Hi Richard,
Been on the Apple's side of the fence for over 30 years now...
8 years for a Mac is just it's golden age! I still have an iMac that is over 13 years old and still does a wonderful job for most of everyday tasks. And just for kicks, I still have a PowerBook Duo (about 20 years old) that still works for text editing... and very portable.
I've tried the hackintosh way... and if you don't feel like fiddling away on it all the time, my best advice is to stay away.
Sure, it is cool to build your own box, to the specs that you want and for a fraction of the cost, but every time there's a software update, it's a gamble ... it might be ok, or completely freeze your hackintosh... then, since I'm not the computer wiz, I would have to wait until someone must smarter comes up with a workaround that involves somes obscure (to me) dealing with the Unix terminal.
But, I also have a grudge against the MBP Retina...
if you want to believe all the hype about it (and if you do get to an Apple store to actually play with one), you might love it!
I just can't get past the fact that you can't upgrade (or change faulty) RAM, you can't upgrade (or change a faulty) hard drive and you can't change (or get a newer) battery.
All those 3 are soldered into the motherboard and if one goes... the whole lot goes...
Chances are that MBP Retina will not hold 8 years...
But there's still the original MBP, NOT Retina... pretty much same specs, upgradeable parts, a hair thicker and heavier.. but still a gorgeous machine.
I'm still on a 2009 MBP, doing video editing, building websites, designing a magazine, Photoshopping galore and next week will record and master 3 demo songs for a local band. The only things I did over the years were to max out the RAM (which went from 4Gigs to 8Gigs because of an Apple firmware tweak, not something that would happen with the Retina) and get a bigger hard drive.
Sorry if this is a bit of a long reply....
