Macbook 13" Retina Question

My daughter finally decided on a laptop.
She wants Macbook Pro. She is coming from a really old Toshiba Satallite.
Despite trying to talk her into exploring all options she ordered the 13" retina.

To put my mind at rest the questions is this.
Will it be able to serve her as well and reliably as her toshiba?
She uss this professionaly and educationally at school and work.
Microsoft office, photoshop, adobe illustrator, spreadsheets, light video encoding, some type lf sound engineering software(i forget what its cslled) she also likes 1080 youtube videos and doing allot of multitaking. She makes websites and does professional graphic design work. I saw run sony vegas, dreamweaver, she on occasion uses autocad for projects. We both sense the macbook 13 pros retina limitations but she likes the macbook pro 13 retina allot and her satallie from 2009 abused and falling apart is giving her problems.

What do you guys think?
I thought about giving her my macbook air 8gb / i7 3667m.

Does the macbook pro retina 13" have any lag issues? Problems? What is different other then the processor compared to the air?

She plans on doing professional work on this so i do wonder. Opions advice welcome. She is stuck on the retina. Thanks again guys!

 

Her choice should be fine as I do a lot of that on my current i5 MacBook Air without issues. AutoCAD, MS Office 11, photo editing (iPhoto and Aperture), video editing and encoding (editing a 1080p video is fine, encoding takes a while), 1080p video playback (local, iTunes, and YouTube), and I run MATLAB which uses a bunch of macros containing over 5,000 lines of code all referencing a series (about 200) of Excel files and other macros with over 5,000 lines of code. That is all on my current MBA, the rMBP she ordered is going to be more powerful than that.

The processor difference between the two lines (MBA and rMBP) isn't going to be that much noticeable in terms of real world performance but the rMBP will pull ahead when it comes to video encoding and other tasks in which it over clocks. The MBA has an Intel ULV (ultra low voltage) CPU while the rMBP has a full fledged notebook CPU. They are both designed for different things but are rather solid performers. The main issue I have heard with the rMBP is that the Intel HD 4000, although powerful enough to drive the display, doesn't leave a whole lot for anything else. She should be fine but don't expect smooth 3D drafting in AutoCAD. Everything else should be alright though so long as she either finds an OS X version of the programs she wants to run or goes through bootcamp. She should look for OS X versions of the programs she wants though. There is absolutely no point in owning a Mac if she is going to constantly boot into Windows to run all of her programs.

Macs are pretty durable but they need to be treated well. I purchased my MBA almost a year ago along with a 13" notebook sleeve for it. That's all it required on my part. I could put that in my backpack (along with text books), carry it around, take it to classes with me, etc. It has still held up fine and doesn't look like a one year old notebook. Taking a Mac and throwing it around like a plastic notebook will cause it to form dings and scratches. A good sleeve will definitely extend the life of the notebook. She doesn't have to treat it like an egg but she will need to treat it with some care.

 

From the hands on that I got this week, I noticed no lag.

I would order one from frys due to the incredible discount, if there is a frys in your city you can haggle with apple store from what I can see on the forums it works.

I do have a very similar workload on the mac as well, Its really plenty for what I do and I have 2011 mbp 13 model.

 

Alright thanks guys, I look forward to that retina. Hope I get a new one with the issues worked out,