which then adds a significant cost to the Alienware. Assuming he is a student or can get the discount, he could get a laptop which has the exact same hardware but with numerous advantages (unless of course he really needs an ODD and a built in RJ45 port). At the end of the day a laptop with an SSD is a better performer than one with a spinning disc so you're paying for that performance increase.

In relation to the weight only being a minor advantage, we're talking a difference of 700g, when you're carrying you're laptop on your shoulder for a day or so that really does start to add up. It sounds so trivial saying it now but it's not something you appreciate the difference until you actually try it. The difference between my old 15" cMBP to the MBPR is ridiculous.

Battery life comparisons from manufacturers are slightly naive as in real terms the general consensus is the M14x gets 2 and a half hours (notebook check), compared to the 7 hours (light) and 5 hours (medium). Finally the MBPR has a HDMI port and the Alienware really only offers 1 extra USB port (which is USB 2.0 bleh). RJ45 is a bit of a bummer I admit but the thunderbolt adaptor is there although it would have been nice for Apple to give that for free like the Asus Zenbooks given its a £1800 laptop with big profit margins.

In relation to the weight only being a minor advantage, we're talking a difference of 700g, when you're carrying you're laptop on your shoulder for a day or so that really does start to add up. It sounds so trivial saying it now but it's not something you appreciate the difference until you actually try it. The difference between my old 15" cMBP to the MBPR is ridiculous.

Battery life comparisons from manufacturers are slightly naive as in real terms the general consensus is the M14x gets 2 and a half hours (notebook check), compared to the 7 hours (light) and 5 hours (medium). Finally the MBPR has a HDMI port and the Alienware really only offers 1 extra USB port (which is USB 2.0 bleh). RJ45 is a bit of a bummer I admit but the thunderbolt adaptor is there although it would have been nice for Apple to give that for free like the Asus Zenbooks given its a £1800 laptop with big profit margins.

Err saying "700 grams or 3cm thickness is a big issue whereas 1 extra USB port isn't" is personal preference instead of hardware based comparison.

Not to mention that it's more than 1 USB port in practice because the MBPR will need adapters for things such as ethernet and the optical drive which will invariably be USB based.

As for the rest of the comparison, I'll just stick by my "the PC is £80 cheaper despite the fact that your Mac has been massively discounted"

The amount of people in this thread who think that Macs are high quality is making me lose so much faith in humanity.

Yes, only those who cannot afford one will say no.

What percentage of PC users buy a mac but then decide to go back to a PC? None. There's a reason why...

They are expensive. My logic was that since it came with a long warranty and are known for running well for a long time, then I would rather spend a bit more initially to get what I feel is a superior product for my needs. I intend to keep this laptop until it dies, and if I get 5 years out of it I will be happy.