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For photography purposes, air or pro?

A

alejandror91

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 3, 2011
9
0
My sister is about to buy her first mac computer, she wants the 13' pro but I've been trying to convince her to buy the 13' air. She will be using it mostly for storing and editing pictures.

What puts her off of the air is the little storage capacity, however, I think all laptops will have SSDs in a near future, so why not embrace the change already.

What do you guys think? Plus, if she is going to buy it January, taking the product refresh cycles in count, which one is the best option?

(We know there are lots of other threads with this discussion, but we are looking mostly for a vote to base the decision on.)
 
alejandror91 said:
My sister is about to buy her first mac computer, she wants the 13' pro but I've been trying to convince her to buy the 13' air. She will be using it mostly for storing and editing pictures.
Click to expand...

Go of the MBP. The extra HDD space will be needed if she has any appreciable amount of photos.
 
alejandror91 said:
My sister is about to buy her first mac computer, she wants the 13' pro but I've been trying to convince her to buy the 13' air. She will be using it mostly for storing and editing pictures.
Click to expand...

If your sister uses photoshop then the Air is out IMO. Just for the slow processor.

P.S. It's a 13 inch screen... not 13 feet. :)


What puts her off of the air is the little storage capacity, however, I think all laptops will have SSDs in a near future, so why not embrace the change already.
Click to expand...
The problem with your logic is the Air is not user changeable. You're stuck with the drive you bought (and RAM) whereas the MBP's can grow.

we are looking mostly for a vote to base the decision on.
Click to expand...

A vote? You'd let total strangers spend your money?
 
The Pro will be perfect for storing and editing pictures.

- the Air has a higher screen resolution
- some say that the Pro screen has a better screen quality
- the Air costs more with less performance
- 128 GB is a lot of storage, but might not be enough for some
- SSD is awesome
- the Air can't be upgraded to 8 GB RAM

I'm not sure what to recommend here. I wouldn't want to live without a SSD, but you can also put a SSD in the Pro. If weight is not an important factor, I would go with the Pro, since it's more flexible and allows at least some upgrades.
 
I'm starting to get the feeling some people on this forum have no idea what they're talking about.

PhotoShop is not slow on the mba. It's faster than the 2010 mbp ultimate. I guess PhotoShop was unusable back then...

The only thing i would be wary of is the color gamut of the air. It might be exaggerated, but its worth exploring.
 
At some point in the future all laptops probably will have SSDs. Then again, at some point in the future SSDs will be cheaper and have more storage capacity.

For editing a lot of photos, I'd go with the MBP. It's still very portable, and you get the benefit of much more storage space. You can install an SSD by removing the optical drive and using an Optibay, and you get the best of both worlds. Being able to add more RAM and swap out the HDD are huge pluses.
 
Pro... definitely Pro...

At least 8GB of RAM is your best friend, as well as the fact that the cooling is much better in the Pros than the MBA in my opinion. If you're running Photoshop and Lightroom for instance at the same time, editing RAW photos in batches or doing a stitch or two, your computer will definitely be cranking out some good heat.
 
ethics101 said:
I'm starting to get the feeling some people on this forum have no idea what they're talking about.

PhotoShop is not slow on the mba.
Click to expand...

But *why* go there if you don't have to? I'm sure you're referring to the file loading speed of the SSD in the Air vs. the stock HD that comes with the MBP. To that, I agree but the MBP can also use SSD's of just about any kind/size unlike the Air.

Given SSD's in both machines, If you edit 100's of photos at one sitting that puny 1.7ghz CPU in the Air it will take it's toll on your workflow. Noise filters, pixel enhancement filters, rendering... it all takes CPU muscle - the more the better. Especially if using Adobe LightRoom which has to render every full screen preview from a thumbnail.

Been there. Not sure though how serious a photographer the OP's sister is. Like most posts of this nature insufficient background info is given to make conclusive suggestions.
 
alejandror91 said:
Plus, if she is going to buy it January, taking the product refresh cycles in count, which one is the best option?
Click to expand...

You shouldn't encourage her to make the decision based on the product refresh cycle. The decision should be based entirely on what her needs are and what computer best suits those needs.

If your sister is concerned about the amount of storage space on the MacBook Air then maybe a MBP is the better choice for her. I'm not anti-air, they're great machines, but don't try to convince her to buy the computer that YOU want rather than the one that she needs.
 
You could get a 15" with a quad core and a better GPU for the price of the 13" Air. You should definitely get the pro. For photo editing anyone half smart person would know the Air would be a ridiculously stupid choice.
 
I have a crazier suggestion. If she has the budget to spare, go straight to a 15" Pro. The difference is about 1.5" in length, 1" in width, but there is significantly more screen real estate to view photos (15.4" vs 13.3"), significantly more processing power than either the 13" Pro or Air (quad-core vs dual-core), and also discrete graphics for when she decides to do something other than photography, or for when Adobe finally decides to use the GPU for processing rather than for displaying.

If she doesn't have the budget, I'd suggest the 13" Pro, which can randomly go on sale for $999 brand new, about on par with a 11" Air. The screen quality and colors on the 13" Pro is significantly better than on the Air even though the Air has a higher resolution. Also glass is more durable than thin plastic, and the Pro stands up to abuse better than the Air.
 
bill-p said:
The screen quality and colors on the 13" Pro is significantly better than on the Air even though the Air has a higher resolution.
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This.

For photography (especially if you do any editing work), color reproduction is key. The absolute best choice is the 15" with the high res matte screen, but any of the MBP models will significantly trounce any of the Air models in this regard.
 
Another 'vote' to the MBP:
  • HDD
  • RAM (important if she uses photoshop)
  • Upgradable
 
No question, photo editing, Mac Book Pro! Don't do the 13"! Save up for the 15". My Aunt is a professional Photorep agent. She will not use a portable smaller than 15" and recommends the 17" if it needs to be portable, other wise she says get the 27" iMac. If $$$ is the issue, get someone in school to buy it for you -100 to -200$ or get a referb for about the same off maybe a little more. Do NOT order the RAM upgrade, buy the 8 or 16gb from a third party.

My experience is this. I shoot in RAW and the files have so many pixels that if I zoom to 100% I can only see the face of the person that is sitting on the train going through the country side. To view the entire picture on my 13" Mac Book the zoom factor is set to 16.5%. And unless you have eagle vision, any changes that you make is extremely difficult to get a feel for the whole picture compensation. Maybe you can work on the detail, and then zoom out to full pic to see that edit did not work for the whole flow of the pic.

I will be getting my fist MBP next summer for three main reasons. 1. maybe form factor change (I am hoping for Carbon fiber casing) removal of OD and making it a SSD spin drive combo. 2. Ivy Bridge tri gate 22nm processor. and 3 that's when I'll have the $$$ and I will be back in the states saving me more than $700 USD compared to buying in China (I am a teacher -200$ and 500 in China VAT) I might even send it to my father in Alaska and have him ship it to me. (no state sales tax)
 
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I'd agree that greater storage capacity is important. I'm conscious of my MBA's limitations. Whether to go for the Air or Pro should also take into account how mobile you want to be. The MBA is insanely light and frankly you don't really notice it in your bag. The 13" MBP is heavier but still portable. The 15" is nearly twice the weight of the 13" MBA and that's noticeable. the screen real estate is useful though. I'm considering an iMac for heavy editing.

Yes there's talk of an MBA-esque 15" laptop but whether that's an option depends on the Timescales.

Given that the 13" MBA is about the same power as the 2010 MBP and do really isn't much of an issue, the real choice comes down to the need for storage capacity and portability.
 
I was a photography student for a while and really preferred a Desktop PC for photo editing. Screen space and a good mouse or tablet were vital to good PC editing. A touchpad just doesn't work well for a lot of tasks in Photoshop. I had no issues using 4GB of RAM in Photoshop or Lightroom when using RAW image files and crappy dual core @ 2.0ghz on a Vista PC. It's really not that bad.

My recommendation is that she gets what she wants because she will be on it a good deal. No smaller than 15" period... It is uncomfortable. If she goes smaller she needs an external display of good quality. The display is VITAL to photography.

SD card reader is important. It makes life easier.

The 15" MBP is a great all around Photography machine.
 
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