Macbook Pro Retina 2.3 or 2.6

Having weighed up the relative costs and "bang for your buck" I opted for the 2.6 MBP without Retina display. You get more storage (750Gb vs. 256Gb or 512Gb), ethernet and firewire connections, and an optical disk for the price of the entry level rMBP. The 16Gb upgrade to the rMBP isn't cheap, but you can upgrade a standard 8Gb MBP to 16Gb for about 100GBP if you feel the need in the future.

Dave.