I have the former laptop (macbook pro retina with 16 gb ram), and it is really nice. Things are zippy with the included SSD.
The retina display can be set to give you 2880x1800 resolution; you could put the Bitcoin client and a browser side-by-side with no problems.
Well that is a plus for sure. Thanks for pointing that out.
Can this dual boot Mint with out issues do you think?
You'll have to jump some hoops installing anything but Windows. Its not as simple as opening Bootcamp and going through the wizard. I haven't tried so I don't know, sorry.
Alternatively, VMWare is a nice solution. I use it to run Windows/Ubuntu development setups. The SSD in this case really helps.
Well honestly I don't even know what I would be missing if I just formatted the SSD and installed Mint. That should be fine right?