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Did I make the wrong choice going with MBP 13"

S

Sean-G

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 27, 2011
25
0
First time posting here

So I got a MBP 13" i5 today. I was looking hard at the MBA but I wanted something that was going to last a long while (4 years), and as I've read here from many of you is the MBP can have a new life due to upgrades

I don't game, I mostly use my computers for papers, netflix, spotify, some minimal graphic design work ( real minimal). I guess my real question here is, should I have just went for the MBA? In the end, 2 pounds didnt mean much to me. But from what I gather the MBA 13" is pretty much as good as the pro?

real sorry if this has been discussed before. I just am wondering if I should return the MBP, so far though I love it.
 
If I was getting a 13" today, it would without question be the new air...
From how you describe your usage, the air will be everything you love about the mbp 13" and more. Trust me, 2 less lbs. and an ssd are gonna make a dramatic difference.
Just noticed you have an iMac 27, yes, without question the air is the way to go. Leave the heavy lifting and upgrades for the iMac at home (not that the new air isn't a fast machine in it's own right).
 
I agree with the above post

The new MBA's are great, I would just go into an apple store and play around with one and see how it feels. I think the only downside to an Air is that there isn't an optical drive, but you probably won't really need it anyways. If you like the MBA, then return the MBP, but there's no reason to switch computers if you like the one you already have. Just get what you feel comfortable with and don't look back :)
 
If you feel like the tasks you've listed are what you are always going to use the computer for and you have no desire to do more intensive or extensive tasks in the future and feel like you can sacrifice the expandability of the MacBook Pro along with physical media ports including an internal optical drive, then yes, you make the wrong choice, as the MacBook Air would most likely be faster with such daily tasks given the SSD, and it would be more portable and practical in terms of form factor.
 
I think you would have loved any of them. Now which one you'd prefer is another question :)

The great thing with the MBA is how super fast it is for day to day use, how you can handle it like it was a notebook, and how there's no HDD noise coming from that bottom right corner (the HDD on my 13"MBP is annoying, at first I thought it was fan noise but no, it's just stupid spinning noise).

The question is: do you really need those extras (FW, ethernet, DVD, storage, potential 8gb RAM) or is it "maybe someday you never know"?

I personally use both (one at work and one at home, and swap them sometimes lol). If I had to keep only one I'd keep the MBA, especially since that last update. The MBP feels like there's too much useless stuff on it for my use and I hate dead weight.
 
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I guess my real question is: will the MBA still be good enough in 4 years (which is how long I want to keep the computer for)
 
What does that even mean?

Are you asking if a MacBook Air will still be able to be used to watch Netflix or writing papers in four years? Yes, it will.

"Good enough" boils down to your usage, not the test of time.
 
Sean-G said:
I guess my real question is: will the MBA still be good enough in 4 years (which is how long I want to keep the computer for)
Click to expand...

If you want it to last 4 years, just take care of it. It will obviously be outdated by then but Macs last for a long time and the performance will be relatively the same from the day you got it, it will probably just seem slower because of the new tech that will have come out by then.

If you are going to have mostly light usage, the MBA will definitely last you 4 years.
 
Bought the pro at the end of it's life so not a bad choice. The last of a dying breed, some charm in that:cool:
 
Archlord said:
What does that even mean?

Are you asking if a MacBook Air will still be able to be used to watch Netflix or writing papers in four years? Yes, it will.

"Good enough" boils down to your usage, not the test of time.
Click to expand...

it means what it means, its pretty clear, am I going to be running a a snails pace in 4 years with the computer with what I told you I use it for.
 
Honestly for basic computing tasks, not much has changed in the past 4 years that would really make a 4 year old machine terribly obsolete. My parent's PC (AMD Athlon 64 processor) at home is about 5 years old and runs perfectly fine. In fact, for basic computing tasks, the trend seems to be to make software/operating systems more efficient and capable to run on older machines. Things now are very different from the way they were in the 90's and early 2000's

I expect that in 4 years, the current MBA would still be perfectly adequate for most people, unless you're into heavy graphic design, and gaming. Even when it comes to gaming, hardware is not becoming obsolete nearly as quickly as it used to...

Frankly, for uses the MBA may actually be a better performer (SSD ). Granted you can add an SSD to the macbook pro, but it's by no means cheap and that's even more money you'd be investing in your system.
 
How much of a difference might i see in an SSD? I mean my MBP runs pretty fast..
 
Sean-G said:
How much of a difference might i see in an SSD? I mean my MBP runs pretty fast..
Click to expand...

Applications boot-up instantly...even heavy applications like photoshop, and games.

OSX and Windows boot-up in 10 seconds or less.
 
Sean-G said:
it means what it means, its pretty clear, am I going to be running a a snails pace in 4 years with the computer with what I told you I use it for.
Click to expand...

I think you mean it's pretty foggy. You asked, "Will the MBA still be good enough in 4 years?"
 
Sean-G said:
I guess my real question is: will the MBA still be good enough in 4 years (which is how long I want to keep the computer for)
Click to expand...

Well it seems to me this should not be the question, since they're almost the same in that aspect.
I don't see how the MBP will last longer (for light to moderate use): both run i5's (5500 vs 6000 on geek bench), have the same graphic abilities, the same ram.
Those that say the MBP is upgradable, come on, all you can upgrade is storage and RAM.
Besides, Apple computers came with 2gb of RAM forever, 4gb has just become the new standard so there we go for a few years during which the MBAs 4gb will be enough for normal use.

To me, the day the 2011 MBA becomes obsolete, the 2011 13" MBP will be too.
Of course it depends on what you intend to do with them.
 
Sean-G said:
it means what it means, its pretty clear, am I going to be running a a snails pace in 4 years with the computer with what I told you I use it for.
Click to expand...

Has your iMac slowed down to a crawl?

I think you just answered your own question.
 
mystik610 said:
Applications boot-up instantly...even heavy applications like photoshop, and games.

OSX and Windows boot-up in 10 seconds or less.
Click to expand...
You might want to damper expectations on boot performance. I'll limit my comments to Windows sytem since I haven't run/seen the benchmarks on a like kind comparison of Apple systems.

Running "apples to apples" comparison at work, we've benchmarked on a test system that Windows 7 would boot (power on to actually being able to be used) in about 21 seconds.

Granted, that same system, with the same load and test process, took about 75 seconds to boot with a 5400 rpm hard disk drive.

So excitement is warranted, but a cold boot of 10 seconds might be optimistic. Resume from sleep shouldn't be affected significantly media access (e.g. SSD or hybrid), although restore from hibernate should be affected.
 
I was in the same boat as you, exactly.

I bought a 999 MBP 13" in early 2011, moved the OEM 320gb drive over to the optibay slot, bought a 120gb SATA3 SSD (vertex 3) for $275 and use it as my boot drive. I also spent 60 bucks on 8GB of DDR3 1333mhz RAM (you can get the same ram for about 40 bucks now).

Ultimately, as much as I loved the look and feel of a slim notebook. This MBP is fully loaded and so cheap I just couldn't say no. My computer is an all out beast and will not need an upgrade for another 4 years at best.

P.S.

I have the exact same usage patterns you do.
 
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