2015 MBP vs 2015 MBA

[chihsin]

Hi, does anyone have experience with the following two options:

2015 MacBook Air refurbished
-8gb ram
-512gb ssd
-i5
-$1295 (after tax)

2015 MacBook Pro refurbished
-16 ram
-1tb ssd
-i5
$2122 (after tax)

It's a difference of $827, and 0.5 lb in weight.

I typically use it for photo research, image heavy emails, editing large photos on photoshop (few masks or layers) and creating mood boards. Huge iCloud Photo Library (hard to explain what I do for a living) that I'm using in conjunction with multiple applications. I often lug my laptop to set in my bag with my kit and a million shopping bags.

No games, no movies. But I do always have all my apps open and never clean my hard drive. Old computer 300used out of 500.

I also would like to shift into art direction from my current job, which would require heavier load on photoshop and illustrator and a more powerful laptop, but that will be in a years time.

Ideally I'd like to trade in my refurbished model, and get a new MacBook in the future, as I do need a portable option with power to run some Creative Cloud programs.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hi, does anyone have experience with the following two options:

2015 MacBook Air refurbished
-8gb ram
-512gb ssd
-i5
-$1295 (after tax)

2015 MacBook Pro refurbished
-16 ram
-1tb ssd
-i5
$2122 (after tax)

It's a difference of $827, and 0.5 lb in weight.

I typically use it for photo research, image heavy emails, editing large photos on photoshop (few masks or layers) and creating mood boards. Huge iCloud Photo Library (hard to explain what I do for a living) that I'm using in conjunction with multiple applications. I often lug my laptop to set in my bag with my kit and a million shopping bags.

No games, no movies. But I do always have all my apps open and never clean my hard drive. Old computer 300used out of 500.

I also would like to shift into art direction from my current job, which would require heavier load on photoshop and illustrator and a more powerful laptop, but that will be in a years time.

Ideally I'd like to trade in my refurbished model, and get a new MacBook in the future, as I do need a portable option with power to run some Creative Cloud programs.

Well with all that image heavy stuff I can't see how you can pass up the Retina display it's that simple really, also the extra drive space and ram will mean that you can take your time when you need to upgrade for video editing it will do a fine job for a while I'm sure.

I guess I'm saying go pro.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

You're not making a fair comparison between the two models above.

You should be "pricing out" the 2015 MBPro with a 512gb SSD and 8gb of RAM, for a more equal comparison.

I paid $1,189 delivered for my -brand new- 2015 MBPro (8gb/256gb). Runs great.
That's cheaper than the MBAir above!

 

[960design]

Your work flow is pro...

I have both ( actually, my MBPr is a maxed out late 2013... just about to update it, after the March event ).

 

[HBOC]

this is my experience. in 2011 Apple replaced my 3 year old MBP with the then new early 2011 MBP with all the top specs. I then sold it, and bought a base model 13 MBP, and was going to upgrade the RAM and HDD. However, it was so slow compared to the 15", that i returned it and got base mid 2011 iMac. Once i upgraded that to 16GB RAM, it was great until i sold it last summer for my current 15" MBP.

So my point to the long winded rant is that I think either the dual core i5 and 8GB of RAM will let you down. I use my MBP mostly for photo editing, and i will sometimes have 4-5 1GB+ files open at a time, plus running ID, Ai, iTunes, CC 2017, etc and i have no issues what so ever. My current machine is a 2.5GHZ 15" MBP with 512SSD and the upgraded video card.