Can't decide between the MBA or the rMBP :/

[flyinglawngnome]

Hey guys

I'm starting in a secondary school where I live (grade 10, 11 and 12), and I'm in dire need of a new laptop, I'm just not sure which one to pick. Right now my choices are between:

13" MBA with 8gb ram, 256gb storage and 1.6GHz

or the

13" rMBP with 8gb ram, 128gb storage and 2.7GHz

I'll mostly be doing school work on this laptop (Microsoft Office, a CAS program and some light audio editing), but I'll also possibly be doing some light gaming with a few indie games here and there. I'll probably get an external HDD or a cloud service at some point, but I don't really want to run programs off of external drives, I'll also be carrying it with me around school. So what do you guys think is the best choice, is the increased storage of the MBA worth it, or is performance increase of the MBP too big to pass up. Ultimately I'd want it to last 4-5 years.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Black.Infinity]

Go with rMBP, you will love the screen plus the extra power. More likely to last 4-5 years compare to air in terms of performance and even that rMBP is a bit thicker, it feels stronger and more durable to me. It would be awesome if you could upgrade the ram, since you want to keep it for a long time. But if you are really tight on budget, then it's ok.
You won't look at the air screen after working with the retina screen.

 

[flyinglawngnome]

Go with rMBP, you will love the screen plus the extra power. More likely to last 4-5 years compare to air in terms of performance and even that rMBP is a bit thicker, it feels stronger and more durable to me. It would be awesome if you could upgrade the ram, since you want to keep it for a long time. But if you are really tight on budget, then it's ok.
You won't look at the air screen after working with the retina screen.

Thanks for the reply, those were sort of the things I was thinking too, the MBP just seems like the beefier, longer lasting machine. But what about the 128gb, do you figure it would get eaten up? Im gonna be streaming my movies and music with spotify and netflix, and I'm gonna be putting my documents on the HDD/Cloud, Im just a bit worried that the programs will take up too mich space.

 

[theluggage]

But what about the 128gb, do you figure it would get eaten up?

Do you envisage:

• Video editing/conversion
• Running Windows (under Bootcamp or with Parallels/VMWare)
• Having several large games installed (including games running in Steam)

...if one or more of those is on the list I'd go for 256GB minimum.

Personally, I'd go the extra $200 over the Air to get the 256GB rMBP - it still gets you a lot more bangs per buck than the Air - or if the budget really won't stretch look for a 2014 rMBP in the refurbished store.

 

[flyinglawngnome]

Do you envisage:

• Video editing/conversion
• Running Windows (under Bootcamp or with Parallels/VMWare)
• Having several large games installed (including games running in Steam)

...if one or more of those is on the list I'd go for 256GB minimum.

Personally, I'd go the extra $200 over the Air to get the 256GB rMBP - it still gets you a lot more bangs per buck than the Air - or if the budget really won't stretch look for a 2014 rMBP in the refurbished store.

Hmm, Youre probably right, the 2014 rMBP would be th best choice, the only issue is that we don't have a refurbished store here in Denmark :/ I think I'm only going to be doing the last one, but I guess I could run some games off of a usb 3.0 if I needed too...