Actually, preview does seem to be working that way now. However when I'm in "scaled" mode 1920x1200 and I preview an image that is 2880x1800 at "actual size" I get a border around the entire image. So even in 1920x1200 mode it must be drawing at twice the size of the viewing pane before rendering it. So basically in 1920x1200, the screen is drawn at 3840x2400 and then scaled down to fit at 1920x1200.

How? Preview operates the same way that photoshop does in this example. I do not have any applications which operate the way you say they are supposed to operate.

No idea. I don't use Macs often enough to know what I'm looking at. I could have sworn I looked at an image in Safari and it was rendered at full resolution; oddly, flash video was clearly rendered at lower resolution and up-scaled, though. I guess I'll try to ask if I get back there? If you look at this page under the "View in full 1080p HD" tab you'll see an example of what I'm talking about; you can fit the image at full resolution inside of the editing window.

I believe that's due to the screen capture tool massaging the images. When I took at screenshot at 1440x900 the resulting image was 2880x1800 and when I took the screenshot at 1920x1200, the resulting image was 3840x2400.
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That's even weirder. I think what this means is that if I happen to get one of these things I'll run Windows on it until OS X does something more reasonable.

Oh, so back to the original topic: the only computer I've ever had that has broken has been a Clevo/Sager; as far as I can tell all of the parts just failed at once. I think this is pretty rare but I also know a couple others' have broken too, so it might be worth watching out for.

On the other hand I've found Thinkpads (both IBM and Lenovo) to be very reliable.

For college I thought having a giant laptop was helpful. Most of the time I used it like a desktop but being able to take it with me sometimes was also extremely valuable. Some people take a computer to all of their classes; from what I can tell, though, they're usually more of a distraction than actually helpful.

For college I thought having a giant laptop was helpful. Most of the time I used it like a desktop but being able to take it with me sometimes was also extremely valuable. Some people take a computer to all of their classes; from what I can tell, though, they're usually more of a distraction than actually helpful.

That's actually why a computer that is very light is not crazy high on my list right now. I will only be taking it to the classes that I could see myself using it (programming classes being one) or needing it. Other classes I've always taken notes better using pen and paper. When I take notes I just don't type/write down what they are saying word for word. I actually use my own writing style and a little short hand. People look at my notes saying "what the heck you didn't write anything down, just crap." Though for me I know exactly what it says and I have packed a lot of information on a sheet of paper. Taking the computer to some classes would be a distraction to me.