Would the MacBook Air suit my needs?

yingyangryder · Dec 10, 2012, 02:11 PM

Hi everyone, this is my first post so I apologise if I am in the wrong section.

Anyway, I've always been a windows person until recently. I am looking into buying a Macbook of some kind to accompany me next year and I rather fancy the MBA. My price range is approximately £1100 ish but I can stretch to about £1300 if totally necessary although I would rather not.
I already have a beast of a desktop that runs all of the software that I use to create my University work but ideally I would like the mac to be able to do the following as I may possibly be moving to Japan next year and I cannot bring my desktop with me. So portability is relatively important.

The list:
Basic tasks, word processing, presentations, interweb surfing etc.
Editing video (quite heavily, I will be shooting in 1080p or 720p 60FPS most of the time)
Blogging
Editing photos (captured from a DSLR)
Basic 3D modelling
Basic/Light animation
Very light gaming (E.g. RTS games from back in the day)

Some programs that are a necessity for me are:
Adobe Photoshop
Word/Excel etc.
Autodesk Maya
Autodesk 3DS Max (I am aware I would need a windows partition for this)
Possibly some applications that will allow me to program. (Something I may take up in my spare time)

I am doing a games design degree, and if I do move to Japan, I will be there as a teacher for a while so I would like to do some Game Design related stuff in my spare time.

Many thanks for any help you can give me.

aarond12 · Dec 10, 2012, 04:20 PM

You are asking for a desktop-replacement machine, not an ultra-portable computer. The MacBook Air is NOT the computer for you.

A MacBook Pro with some sort of external RAID storage will be your only choice for 1080p60 editing. SSDs might be able to keep up, but there is a limited amount of storage, especially with a £1300 limit.

If you're a game developer, as much as this hurts me to say this, you might want to stick with a Windows computer. I just see too many "red flags" with your requests in reference to speed of disk storage, amount of disk storage, needing Windows for certain applications, etc.

yingyangryder · Dec 10, 2012, 05:05 PM

Hmmmm I thought as much I was hoping you wasn't going to say that lol
However thank you for your honest opinion.
I must mention that next year my degree will be finished so unless my career is within the industry, the games design aspect won't be too paramount.
Also I meant 1080p or 720p 60FPS. Not 1080 p 60 FPS

sorry for the confusion. The only time I will be using 60FPS is with 720p.
I probably could stretch my budget, but I feel the price of a Macbook Pro w/ Retina is unjustified.
If I do move abroad, my games development work would take a back seat but I'd still like to do something now and again.

Dec 10, 2012, 02:11 PM	#1
yingyangryder macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	Would the MacBook Air suit my needs? Hi everyone, this is my first post so I apologise if I am in the wrong section. Anyway, I've always been a windows person until recently. I am looking into buying a Macbook of some kind to accompany me next year and I rather fancy the MBA. My price range is approximately £1100 ish but I can stretch to about £1300 if totally necessary although I would rather not. I already have a beast of a desktop that runs all of the software that I use to create my University work but ideally I would like the mac to be able to do the following as I may possibly be moving to Japan next year and I cannot bring my desktop with me. So portability is relatively important. The list: Basic tasks, word processing, presentations, interweb surfing etc. Editing video (quite heavily, I will be shooting in 1080p or 720p 60FPS most of the time) Blogging Editing photos (captured from a DSLR) Basic 3D modelling Basic/Light animation Very light gaming (E.g. RTS games from back in the day) Some programs that are a necessity for me are: Adobe Photoshop Word/Excel etc. Autodesk Maya Autodesk 3DS Max (I am aware I would need a windows partition for this) Possibly some applications that will allow me to program. (Something I may take up in my spare time) I am doing a games design degree, and if I do move to Japan, I will be there as a teacher for a while so I would like to do some Game Design related stuff in my spare time. Many thanks for any help you can give me.
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Dec 10, 2012, 04:20 PM	#2
aarond12 macrumors 6502a Join Date: May 2002 Location: Dallas, TX USA	You are asking for a desktop-replacement machine, not an ultra-portable computer. The MacBook Air is NOT the computer for you. A MacBook Pro with some sort of external RAID storage will be your only choice for 1080p60 editing. SSDs might be able to keep up, but there is a limited amount of storage, especially with a £1300 limit. If you're a game developer, as much as this hurts me to say this, you might want to stick with a Windows computer. I just see too many "red flags" with your requests in reference to speed of disk storage, amount of disk storage, needing Windows for certain applications, etc. __________________ Voted "Most likely to start his own cult" by my high school class.
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Dec 10, 2012, 05:05 PM	#3
yingyangryder Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	Hmmmm I thought as much I was hoping you wasn't going to say that lol However thank you for your honest opinion. I must mention that next year my degree will be finished so unless my career is within the industry, the games design aspect won't be too paramount. Also I meant 1080p or 720p 60FPS. Not 1080 p 60 FPS sorry for the confusion. The only time I will be using 60FPS is with 720p. I probably could stretch my budget, but I feel the price of a Macbook Pro w/ Retina is unjustified. If I do move abroad, my games development work would take a back seat but I'd still like to do something now and again.
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