Macbook buying advice?

So, I got my first Macbook in November 2007, and I'm wondering if it's time for an upgrade. This is the Santa Rosa chipset, although I upgraded the ram and hard drive to more spacious capacities. 13" screen, white plastic housing, 2.2 GHz core duo.

I am looking most keenly at the MBP 15" with the lowest components ($1799 model), as I can just upgrade the hd and ram later. I do want to get the nicer screen (matte). My first question is this - do you guys feel this is worthwhile? In what areas would performance be most improved?

The reasoning on my part is that my graphics card is just terrible, and I can't do any kind of semi-modern gaming on this machine. I would also like a bigger screen. I suppose the gesture controls would also be nice, although I'm not sure how useful they're going to be.

Another concern is timing. Right now, I have a friend working at an Apple store who can get me a 15% discount on the MBP, so it seems like now is an opportune time to upgrade. However, I don't want to be wishing I had waited to upgrade come summer, as I hear that MBPs will be getting (maybe) retina displays soon, and a more powerful graphics card to drive them. How likely do you guys think that this is coming sometime soon, and how big of a deal do you think the retina display is going to be? I wonder if it will be as big of a deal as with the iPhone/iPod Touch since my MBP would be much farther from my eye.

Thanks.

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Thanks for understanding!

I have to point out that using the resolution of the iPhone 4 as the baseline for the phrase "retina display," every Mac on the market for the last several years has resolution well beyond "retina display."

I think its silly to play the "maybe they'll come out with a new one *half a year from now* so I should wait" game.

chas_m said:

I have to point out that using the resolution of the iPhone 4 as the baseline for the phrase "retina display," every Mac on the market for the last several years has resolution well beyond "retina display."

Click to expand...

Well yeah, the screen is quite a bit larger on devices like the MBP so it makes sense that is has higher resolution. I've always thought of the "retina" as referring to the pixel density, not the total number.

chas_m said:

I think its silly to play the "maybe they'll come out with a new one *half a year from now* so I should wait" game.

Click to expand...

I would normally agree, and for incremental upgrades (processor speed, gpu, whatever) that makes sense. But for really big changes like, for example, the unibody construction, I think it's valid to wait a few months longer. My questions regarding this are (a) how seriously likely is this to happen (I'm not as clued in to the apple rumors as some on this forum, I'm sure), and (b) how big of a difference do you guys think it will make?