Discussion: 13" MBA (late 2010) vs. latest MBP Retina

[A5driver]

Hello,

I'm looking for comments and hints regarding this upgrade.

I'm planning to sell my 13" MBA late 2010 model to buy an 13" MBP Retina.

Main reason to do this change is cpu power, I notice my MBA to be very cpu busy and getting slow from having lots of apps open and of course lots of flash enabled websites.

The physical specs are very similar,

WHD on MBA is 32,5 x 1,7 x 22,7 cm
WHD on MBP is 31,4 x 1,9 x 21,9 cm

weight is 1,35 kg vs. 1,62 kg

The MBA probably feels (and is) slimmer due to the design but the MBP isn't much bigger and 300 grams weight could be ignored.

I'm wondering about screen estate, the MBA has 1440x900 pixels, retina 13" has 2560x1600 which isn't exactly four times the screen size of my MBA.

Is this going to provide more or less screen space to me?
I'm not sure if I would use scaled resolutions or let the apps provide bigger fonts and buttons.

What are your comments?

 

[whg]

I had a 2010 MacBook Air until July. It got replaced by the 15" Retina, mainly because I wanted the larger screen and more performance. Before the Air I had the 13" cMBP 2010 which weighs the same as the 15" Retina and I had no problem carrying it around.

The 15" turned out to be the best Notebook I ever had, but it's size was uncomfortable in the train. Therefore I decided to get the 13" retina. It works very well with the 1440x900 resolution of the 13" air. The only downside is a very small amount of scroll lag (not noticeable in the optimal 1280x800 resolution on my i7 2.9 GHz version) in Word (MS Office 2010, latest patch supports retina screen).

I decided to go for the 13" retina instead of the Air because I got used to the retina screen (iPhone 4, iPad3, 15" retina) and found the Air screen to look much worse (pixels and color). Overall I'm very pleased with the 13" retina and would buy it again without hesitation.