13 Inch MPB or 13 Inch Air??

[aberrero]

I sold the latest 13" MBA 1.86/4GB/128GB and am serisouly considering the new 13" MBP. My reasons are these:

1:All though nice and nippy the fans on the Air ramped up pretty loud doing intensive stuff

2:I missed the backlit keyboard much more than I thought I would

3:The display, I'm sorry but the quality of display on the 13" MBP is much better than the 13" MBA (even if it is a little higher res)

4:I feel the trade off for Sandy Bridge i5 using intel graphics is worth it, the 320M in the air never felt anything special (throttled almost).

5:Touchpad on the MBA is way less responisve than the 13MBP.

This makes it sound like I am dissing the MBA, I am not and no doubt it has the wow factor.

1. Should have used Coolbook. Undervolting the CPU kept it quiet/silent most of the time, even in moderate/heavy use.

3. Can't disagree with that, although for me the drop in resolution is just not acceptable. MBP displays look noticeably better though, and I'm disappointed in Apple for not makign a better screen or using better "facetime" cameras.

5. Really? I've never owned a MBP, but I find the MBA touchpad to be great.

 

[Adidas Addict]

1. Should have used Coolbook. Undervolting the CPU kept it quiet/silent most of the time, even in moderate/heavy use.

3. Can't disagree with that, although for me the drop in resolution is just not acceptable. MBP displays look noticeably better though, and I'm disappointed in Apple for not makign a better screen or using better "facetime" cameras.

5. Really? I've never owned a MBP, but I find the MBA touchpad to be great.

1: When I want to work it hard, I should'nt need to rely on undervaulting dropping performance even lower.

3: yup

5: It wasn't awful, but noticeably worse than the 2 MBP unibodies I have had, and the one my GF still has.

 

[aberrero]

Undervolting doesn't drop performance at all.

It just reduces the voltage going to the CPU. Basically, each individual chip needs a certain voltage to run properly, and Apple/Intel decide to play it safe and run them all at high voltage. You can save a significant amount of power though by manually cutting the voltage down to the limits of your own CPU.

For me, and a lot of others on here, I could run mine at 1.86Ghz at the same voltage as it runs when it is idle at 800Mhz. Same performance, but much much less heat.

 

[SpaceMagic]

The 13" MBA is a light, but powerful enough laptop for Word, internet, photo management, etc. Perfect maybe for your wife.

In terms of "future proofing", without question, this is the 13" MBP. Has the very very latest in CPU which is around 2.5x faster than a MBA (see recent Geekbench scores).

Everyone moaning about the graphics card but it's probably still 90% of what the 320M is.

 

[gdeputy]

It isn't even close to a wash. The new 13" MBP will be almost twice as fast in the tasks the OP asked about. I'm just shocked at how many people don't have a clue to what a significant CPU upgrade this is.

The MBA does have a higher resolution screen, slightly better graphics (still be be determined by how much), smaller size, SSD but it comes with and can only support HALF the RAM, has no optical or second drive bay, doesn't have a backlit keyboard, doesn't have firewire, doesn't have thunderbolt, doesn't have a SDXC slot, doesn't have a security slot, doesn't have ethernet and so on...

Your joking right? The i5 is cool, but unless your doing CPU intensive tasks you won't notice ANY difference. The main bottleneck on ANY computer of modern day is the HDD, and a 5400 RPM drive doesn't come CLOSE AT ALL to a SSD. Like, NO COMPARISON.

The pro is aimed at heavier use. If you use photoshop, handbrake, encoding, decoding, stuff like that, then you will benefit from the new processor architecture. You'll benefit a decent amount really, it's more powerful than the C2D on these tasks by quite a bit.

If you do web browsing, light photo tweaking (red eye ect), youtube, email, basic tasks, the Air will smoke that pro any day of the week. These are tasks bottlenecked by the HDD, your processor is pretty much pointless (unless your running some REALLY archaic stuff).

Get the Pro if it fits your needs, get the air if that better fits them. At the end of the day they are different beasts, but don't pretend the base pro is some monster, because it's not, hell, even the high end machines still are coming with 5400 RPM drives, which is pathetic really.

EDIT: let me also say that, geekbench is great, but's it's synthetic, meaning, it's not REALLY showing you any real world numbers. Look at encoding benchmarks, handbrake benchmarks, stuff like that to see a REAL WORLD difference in the product. Geekbench is just a you know what measuring contest.

 

[aberrero]

Let me just say that I would never buy a computer with a mechanical hard drive ever again.

For general use, the MBA with an SSD is going to be faster than the MBP with a hard drive. If you're getting the Pro, factor in another $200 for a good 128GB SSD.

 

[jonnyr78]

Just bought a base 13" pro to replace the top end Air, and I like the Pro more.

Our circumstances are specific, so I'm not saying the MBP is a better computer, but overall for less money the MBP is better for me.

So, if you want to ask any questions from a user to had has and used both fire away. My brief summary of pros and cons in my experience of using them both:

MBP plusses.
- I CAN notice the processor difference. My 13" Air seemed to get stressed fairly often (it was a 2.13 model). To be fair it never actually skipped a beat because of the SSD and the fact the processor was solid, but the fan was quite often noticable when I processed a lot of pics or music / vids. No problem with the Pro. And, for example processing the 'faces' info on my 1k photo iphoto library felt much faster on the MBP. And, this is with the terrible 5400 drive (more on that in a mo).
- Much prefer the MBP keyboard.
- We're having a baby, so the glass screen covering (something I in principle hate - I'm a matte guy) is a nice plus when sticky fingers go prodding .And, perhaps controversially, I prefer the MBP screen (with important qualifications)....
- Frankly, the loss of resolution hurts. Even typing this I can see that text is fuzzier. But, I love taking photos with my Nikon D90, and to my eyes, the colour reproduction (I guess therefore gamut) and viewing angle is much better on the pro. Perhaps I'm just jsutifying it to myself. But, I'm serious, as an overall package I prefer the MBP screen (just!). No...really!
- As an old Powerbook user I cannot believe how much I love having the backlit keyboard back.

Air plusses
- The MBP feels like quite a heavy lump in comparison to the Air I had.
- The 5400 HDD is simply awful. It won't effect me too much as my 500gb hybrid SSD/HD should arrive tomorrow, but c'mon Apple! A 320gb 5400 is embarrasing.
- The higher screen res is wonderful on the Air. For office docs, or browsing the net the extra res is better. I prefer the MBP screen for my specific reasons, but in the choice between better resolution, or colour gamut, I have total understanding for someone who goes with the resolution (and the colour quality of the Air screen is better than most Windows laptops to be fair). Put it this way, I DO agree that in a pro screen 1200x800 is hard to justify. I'll take my view of why I prefer the MBP screen, but I do miss those pixels.
- Air looks cooler

SO, that's my summary so far. I'm very happy with the MBP, for my reasons (as a family comp for the next couple of years), but there are some crazy decisions and compromises from Apple that I think they could have avoided for very little extra cost.

 

[aberrero]

I think that that is a pretty good summary.

I would never do photo editing on the Air display(or with the Air CPU). For everything else though, the resolution is nice.

It would be very difficult for me to pick which of the two displays I prefer. Compared to most other laptops, they are both above-average. Compared to my Dell U2311, they are both crap.

 

[AngryCorgi]

5: It wasn't awful, but noticeably worse than the 2 MBP unibodies I have had, and the one my GF still has.

I have been using my MBA11 back-to-back with my wife's MBP13...I can't tell the difference in them. Not sure what your measuring "noticeably worse" by. The only ones that feel different (or act different) are the early-gen MBAs that have no glass top.

 

[AngryCorgi]

Let me just say that I would never buy a computer with a mechanical hard drive ever again.

For general use, the MBA with an SSD is going to be faster than the MBP with a hard drive. If you're getting the Pro, factor in another $200 for a good 128GB SSD.

I agree. The MBA's ~13 second cold boots and ~2 second shut-downs have totally spoiled me. And thats not even one of the fastest SSDs by a long shot.

 

[Pulpdiction]

jonnyr78 - any chance you could run a geekbench test on it, I'm considering picking one up tomorrow.

 

[jonnyr78]

jonnyr78 - any chance you could run a geekbench test on it, I'm considering picking one up tomorrow.

Will do - just finishing off some heavy lifting (Importing files, installing office etc). Well, it's heavy lifting with the 5400 drive!

I'll update when done. Also, if you want I'll do it again tomorrow night with the Momentus XT.

 

[jonnyr78]

Geekbench 32bit score w/stock 5400 drive...5941


Geekbench Summary

System Information
Platform: Mac OS X x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5494)
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6.6 (Build 10J3210)
Model: MacBookPro8,1
Motherboard: Apple Inc. Mac-94245B3640C91C81 MacBookPro8,1
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2415M CPU @ 2.30GHz
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Logical Processors: 4
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 2.30 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 32.0 KB
L2 Cache: 256 KB
L3 Cache: 3.00 MB
Bus Frequency: 100.0 MHz
Memory: 4.00 GB
Memory Type: 1333 MHz DDR3
SIMD: 1
BIOS: Apple Inc. MBP81.88Z.0047.B04.1102071707
Processor Model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2415M CPU @ 2.30GHz
Processor Cores: 2

Geekbench 2 Score: 5941

Integer Performance (Score: 4412)
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar -- 1859, 81.7 MB/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 6008, 246.2 MB/sec
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar -- 2436, 7.79 MB/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 6135, 20.1 MB/sec
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar -- 2683, 11.0 MB/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 6915, 27.6 MB/sec
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar -- 2073, 17.1 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 5333, 44.9 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar -- 2088, 35.1 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 4639, 75.7 Mpixels/sec
Lua
single-threaded scalar -- 3895, 1.50 Mnodes/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 8885, 3.42 Mnodes/sec

Floating Point Performance (Score: 8269)
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar -- 2423, 1.61 Gflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 8291, 5.43 Gflops
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar -- 3843, 1.86 Gflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 10444, 4.76 Gflops
single-threaded vector -- 4774, 5.72 Gflops
multi-threaded vector -- 12833, 13.3 Gflops
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar -- 1148, 1.02 Gflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 2600, 2.28 Gflops
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar -- 5882, 878.5 Mflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 11097, 2.06 Gflops
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar -- 5445, 12.7 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 16979, 39.1 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar -- 6901, 5.46 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 23115, 18.2 Mpixels/sec

Memory Performance (Score: 5217)
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar -- 5938, 7.27 GB/sec
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar -- 8555, 5.85 GB/sec
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar -- 3374, 12.6 Mallocs/sec
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar -- 3548, 7.34 GB/sec
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar -- 4673, 4.82 GB/sec

Stream Performance (Score: 4602)
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar -- 4942, 6.76 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 5798, 7.52 GB/sec
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar -- 5230, 6.79 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 5603, 7.56 GB/sec
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar -- 2090, 3.16 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 6158, 8.57 GB/sec
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar -- 2358, 3.26 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 4637, 8.68 GB/sec

 

[Pulpdiction]

Will do - just finishing off some heavy lifting (Importing files, installing office etc). Well, it's heavy lifting with the 5400 drive!

I'll update when done. Also, if you want I'll do it again tomorrow night with the Momentus XT.

That's be great, I'm thinking of just going for it anyway, I like the form factor but need a dvd and I might just give it a speed boost later in the year with an SSD, expecting them to come down a lot in next 8 months and bump the RAM to 8gig. Should be able to do that for £200 in September time.

 

[jonnyr78]

p.s I assume thats quite good? it compares well on the Geekbench list, but I'm no expert

 

[Pulpdiction]

Geekbench 32bit score w/stock 5400 drive...5941

Wowsers!!! Much better than I expected.

 

[jonnyr78]

...I might just give it a speed boost later in the year with an SSD, expecting them to come down a lot in next 8 months and bump the RAM to 8gig. Should be able to do that for £200 in September time.

my logic too, for 1/4 the price of a 256 SSD the Momentus is a nice compromise for now. And, maybe I'll be able to buy a Thunderbolt external case for the drive in the future when I go to SSD

 

[Pulpdiction]

p.s I assume thats quite good? it compares well on the Geekbench list, but I'm no expert

Me either, but seems to compare quite well in overall terms:

http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/

 

[jonnyr78]

Wowsers!!! Much better than I expected.

According to the compariosn list it's about as fast as the 2010 15" i7

As I said I'll update tomorrow night with the 500gb Momentus XT.

 

[jonnyr78]

Come to think of it, in terms of moores law, this is getting crazy! SO glad I went for this over the Air now.

 

[jonnyr78]

Erm...just converting some AAC's into Mp3's. It's doing them so quickly it can't give a figure, but I think I spotted '105.2x'!

 

[Pulpdiction]

Cheers, I'll check back tomorrow. Thanks

 

[rellimyrf]

Geekbench 32bit score w/stock 5400 drive...5941


Geekbench Summary

System Information
Platform: Mac OS X x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5494)
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6.6 (Build 10J3210)
Model: MacBookPro8,1
Motherboard: Apple Inc. Mac-94245B3640C91C81 MacBookPro8,1
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2415M CPU @ 2.30GHz
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Logical Processors: 4
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 2.30 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 32.0 KB
L2 Cache: 256 KB
L3 Cache: 3.00 MB
Bus Frequency: 100.0 MHz
Memory: 4.00 GB
Memory Type: 1333 MHz DDR3
SIMD: 1
BIOS: Apple Inc. MBP81.88Z.0047.B04.1102071707
Processor Model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2415M CPU @ 2.30GHz
Processor Cores: 2

Geekbench 2 Score: 5941

Integer Performance (Score: 4412)
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar -- 1859, 81.7 MB/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 6008, 246.2 MB/sec
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar -- 2436, 7.79 MB/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 6135, 20.1 MB/sec
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar -- 2683, 11.0 MB/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 6915, 27.6 MB/sec
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar -- 2073, 17.1 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 5333, 44.9 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar -- 2088, 35.1 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 4639, 75.7 Mpixels/sec
Lua
single-threaded scalar -- 3895, 1.50 Mnodes/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 8885, 3.42 Mnodes/sec

Floating Point Performance (Score: 8269)
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar -- 2423, 1.61 Gflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 8291, 5.43 Gflops
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar -- 3843, 1.86 Gflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 10444, 4.76 Gflops
single-threaded vector -- 4774, 5.72 Gflops
multi-threaded vector -- 12833, 13.3 Gflops
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar -- 1148, 1.02 Gflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 2600, 2.28 Gflops
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar -- 5882, 878.5 Mflops
multi-threaded scalar -- 11097, 2.06 Gflops
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar -- 5445, 12.7 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 16979, 39.1 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar -- 6901, 5.46 Mpixels/sec
multi-threaded scalar -- 23115, 18.2 Mpixels/sec

Memory Performance (Score: 5217)
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar -- 5938, 7.27 GB/sec
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar -- 8555, 5.85 GB/sec
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar -- 3374, 12.6 Mallocs/sec
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar -- 3548, 7.34 GB/sec
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar -- 4673, 4.82 GB/sec

Stream Performance (Score: 4602)
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar -- 4942, 6.76 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 5798, 7.52 GB/sec
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar -- 5230, 6.79 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 5603, 7.56 GB/sec
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar -- 2090, 3.16 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 6158, 8.57 GB/sec
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar -- 2358, 3.26 GB/sec
single-threaded vector -- 4637, 8.68 GB/sec

Wow, thanks for running the geekbench test. Any chance you could do a cinebench test too?

 

[jonnyr78]

OpenGL: 10.89fps (no laughing please! )
CPU: 2.57pts

Thank god I don't game at all! But again, seems a very nice cpu performance for a 13" laptop.

 

[jonnyr78]

P.s was pretty much cool to touch in the hottest areas whilst doing the test.