Drawing artist/student confused by choices

[Elsbeth]

Hello,

I'd like to start by saying that, I'm not that fluent in English, so bare with me.

I have a dilemma, because both choices are good things to consider having. Mainly MBA and rMBP. The thing is I'm mostly going to do drawing/business stuff on the notebook. Using Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and of course some drawing programs, like Black Ink for example. Not to forget as I'm still a student, I will be using Office or maybe try to use iWork. And also quite gamer at heart, but not that much haha) Could use a game like mmorpg or moba.

Do I need 8 GB of RAM or 4 Gb will suit me? That retina display really catches my eye for drawing purposes or will MBA do just fine? Battery life is fine, I guess. So that's not much of a deal. Oh right. Both have 13 inch.

I'm quite at a loss, as I never used Macs before. So please help me with that choice.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

 

[Samuelsan2001]

First make sure all apps you need are available on mac

As the title says make sure all apps needed are mac friendly or you will need to bootcamp windows to use them. This might make a windows laptop a better choice for you...

Second if you want to game it will have to be pretty casual on the 13 inch the integrated graphics on the rMBP are the best intel have ever produced but this is no gaming laptop and modern games at high res with all effects turned o0n just isn't going to happen a bit of WOW or something similar should be fine though.

Thirdly the rMBP is a better laptop all round for a relatively small increase in price, as an artist the connectivity for drawing tablets and external monitors will be a must for you i think as well as the SD card slot for images and photos. The screen is amazing and fantastic for your art stuff more importantly as a student the text is just brilliant on it...

lastly 8gb will be good if you like to keep your apps open or things running in the background and your workload will need a 256gb ssd minimum from what you describe.

I would avoid the air unless you desperately need that long long battery life the screen is a bit disappointing and the connectivity limits what you can plug into it...

 

[Elsbeth]

Thanks, I do plan on using boot camp for special needs. Just so not all programs have Mac friendly 😛 And as for games, yea. Mostly casual stuff. Like WoW,FFXIV or Dota 2. Certainly not any high end games 🙂 So rMBP is better option all around? What about portability? Not that I plan to carry notebook far far away. Although it's nice when it's not too heavy to carry. While I'm not that tech pro, will be video card sufficient for my needs?

Thanks again, Samuelsan2001 for your quick response 🙂

 

[Samuelsan2001]

rMBP a better option currently

Thanks, I do plan on using boot camp for special needs. Just so not all programs have Mac friendly 😛 And as for games, yea. Mostly casual stuff. Like WoW,FFXIV or Dota 2. Certainly not any high end games 🙂 So rMBP is better option all around? What about portability? Not that I plan to carry notebook far far away. Although it's nice when it's not too heavy to carry. While I'm not that tech pro, will be video card sufficient for my needs?

Thanks again, Samuelsan2001 for your quick response 🙂

Yeah I think the rMBP is the best current small light laptop around, it is only 250grams heavier than the air and is actually slightly smaller in size length and breadth wise than the air.

As for the video card it is as good as it gets without going for a gaming laptop or the 15 inch macbook pro, none of the thin light laptops come with dedicated graphics with the possible exception of the razer blade 14 inch.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Razer-4702H...qid=1417519484&sr=8-3&keywords=razer+blade+14

However they are prohibitively expensive.

 

[Meister]

As the title says make sure all apps needed are mac friendly or you will need to bootcamp windows to use them. This might make a windows laptop a better choice for you...

Second if you want to game it will have to be pretty casual on the 13 inch the integrated graphics on the rMBP are the best intel have ever produced but this is no gaming laptop and modern games at high res with all effects turned o0n just isn't going to happen a bit of WOW or something similar should be fine though.

Thirdly the rMBP is a better laptop all round for a relatively small increase in price, as an artist the connectivity for drawing tablets and external monitors will be a must for you i think as well as the SD card slot for images and photos. The screen is amazing and fantastic for your art stuff more importantly as a student the text is just brilliant on it...

lastly 8gb will be good if you like to keep your apps open or things running in the background and your workload will need a 256gb ssd minimum from what you describe.

I would avoid the air unless you desperately need that long long battery life the screen is a bit disappointing and the connectivity limits what you can plug into it...

While I think the air is a great laptop, I have to agree with you.
For the use the OP is describing 8gb RAM and a 256gb ssd are recommended.
The retina screen will be a pleasure to use, so I am going to recommend the mid rmbp 2.6/8/256.