11" mba vs 13" mba vs 13" mbp for school?

[Squirrelle]

Hi all.

I'm heading back to school this fall. Going into a Computer Systems Technology course (college level) and I'm planning on getting a laptop for class.

I have a 27" iMac at home already, and an external hard drive so drive space isn't a factor for me.

I'm leaning towards an air, mostly due to its smaller size and weight as I will be biking to and from school most of the time. I wouldn't rule out the 13" base mbp, but I think it might be overkill for what I need.

Use will be a bit of coding/school work, note taking, and general surfing on the couch kinda stuff. I imagine I will use the school computers or the iMac at home for the most part when coding.

Just wondering what your thoughts are. I'm torn a bit between the 11" ultimate and a 13" base air with the memory bumped up to 4gigs. On the refurb site they are the same price. Looking at the 11" because of the portability, but worried the screen may be to small? Probably over thinking it, but thats what I do. Lol.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[carreragt7]

I own all three of the computers you are thinking about getting. The only one I am keeping is the 11" ultimate Air.

The 13" Air is nice, but I like the factor of the 11" more for school. My pros for the 11" Air:
If/when I ride my bike it fits into my tiny shoulder bag, and the 13" might as well but it'd be a tighter fit.
It is very snappy, and to be honest for average use it blows my 2.26ghz 8gb RAM 1TB 13" MBP out of the water thanks to the 4gb RAM and SSD.
For the smaller screen size, it is a VERY high quality screen and doesn't stress my eyes. I also like that it is a little more matte then the 13" Pro screen is.

That said, the new models with the thunderbolt connection intrigue me as I've been trying to figure out a cheap and effective way to power both my 24" Cinema Displays from a laptop, and I would be able to do that with the new Pro. I'm seriously contemplating the new 15" top model with the anti-glare screen. The 13" model isn't a big enough upgrade to me to justify the purchase.

The 13" Air is a very nice machine, so if you are looking at the 13" screen size more, I'd take the top Air model (or at least one with 4gb RAM) over a 13" MBP.

Hope my ramblings help.

 

[Funkymonk]

11" mba all the way!

 

[shawnjan]

I'm contemplating the exact same thing... I'm in my final year of my Computing Science degree and I need a new laptop... I owned a 15" Macbook Pro from 2007 until I dropped it a few months ago, going down in resolution would suck.

I am really choked that the 13" MBP didn't have a 1440x900 resolution, that was the ONE thing that I wanted, besides the i5 upgrade. 1280 x 800 just isn't enough screen resolution to get work done on, as I'm on the go a lot.

My only choice is the 13" MBA or the 15" MBP, but after realizing how nice it is to have a laptop that is light, I think I'm going to go with the MBA. My boss lent me his laptop for a couple weeks and it was amazing to just be able to throw the thing into my bag and go. The 15" that I lugged around campus for years was quite heavy.. And I'm not a small guy, 6" tall, and I play a lot of hockey. Just being able to grab the computer effortlessly and show your problem to someone is really convinient.. ALSO, having an SSD is a HUGE upgrade! If I got a 15" pro, I wouldn't be able to afford the upgrade, and thus, it would be bogged down by a 5400RPM spinning disk...

tl;dr - I'm in a very similar situation as you, getting the MBA is the best option IMO.