Air or pro

[Scepticalscribe]

I had to make the same decision. Got the 13" Air.

Light. SSD is super fast. And the high resolution (higher than the 13" Pro, keep in mind) lets me view we pages + word docs more comfortably side-by-side for writing papers.

All excellent points. While the MBP is an excellent computer, it can be a bit heavy to carry around (I had one and subsequently bought a MBA).

The 13" MBA has an excellent screen resolution, is fast and powerful (unless you are a gamer), and is extremely portable. It also has a better battery life than the 11".

Money is part of the issue, along with that I can't decide what I want... I have consider an ipad and keyboard and would probally go for it if the ipad3 where realeased soon

I don't recommend an iPad for college. One of the things you will be required to do at college is to write many, many papers and take plenty of notes; bearing that in mind, it makes sense to have a computer with a proper keyboard and full version of iOS.

I was in this exact same position where I needed something that was very portable but was plenty powerful for home use and to do everything itunes or iphoto. I got the 11" macbook air in August and don't regret not getting the MBP. I also have an external monitor when I have to write a lot of papers and stuff.

Good points, and my only query with the 11" (which is a stunning computer, and, as KonPhiPhi pointed out, is not a toy, but a fully equipped powerful computer which is fit for everything except gaming and perhaps, 'heavy lifting' such as editing videos), is the battery, and, also, the smallish screen which may become tiring if one has to work at it for hours at a time.

Unless I have missed something, nobody here seems to have mentioned battery life. I had an 11" Air for school purposes and, due to my schedule, battery life was a big issue for me. With Wifi and bluetooth running, you should expect a MAXIMUM of what Apple advertises, with real use extending to the 3-4 hour range. If you can fit your school work into that timeframe, or if your college has proper charging facilities, then the 11" Air sounds good. If not, the 13" Air/Pro would be better.

Fair point and well argued.

To the OP: Forget the MBP (too heavy) and the iPad (not what you need for college, though it looks and is cool). Go for one of the MBAs, and perhaps, try to future proof it. If finance is an issue, try the Apple refurbs; there are some excellent deals right now on MBAs.

Cheers and good luck

 

[jacksoncmc835]

Good insight

 

[thasan]

MBA is better cause it's lighter, comes with ssd and have higher res.
Unless you need more ram (8 gig atleast ) for running windows and osx simultaneously, get MBA.

 

[The Smyrk]

I used to be in the same situation as you. I have to say the MBA has definitely panned out to be a great choice. No regrets here...

 

[QuaziModo]

11" Ultimate here and love it.

I have to say that the benefit of a laptop versus the iPad should be the quickest thing to resolve. Remembering that an iPad on the couch/bed is nice but a laptop will serve you better for real work at uni.

My advice buy the MBA not the MBP as you'll regret the inconvenience of weight. 11" MBA suits me to a T.

For average use a bottom of the line model would be sufficient.

 

[jacksoncmc835]

Well I ended up geting the 13 inch air and have no major complaints so far... wasnt sure if I'd like lion but its not bad, I do like gestures but am not a big fan of misson control... it works alright prefer old way,

 

[IngerMan]

Both!

I had the 2010 13 MBA but traded that in for the i5 11" 6 months back. I love portability of the 11" and I think it is much more solid for extreme handling and transporting then the 13". I was worried with the 13" MBA torquing of the body and handled it with kids gloves.

I have in transit the 15" MBP that I plan to use mostly at home and use the 11" on my daily work day out of the house. I think the MBP and the MBA will make a nice combo.

 

[Boyd01]

Just got my new 13.3/1.7GHz/4GB/256GB air yesterday afternoon and I also agonized over the decision between the 13" MBP and MBA. Very happy with my choice so far!

This was a replacement for my 15" MBP 2.4GHz core 2 duo with 4GB memory purchased in January 2008 which now overheats and freezes after a couple hours use. Paid $2500 for that machine.

The whole experience has been really smooth so far - I just plugged in a USB drive with my MBP Time Machine backup and went for a walk while setup imported everything. There was only one error reported, a program for reading files from the express card slot in the MBP that I don't need anyway.

Everything else seems to have come through like a champ, although I've only just started using it. Filemaker Pro 11, VectorWorks 2008, Photoshop CS3, Final Cut Pro 6 and MS Office 2008 all worked on the first try - Photoshop required me to click a link to activate and I had to re-enter my FCP serial number.

One of my concerns was whether I would be able to use Final Cut Pro as I have seen conflicting info on this. I haven't done any "real" editing yet, but I was able to start a project, drop XDCAM EX clips into it and play them with no issues.

Getting back to the MBP vs MBA question, the 13"/256GB MBA was $1500 at Best Buy and 13" i7/750GB MBP was $1427. Looks like it would have been faster at some compute-bound tasks, but with anything that involves disk access the 5400 RPM drive would really slow it down. Both machines have the same intel on-board graphics, so there's no advantage there. MBP screen looked a bit more vivid although I like the higher resolution on the Air. And aside from that, the Air was just cooler and just begs to be taken with you anywhere. I will miss the firewire port, but can live without it.

I used to do a lot of work with video, photorealistic 3d modeling and animation but not so much these days. If I get serious about these things, then the 13" MBP wouldn't represent a big enough improvement over the Air to matter and I would want something like a 17" MBP (which has the express card slot for my XDCAM). But that's a big jump in price, and overkill for my current needs.

Regardless, the Air is a big performance boost from my 2008 MBP. Just did two quick benchmarks - exported a 140MB XDCAM full HD clip to an 852x480 h.264 clip. It took my 4 year old MBP 72 seconds while the MBA did it in 42 sec.

In photoshop the difference was much more dramatic- 49MB TIFF file (12000x12000 pixels). The 2008 MBP took 104 sec to create a preview in the Liquify filter. The new MBA did the same thing in 26 seconds. Naturally, anything related to disk access is a huge difference. That TIFF file took 7 seconds to open on the MBP but only 1.5 seconds on the MBA.

Am using an old (first generation) 23" Apple Cinema display with a mini display port adaptor and it works great. Looking forward to some fast Thunderbolt external drives in the future. In the meantime, I think the Air will work fine for small editing projects just using the 160GB free space I currently have on the flash drive.

I picked up the external superdrive, but after getting it home I started asking myself "why?". Haven't opened it yet, might just return it. Only thing I might want it for is if I install Windows 7. Haven't decided on that yet, I have a decent Windows desktop machine already but might be nice to have it on a laptop. For now, I don't want to devote that much precious flash drive space to Windows though.

 

[BENJMNS]

This might as well be

Mobile phone or Land line?

 

[halledise]

Mainly going to use it at school for internet, papers... , just trying to be more prodctive between classes nothing to extensive... but ineed sonthing that will be able to last 4 years till I'm out of collage... I know its a long time ...

I also have an imac 8gb ram core 2 duo, for main task

hope yore spoiling improves by the time you get out of colleague

http://youtu.be/OonDPGwAyfQ

 

[rabidz7]

Mbp

Mainly going to use it at school for internet, papers... , just trying to be more prodctive between classes nothing to extensive... but ineed sonthing that will be able to last 4 years till I'm out of collage... I know its a long time ...

I also have an imac 8gb ram core 2 duo, for main task

MacBook Pro, The macbook air lacks a graphics card.

 

[mankar4]

I love my rmbp 13", there is no UI lag, and the retina screen is lovely. I don't have anything negative to say about it.

BTW, maybe you should post this in the Buying Tips and Advice section; I'd imagine if you post it in MBA forum more MBA owners will reply to you with pro-MBA opinions and likewise in the MBP forum.

 

[jrasero]

Can't decide what to get, I like the 11in air but idk if in actual use I'd probally prefer 13 in, can't deicde if I want an air or pro... cons of pro is weight and size

What's you thoughts?

what is your usage?
and
what is your price range?

Price I guess is my biggest question since if you say $1000 the obvious choice is MBA and if you say $2000 it's going to be MBP/R

 

[myrtlebee]

MacBook Pro, The macbook air lacks a graphics card.

I love my rmbp 13", there is no UI lag, and the retina screen is lovely. I don't have anything negative to say about it.

BTW, maybe you should post this in the Buying Tips and Advice section; I'd imagine if you post it in MBA forum more MBA owners will reply to you with pro-MBA opinions and likewise in the MBP forum.

what is your usage?
and
what is your price range?

Price I guess is my biggest question since if you say $1000 the obvious choice is MBA and if you say $2000 it's going to be MBP/R

Guys... this thread is nearly a year old.

 

[yinz]

This is a pretty old thread..

never mind, someone already pointed that out..