I feel for you. I'm typing on my 13" Macbook Air from 2011. Apple wants to banish 5-year-old PCs, so I'm all in to banish my trusted Air. But what's my next option? Pro is too hefty for me and '' is underwhelming, while Air is left behind.
The problem is that your use case (retina + 16GB) is easily satisfied by the 13" rMBP, and the vast majority of Apple's consumer customers will not need more than 8GB of RAM for the next few years. Apple made the design decision to focus on consumer for the Macbook, making 8GB RAM standard across the board. This probably works well as they can optimize the size to fit the exact memory modules required, but leaves a few high-end people like yourself out in the cold.
I guess Apple assumes (probably correctly) that if you really need 16GB of RAM, you can afford an rMBP.
Yup, I use the same machine as my main home system. I have a 15" MBPr (late 2012) as a work machine, but the Air gets all the use. Sadly, with El Cap and modern browsers, it's starting to feel a big long in the tooth. Too many beachballs the past few months....
I bought a 13" Macbook Air in 2011 that I still use. It was and is an amazing laptop. It's really in a sweet spot for size and power.
For years buyers including me have wanted a retina display and (ideally) the option for 16GB of RAM.
The Macbook is just too much of a compromise. Crappy keyboard. Only one port that's also used for power. Really low power CPU.
Why can't I just get the Macbook's display on a Macbook Air?
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