Wondering Macbook Air? Pro?

[s.horsfield]

Hello,

First off i'm dying to get a light weight portable. It would be the 2012 models. So I decided on either high end 11' MBA or Low end 13' MBP. The air in terms of ports has everything I need (I consider this a feature/bonus some may not) and no superdrive (to me feature/bonus). I currently have a Early 2009 Mac Mini, 120GB, 8GB Ram, 9400M 256MB. My mini NEVER maxes out with CPU EVER, the highest I get is around 70%. The current MBA is at least 1/3 faster (with CPU and GPU). So the even faster MBP's processor won't really be needed for me. Unless I play games (casual, not very often and I don't care about settings being maxed, and i'm happy with anything over 25+fps) the GPU never gets anywhere near maxed on my current mini. How hot to the MBA's and MBP's get? Under what loads? I "game" on my mini fine now and the airs are 1/3+ in GPU peformance so there should be no issues there? I'm happy with my 120GB's and I don't need a bigger drive so storage isn't a problem. If Apple removed the Super Drive from the 13' Pro (taking up about 40% of the pro) they could stick a dedicated GPU in there couldn't they? Does anyone think that they could offer an option instead of having a 500GB drive a 128GB SSD?

Now for my main question. I do some basic coding in Xcode for iOS (I mean super basic) how would that be on an 11' or 13' Air/Pro? I will have a 21.5' full HD display along with the mac. But would it be OKAY, peformance wise my less powerful mini is fine (on a old low res 17' screen). For maybe an hour or 2 max would coding be okay? If anyone has a MBA it would be great if they could post pics of Xcode 4 running on it. Really the only reason I would consider a MBP would be upgradable ram. The other threads I found were similar but not specifically what I wanted, hence the post.

Thanks!

 

[MattForshaw]

I can't imagine you'll have any problems at all. I have a previous gen Core 2 Duo MBA (11") and it copes pretty well with some reasonably intensive simulations and Eclipse development. I gather the current model is significantly faster so you should be set.

I run my MBA (again, the old model) through a 24" monitor at work and it takes it in its stride.

I have XCode installed on my MBA so if you have any reasonably intensive projects you'd like see running on there, then I'd be happy to run them for you and post screencaps.

 

[s.horsfield]

-

 

[s.horsfield]

I can't imagine you'll have any problems at all. I have a previous gen Core 2 Duo MBA (11") and it copes pretty well with some reasonably intensive simulations and Eclipse development. I gather the current model is significantly faster so you should be set.

I run my MBA (again, the old model) through a 24" monitor at work and it takes it in its stride.

I have XCode installed on my MBA so if you have any reasonably intensive projects you'd like see running on there, then I'd be happy to run them for you and post screencaps.

What's the UI like? Cluttered? Do you have to squint? Quote "you could go blind (seriously)" - Source: user from stackoverflow.com. The specs of the air are greater than my mini so all I was wondering about was the UI. If you have Lion and Xcode 4. Could you post screenshots of Xcode 4's interface open in fullscreen mode? If it's any trouble don't worry I don't want to inconvenience you. Everything I found was Xcode 3 on a 13'. How hot does the machine get under average load? Also is there an issue with RAM?