13" (SSD) vs 15" i5

Well the sound is no better on the 15". There is literally no bass.

 

that's not true,
they have subwoofers now.

so there literally is a bass.
i'm just not sure of how good it is.

the sound on the 13" i think is quieter, though.
comes out from under the keyboard.

and the whole core 2 duo to i5 thing has been beaten to death.
depends on your needs, but the 13" is a great laptop and will probably do everything you need it to without problem.

 

Ok I shouldn't have said literally, but it's still terrible.

 

If that's all you do then the i5 would be overkill. Go with the 13".

 

I disagree, you can always add the SSD later, the i5 will futureproof your laptop far more than an SSD and doing what you do, the better CPU (which can't be changed) is a far better option than the drive.

 

13 w/ SSD will be waaaay better for you.

 

13 inch with ssd (intel x25-m) is what I went with and it's awesome . Much faster than the 250 gb it came with.

 

I have the 13 (2010) with the 128 gig apple SSD.

Use it as my primary comp, mostly for web/msn/spotify/movies etc but also for video editing (premiere pro).

If you can live with the smaller screen I think you should go for the 13 inch, it has sick boot-up time with the SSD and is really snappy.

Couldn't be happier, only "problem" I'm having is that it runs a bit hot when watching flash movies. Also the battery don't really last 10h, more like 7 (only safari, pages and screen at 50%, no bluetooth), if it's like that for everyone or because of the SSD I don't know.

 

I went from a 1.66GHz C2D Windows 7 machine, to 2.4GHz i5 MBP, and really didn't notice much of an improvement (sure it was a bit faster, but much less than 3 years of technology and OS X hype would lead one to expect) .

Then I put in a 160GB X25. The snappiness of the machine and the almost complete silence (the CPU fan at 2000rpm is pretty much inaudible - the HDD is much louder). This machine suddenly feels like the future...

The HDD/SSD makes much more difference than C2D / i5 for anything other than CPU intensive apps.

 

Again, you have to look at usage. At this point the OP would get zero benefit from the i5, so no, the CPU is not at all a better option than the SSD. For internet, movies and iTunes, a late model G4 would work fine, because none of those are in any way CPU intensive tasks. The SSD would give you a far faster feel overall.