Is an Air right for me or should I go 13in Pro?

A

atMac

macrumors 6502
I'm looking for a new notebook as my 15in is work owned I'm looking to get my own.

Most of what I do is:
Email
Safari
Torrenting
Usenet
World of Warcraft raiding
StarCraft II
Instant Messaging
Netflix

I'm looking at either a loaded 11in or base 13in with 4GB or RAM

Will these do fine for what i need or would the gaming be better with the 13in MBP better CPU?
 
The GPU will be the primary limitation, since they have the same GPU, I'd go for the air. It feels like what a laptop should be.
If you want a better GPU, you need the 15" Pro.
 
Air.

On the MBA13i7-1.8 SC-II will run about 14fps on average. 18fps when things are calm and 11fps when the zerg come bearing down lol
 
If you are used to ultra settings 60fps raiding in Wow, you won't be happy with either the Pro or Air. However, it does play the game just fine with lower expectations.

The only reason to choose the Pro over Air is if you need a lot of disk space or maybe 8 gigs of memory. "torrenting" might qualify for the disk space requirement. Nothing in your list requires 8gigs memory.
 
Get the Air. The SSD drive is a huge upgrade and I like the high res screen. It made the move down from a 15" pro easier.

I use similar low intensity apps and game a bit. Nothing serious though. ("Old" man rant: When I gamed more it was back in the G4 days, so I'm used to low settings and playing older titles. At least now I don't have to pay full price for a mac ports of a five year old games.)
 
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Lock said:
Get the Air. The SSD drive is a huge upgrade and I like the high res screen. It made the move down from a 15" pro easier.
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I moved from 17" to 13" MBA. I can't believe how light it is. I'm used to the screen, and I love the real estate for those rare occasions where I go back to the monster. It feels big again!
 
atMac said:
Well long as I don't get terrible lag in PvP and 10 man raids I'll be good.
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If I knew what this meant, I might be able to help you. :rolleyes: I don't think it's a good idea to game on an Air. Mine gets so hot just from a few YouTube videos, and the fans go crazy. It's the i7 model.
 
Oh, one other thing: I have my old mbp serving media to a tv and my partner's iMac in her office for heavy lifting. With the i5 processor the Air is now a full fledged computer, but I still use physical media and I couldn't justify the HD upgrade which would allow me to keep my iTunes on it.
 
atMac said:
Well long as I don't get terrible lag in PvP and 10 man raids I'll be good.
Click to expand...

Pro. 13 inch would be ~1168 after taxes (with student ID) which comes out to around the same as a loaded 11 inch. Plus you'd have the ability to upgrade it (RAM/HD) in the future, or just put your own SSD in there when they go down in price this holiday season.
 
That was my dilemma. Look at MacRumors' Buyer's Guider. If you buy the Pro now, you gonna regret it, new one gonna come out in a few months. As with the Air, which just came out, you got almost year before next update.

By the way, you are asking this on an MB Air forum. Your result will go toward the Air, I've been able to tell the result before you post the question. The real question is, will be convinced with these answers, did the answers resolve your needs?
 
kulimer is right. You're asking this at the MBA forum so most of us will say get Air. I just upgraded from 2008 15" MBP to 13" MBA last week because of portability and battery life to use it in class. Goodluck finding what you want.
 
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I have an 11" Air for my personal computer, and have a 13" Macbook Pro and a 27" iMac with Thunderbolt display from work.

If not doing photo production, which computer am I most frequently using?

Macbook Air, without a doubt. It's just so convenient and perfect for a laptop. Even teaching in class, I could use the 13" Pro, but I still find myself using the Air instead for demos.
 
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