Me: Healthcare professional who would find it easier to work if I could take a laptop from site to site and not rely on e-mail and a thumbdrive to keep important folders and documents near me. Portability, reliability, longevity are the most important qualities.
My History: From 2008 to 2013 I relied on the late 2008 13" MacBook as my sole computer. In 2013 I build a desktop computer which I used as a Hackintosh which actually worked really well for me, especially when I added an iPad as my mobile reading device. But over the last year there have been times when I wanted to use a mobile computer for tasks the ipad wasn't suited for, the 2008 MacBook is a pain to lug around and the Hackintosh's... quirckiness...and lack of reliability has become untenable. This new laptop needs to be a reliable every day computer and a portable, take back and forth to work 3-4 times a week option.
My thoughts so far:
As much as I want it to be portable, I think the 12" of the 2017 MacBook might be too small for me, and the reputation of the butterfly switches isn't exactly "reliable" and everyone describes the 2017 MacBook Adorable as "welcome to dongle-town" which make it an even less attractive option.
So... thoughts? What would you recommend? Will I regret not getting the 2015 MBP if I have the money? Will I love the portability and reliability of the MBA? Should I be prioritizing retina more even if I'm not exactly blown away be the difference in the apple store?
My History: From 2008 to 2013 I relied on the late 2008 13" MacBook as my sole computer. In 2013 I build a desktop computer which I used as a Hackintosh which actually worked really well for me, especially when I added an iPad as my mobile reading device. But over the last year there have been times when I wanted to use a mobile computer for tasks the ipad wasn't suited for, the 2008 MacBook is a pain to lug around and the Hackintosh's... quirckiness...and lack of reliability has become untenable. This new laptop needs to be a reliable every day computer and a portable, take back and forth to work 3-4 times a week option.
My thoughts so far:
- Retina would be nice since I tend to read a lot of small text, but not a deal breaker.
- There is no reason for the laptop to have a discrete GPU (I have the desktop for that) and given the added heat and the fact I hate fan noise, I'd prefer not to have a discrete GPU.
- It needs at least 256 GB of SSD storage.
- I'm kinda scarred of USB-C. F***ing dongles. I tend to hang onto things until they break so I'm going to be using dongles until my 32 GB thumb drives and corrupt and that's going to be a pain in the butt. I get that USB-C is better in almost every way except that nothing uses USB-C.
So this has me debating between the June 2017 MacBook Air and the 2015 MacBook Pro. I'm open to refurbs as well, so I could also be in the market for 2015 MacBook Air. The size and weight difference between the two is probably small enough that I'll never notice, and no one ever seems to complain about the 2015 MacBook Pro's fan noise so that probably not a big deal. I'm tempted to go with the 2017 MBA just assuming it may be supported by apple for a longer period of time, and the Kaby Lake microprocessor architecture may be subject to fewer problems in the long run. The fact that it's much cheaper is a bonus.- I'm kinda scarred of USB-C. F***ing dongles. I tend to hang onto things until they break so I'm going to be using dongles until my 32 GB thumb drives and corrupt and that's going to be a pain in the butt. I get that USB-C is better in almost every way except that nothing uses USB-C.
As much as I want it to be portable, I think the 12" of the 2017 MacBook might be too small for me, and the reputation of the butterfly switches isn't exactly "reliable" and everyone describes the 2017 MacBook Adorable as "welcome to dongle-town" which make it an even less attractive option.
So... thoughts? What would you recommend? Will I regret not getting the 2015 MBP if I have the money? Will I love the portability and reliability of the MBA? Should I be prioritizing retina more even if I'm not exactly blown away be the difference in the apple store?
