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air or pro?

B

buzzcfc

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 11, 2011
37
0
ok so after finally deciding on a 27" imac a few weeks ago, I have now decided that I want something to use whilst in the lounge/bed/in front of the tv. Literally the only things I will be using it for is email, surfing the web, storing my (8gb) itunes libary on it and most importantly, to play the new football manager when it comes out. I have thought about the pro for £999, but ultimately I would rather have the lightness and design of the air - even despite there being no cd drive.
I am looking at the basic 13" i think. What do you all think, will it be ok for my needs? or should I go for the pro? bearing in mind that my imac is my primary computer.
cheers :)
 
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I have no idea how much performance the new Football Manager needs, if it needs much perfomance go for the 13" with i7.

For what you want to do with it do not go with the MBP because everything you can do you will be able to do with the MBA.

Its lighter, thinner, and the design looks way better.
 
yeah I am leaning towards the air to be honest, and I would probably buy it today if I knew its capabilities of running football manager. Obviously due to no cd drive, i'd have to download it through steam - another factor i'm not too sure on
 
buzzcfc said:
yeah I am leaning towards the air to be honest, and I would probably buy it today if I knew its capabilities of running football manager. Obviously due to no cd drive, i'd have to download it through steam - another factor i'm not too sure on
Click to expand...

Why are you not sure about downloading? If your connection is good (500KBps or more) you will download it in no time, and it will work just as if you installed it from a cd.
Also, I believe the new air can handle football manager, although you should check the requirements.
But I strongly suggest the air for your needs.
Also, don't get the i7. Prefer the i5. It will keep your mba cooler, and especially for a lap/couch etc experience you won't like it to be too hot. And the i5 is enough of processing power, very small difference with the i7 (unless you need a mobile workstation).
 
i've just heard that some people have had issues with steam on macs.
From what I can see it would run fm 2011 ok, so I think i'm sold. I wish I hadn't bought my imac now, I could never go back to pc and windows now and can see this being an expensive journey :D
 
I agree with the poster above. For portability and web surfing the MBA is awesome. I love my new 2011 13" i5 for that purpose its great. You will not regret it - plus battery life is easily 7 hours.
 
buzzcfc said:
yeah I am leaning towards the air to be honest, and I would probably buy it today if I knew its capabilities of running football manager. Obviously due to no cd drive, i'd have to download it through steam - another factor i'm not too sure on
Click to expand...

You can get external SuperDriver for 79$ - http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC684ZM/A

Both the Pro and Air have the same Intel HD 3000 graphics processor, so gaming performance should be pretty identical. Check the requirements, if its good enough get the MBA.
 
To play games, even on Steam if you need more performance, just install Windows 7 oder Bootcamp and Steam will run fine on Windows. Im doing that to play Counter-Strike Source and I even have stable 101 fps on my MBA on Windows 7, I think your Football Manager will be fine on the MBA ;)

Got the i7 though.
 
If you don't need the power of the quad-core i7 and you have an external hard drive, I would strongly advise you to choose the MacBook Air.
 
Air is lighter and unless you want to extent your storage later or plan on running processor intensive apps (adobe suite, rendering) the air will be just fine for you
 
honestly, i am not sure why so many people recommend the i7 13 over the i5 ( the difference in the i7 vs i5 on the mba 13 is miniscule...1 mb of cash and ever so slightly higher turbo)

I originally got an i5...it ran quick, cool and no problems..
I wanted a bigger HD, so i upgraded to the 256 and figured, for 100 bucks, why not go with the i7.

well...after going home and using the i7 setup for a few days...i realized that I needed to go back and get the i5 with 256.

for some reason, the i7 system actually ran somewhat choppy, scrolling in safari wasn't perfect like it was on the i5 and battery went a tiny bit quicker..
worst part was the heat though..the difference was actually pretty decent.

i decided to get the 256 with i5...and I can honestly say, this one runs great, and seems actually faster than the i7.
i waited for all of the indexing to take place before i tried any benchmarks or performance testing.

i run serious 3d sketching and modeling software and it needs maximum power from the cpu..it maxes out all 4 virtual cores constantly.
there was ABSOLUTELY no benefit with the i7...i only saw drawbacks.

i would get the base 13 for your needs...you don't need the 256..and you definitely don't need the i7.

lol, football manager can run on an iPad if it was compatible...trust me, you have PLENTY of power for it..
 
Go 13" i5 Air with 128GB of storage.

You can upgrade the storage later should you need it.

The screen resolution of the Air is worth paying the premium for alone. Football manager will run absolutely fine on it.
 
NutsNGum said:
Go 13" i5 Air with 128GB of storage.

You can upgrade the storage later should you need it.

The screen resolution of the Air is worth paying the premium for alone. Football manager will run absolutely fine on it.
Click to expand...

i thought the storage is not upgradable?
 
It is, just got to go with OWC. I ordered a drive from them today as a matter of fact.
 
hefeglass said:
honestly, i am not sure why so many people recommend the i7 13 over the i5 ( the difference in the i7 vs i5 on the mba 13 is miniscule...1 mb of cash and ever so slightly higher turbo)

I originally got an i5...it ran quick, cool and no problems..
I wanted a bigger HD, so i upgraded to the 256 and figured, for 100 bucks, why not go with the i7.

well...after going home and using the i7 setup for a few days...i realized that I needed to go back and get the i5 with 256.

for some reason, the i7 system actually ran somewhat choppy, scrolling in safari wasn't perfect like it was on the i5 and battery went a tiny bit quicker..
worst part was the heat though..the difference was actually pretty decent.

i decided to get the 256 with i5...and I can honestly say, this one runs great, and seems actually faster than the i7.
i waited for all of the indexing to take place before i tried any benchmarks or performance testing.

i run serious 3d sketching and modeling software and it needs maximum power from the cpu..it maxes out all 4 virtual cores constantly.
there was ABSOLUTELY no benefit with the i7...i only saw drawbacks.

i would get the base 13 for your needs...you don't need the 256..and you definitely don't need the i7.

lol, football manager can run on an iPad if it was compatible...trust me, you have PLENTY of power for it..
Click to expand...

Your performance issues with the i7 MBA had nothing to do with the i7 that much I can assure you. Also considering these are ULV processors, you'll want the most powerful CPU you can get if you're going to be gaming.
 
air or pro?

buzzcfc said:
I have thought about the pro for £999, but ultimately I would rather have the lightness and design of the air - even despite there being no cd drive.
I am looking at the basic 13" i think. What do you all think, will it be ok for my needs? or should I go for the pro? bearing in mind that my imac is my primary computer.
Click to expand...

something else to think about is that there's more than likely to be a redesigned MBPros hitting the market before year's end - if you can wait a while - and are touted to be Air-ish in design as in slimness, lightness, etc and possibly (probably) w/o an optical drive.
certainly this would be a more powerful option than an Air.
just a thought …
 
I do the same as you by the sounds of it, and yes, love Footy Manager ;)

Last night I was playing Counter Strike, Portal 2 and Starcraft 2 on my base model 2011 Air. It's perfectly fine for all of that.

Don't get a Pro now. Once you try an Air for a week you will almost cringe at using the Pro afterwards! It's genuinely big and chunky compared to the Air.

I have both, I prefer Air now.
 
buzzcfc said:
yeah I am leaning towards the air to be honest, and I would probably buy it today if I knew its capabilities of running football manager. Obviously due to no cd drive, i'd have to download it through steam - another factor i'm not too sure on
Click to expand...

Here's is my argument of not buying Pro. It is in mid-year cycle right now, the new one will come out in less than 6 months. While the Air just came out, so you are right on.
 
buzzcfc said:
yeah I am leaning towards the air to be honest, and I would probably buy it today if I knew its capabilities of running football manager. Obviously due to no cd drive, i'd have to download it through steam - another factor i'm not too sure on
Click to expand...

If you own a PC/Mac with a DVD Drive, and you don't need desks on the road or away from home, then you NEVER need to buy an external drive:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777

Just share a drive over your home network - easy peasy.
 
Oli3000 said:
If you own a PC/Mac with a DVD Drive, and you don't need desks on the road or away from home, then you NEVER need to buy an external drive:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777

Just share a drive over your home network - easy peasy.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about playing fm on the car jouney to work as its about a 4 hr round trip, which reminds me of another concern with steam, once the game is downloaded to my MBA, will i need a connection to log in and play?
 
buzzcfc said:
I was thinking about playing fm on the car jouney to work as its about a 4 hr round trip, which reminds me of another concern with steam, once the game is downloaded to my MBA, will i need a connection to log in and play?
Click to expand...

No you can play steam games in offline mode as long as the games themselves don't need a internet connection to play.
 
thanks for the responses, my minds made up - i'm ordering the 13" air sometime this week :)
 
Brandon0448 said:
No you can play steam games in offline mode as long as the games themselves don't need a internet connection to play.
Click to expand...

The direction the gaming industry is moving will make that impossible before too long. Even now, a lot of games that are single player in nature still require a live internet connection for DRM purposes.
 
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