2013 Air vs cMBP + upgrades

[BuyMeAMac]

Trying to decide between the new air and buying then upgrading the cMBP for school and my personal projects (photo editing in photoshop/lightroom, light video editing, possibly some tf2 gaming)

My budget cannot exceed $1500 whatsoever, so the rMBP is completely out the question and I am not interested in it at all.

Also there is no way I would buy the air without the 8gb ram upgrade. So initially, the cMBP is cheaper before I upgrade it in a couple months.

What would you suggest?

 

[Livewings]

Trying to decide between the new air and buying then upgrading the cMBP for school and my personal projects (photo editing in photoshop/lightroom, light video editing, possibly some tf2 gaming)

My budget cannot exceed $1500 whatsoever, so the rMBP is completely out the question and I am not interested in it at all.

Also there is no way I would buy the air without the 8gb ram upgrade. So initially, the cMBP is cheaper before I upgrade it in a couple months.

What would you suggest?

MacBook Air is better.
cMBP is fat and clunky.

The weight of the Air and stock sheer speed of the SSD trumps the upgradibility of the cMBP.

 

[makaveli559m]

MacBook Air is better.
cMBP is fat and clunky.

The weight of the Air and stock sheer speed of the SSD trumps the upgradibility of the cMBP.

SSD might be fast but it isn't like you can add a 2TB hard drive on could you? It isn't like you can actually add a second hard drive by removing the optical drive? Also that you can upgrade the RAM your self at any time.

 

[maflynn]

The MBA is not built for speed so the MBP's performance should exceed that of the MBA. The expandability of the MBP will give you options down the road. That is you don't have to lock in a configuration at time of purchase.

With that said I like the MBA over the MBP at this point given the battery life and portability.

It all boils down to what's more important to you, portability and size or expandability.

 

[fratey]

The 13" MBP is a joke and you won't get any photoshopping done on that pixely 1280x800 machine. It's also very slow until you pop an SSD in. Processor speed difference is pretty negligible.

Air will handle TF2 better due to HD5000.

 

[maflynn]

Air will handle TF2 better due to HD5000.

Anandtech's review seems to indicate that the HD5000 is not that much faster then the 4000 so the OP may not really notice too much in terms of GPU power.

I agree that the 13" MBP's resolution is such that you get less screen real estate, I moved up from a 13" MBP to a 15" MBP for this very reason.

The OP needs to check both out and see if the higher resolution is ok for what he wants, I found it too small for my eyes

 

[Memole]

do not get cMBP 13" as the screen and its screen estate is not good enough for your kind of work...
if i where in your shoes and with that money limit i would go for Base Refurbished cMBP 15" or Anti-Glare 15" cMBP via Apple Resellers...

as you would have bigger screen which would help you to do your work
also 15" have better screen resolution
and also you could upgrade the ram currently up to 16GB of ram ( or even up to 32GB of ram if 16GB dimms get released to fit in macbook ) vs 8GB of ram how much macbook air offers max

 

[Stetrain]

My budget cannot exceed $1500 whatsoever, so the rMBP is completely out the question and I am not interested in it at all.

Have you checked out Apple's Certified Refurbished section?

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

Might find a good deal there if you're on a budget. Also since the 13" rMBP has been out longer than the Air you can find some pretty good deals on it:

http://www.macmall.com/p/Apple-MacBook-Pro/product~dpno~9418688~pdp.iadfdbh

 

[fratey]

Anandtech's review seems to indicate that the HD5000 is not that much faster then the 4000 so the OP may not really notice too much in terms of GPU power.

I agree that the 13" MBP's resolution is such that you get less screen real estate, I moved up from a 13" MBP to a 15" MBP for this very reason.

The OP needs to check both out and see if the higher resolution is ok for what he wants, I found it too small for my eyes

That might be correct and I didn't know that - thanks!