Macbook pro for lightroom editing?

Hi all
I am considering buying a 15 inch macbook pro with retina display to edit my pics in Lightroom but have some questions.
I know that laptops are not ideal for photo editing but while I am a serious-ish photographer, I am not a professional and, after a long day's work at a desk, I like to edit my photos sitting on a sofa at night!
I would prefer 17 inches to 15.4 but apple don't do 17 inches any more, yet I am inclining towards apple for four reasons: (a) I hear they're fast, (b) I hear the screens are great for picture editing, (c) I've had various frustrations with windows over the years, and (d) windows 8 in particular looks counter-intuitive.
But if I do go apple that will be a big change for me since I've so far been using a Dell Inspiron 1720 (1920 x 1080 resolution), which I've liked, though it's 7 years old and now sluggish.
I'd REALLY appreciate for any advice regarding any or all of the following questions -- thanks VERY much for your time in advance!
1. Is the macbook pro really a good deal better than the competition, regarding in particular its screen and speed? (It better be for the money!) One photographer told me she didn't like the retina display because it meant things looked very different on the screen compared with when printed. Is that right and a worry?
2. I take it that, as someone with a LR for pc license, I don't need to pay more to install LR for mac on it?
3. I take it that it would be straightforward transferring my pics and catalog from a pc to a mac?
4. While I am inclined to get the 1TB storage I could get less if I used an external hdd (whcih would also have the upside that my wife could edit our catalog on her computer without needing to borrow mine), but I take it that would slow the macbook down: both because an xhdd won't be as quick as a SSD, and because the link between xhdd and macbook would slow things down? If so, it seems silly to pay for the speed and then lose it by attaching an xhdd. Does that seem right? (I take it one day we'll all edit our pics in the cloud, e.g. using dropbox, but currently that would be very sluggish I am assuming.)
5. I could always attach an external monitor, I take it, if I decided that sometimes I needed something bigger than 15.4". Yes?
6. Importantly, it is cheaper for me to buy the macbook in the US. Are there signficant downsides to buying a laptop for UK in US (e.g. different keyboard layout, inapplicable warranty, different power cord, etc)?
7. Finally, if I don't go for the apple, what alternative would you recommend? I hear dell xps are good (though also max 15"). Also heard good things about HP envy. The equivalent to my Dell, which I've liked, is I think the Dell 17R SE. Any views?
Thank you in advance SO much. I appreciate this is a lot of questions, but any advice you have under any of them would be REALLY appreciated.
Thanks again
David

You are welcome. Just finished a chat session with an Apple support rep and confirmed the matte option no longer available. Seems lots has changed since I bought my 17” 19 months back:). They did say that there were after market screen films available from places like amazon
Have never used anything like that though. My wife has a 2008 MBP 15” with gloss and I can say it is a nice screen finish, you just have to be careful of lighting from behind you. All my iMacs were glossy and I did learn to compensate for the added brilliance the screen brought to the photos. The new soft proofing feature of LR5 seems to better estimate the level of brightness of the printed work, compared to past versions of the s/ware.
In any case, in my opinion you really can’t go wrong with the apple product. I bought my first iMac in mid 1999 and have never looked back. I donated that machine to a pre-school in 2008, it was running OSX version 2 or 3 I think. I did run Photoshop 7.0 on an IBM laptop for a time (windows XP). I think I had one of the very first versions of Adobe Camera Raw on that machine. I digress, sorry.
The chat representative did confirm that the 17” is out of production and I’m guessing Apple found the market for the big laptop just wasn’t there. They did mention that 17” MBP’s show up as “certified refurbished” units from time to time. Suggest you might explore that option with a local Apple store in the UK, assuming Apple has store front operations off this continent of course.
Please feel free to contact me with further questions if you wish.
Take care, Gordy

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You are welcome. Just finished a chat session with an Apple support rep and confirmed the matte option no longer available. Seems lots has changed since I bought my 17” 19 months back:). They did say that there were after market screen films available from places like amazon
Have never used anything like that though. My wife has a 2008 MBP 15” with gloss and I can say it is a nice screen finish, you just have to be careful of lighting from behind you. All my iMacs were glossy and I did learn to compensate for the added brilliance the screen brought to the photos. The new soft proofing feature of LR5 seems to better estimate the level of brightness of the printed work, compared to past versions of the s/ware.
In any case, in my opinion you really can’t go wrong with the apple product. I bought my first iMac in mid 1999 and have never looked back. I donated that machine to a pre-school in 2008, it was running OSX version 2 or 3 I think. I did run Photoshop 7.0 on an IBM laptop for a time (windows XP). I think I had one of the very first versions of Adobe Camera Raw on that machine. I digress, sorry.
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