13" Macbook Pro Retina Haswell vs 15" Macbook Pro Retina Early 2013 Refurbished

Question

Interested in buying my first mac this year so i'm weighing the options. Im looking to spend around $2000 for a retina macbook pro, and im trying to decide between:
13-inch: 2.6GHz
with Retina display for $1929
Specifications
2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
16GB 1600MHz memory (upgraded from 8GB)
512GB PCIe-based flash storage1
Intel Iris Graphics
Built-in battery (9 hours)2
And,
Refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with Retina Display for $2199
Originally released February 2013
15.4-inch (diagonal) Retina display; 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch
16GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
512GB Flash Storage
720p FaceTime HD Camera
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
I should note that these are the educational discounted prices
I've already eliminated the new haswell 15" (base model) from my options as it seems like it wasn't that much of an upgrade to the previous gen.
Now the main thing i'm concerned about is longetivity, in that I want to be able to keep this laptop for 5+ years before changing to another. So im just wondering which would be the best for keeping up to the paces of future technology (future-proofed).
The things I would be using it for would be:
-Univeristy school work, so portability and battery life are a bonus but not a requirement for me.
-Occasional Gaming (will want to install windows 8 on it) (Not sure how well iris graphics compares to the gt 650M)
-Document Processing
-HD video and possible editing,
-Occasional Photoshop editing
All replies are appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

If one of the things you're after is getting the most computer for your money, consider that the 13" is a dual core i5 processor, meaning two cores is what you start with. I'm not sure if hyper-threading is available to take it to an effective four cores. The i7 is a quad core processor but since it can do hyper-threading, you effectively have 8 cores to work with, not four. If you want to install Windows 8 as a virtual machine rather than in BootCamp, you'd need to divide up your cores between your Mac and your virtual PC, and the i5 doesn't give you as much to work with.
The 15" came with Mountain Lion and you have the option of upgrading to Mavericks for free. The 13" offers no choice; it's just Mavericks, and considering the long list of complaints on the Mavericks forum, do you really want to be stuck without a choice?
And then there's screen real-estate. The 15" obviously has more, but you can extend the resolution beyond what Apple limits you to without going all the way to native resolution on both rMBP's using an application like Eye-Friendly (e.g., on the 15" 1920x1200 is the highest Apple approved resolution, but you can go to 2048x1280 or 2560x1600; native is 2880x1800). However since the 15" is (obviously) bigger, the stuff on the screen stays more usable (i.e., visible) at the higher resolutions.
Finally, while the PCIe SSD will be faster than the SSD on the 15", the PCIe SSD is permanent; the SSD on the 15" is not meant to be removed (and doing so would void the warranty if you don't put it back), but it isn't permanent so future upgrades may be possible.