There's actually a 20-25% difference between the base 13" MBP's i5 and the processors in the Air in many real world applications. Do you know what 20% means on a 30 minute job? Compounded a couple times throughout the day, 2-3 days per week, 52 weeks per year? Thanks to a very aggressive conditional overclock, the ULV processors in the Air have a knack for reaching beyond their practical ability on a 20 second synthetic benchmark--but they won't be able to sustain that through the extended number crunching typical of a large compile, video encoding, or anything of that sort. Preliminary "real world" benches have already begun to show this.surjavarman said:
And this is how I know that you're clueless. Isn't the Macbook Pro supposedly marketed towards professionals?surjavarman said:
Virtualization has literally transformed the IT and software development communities, especially for those of us who do cross-platform development. Being able to simultaneously test code on OS X, Linux, and Windows is an absolutely fantastic boost to productivity. It's also extraordinarily useful for system administrators and security professionals; it's just about one of the easiest and most effective forms of sandboxing available. I won't even mention the armies of people who benefit from the ability to use Windows software outside the Windows environment. I know plenty of accountants, statisticians and analysts who do just that. If virtual machines were niche products intended for goofy fringe users, then how might you explain the rapid growth of companies such as VMWare and Parallels?
Wifi meets with varying levels of derision in the IT world, because it's unreliable, three-legged-dog slow, and riddled with security issues. Contrary to what you may believe, there's a world outside of Youtube--such as the world that creates the software and technology that you take for granted every day. I'd have to take a holiday if I wanted to upload two gigabytes of data to a client site over a damned wireless connection.surjavarman said:
Now, Apple may ultimately agree with you on one point: the 13" MBP has run the course (and perhaps even the 15" and 17" models with it, at least as we've come to know them). But not because any of your reasoning is correct (in fact, it's almost universally wrong), but because they've demonstrated less and less concern for the developer community with each product launch, and a relatively portable machine with a few essential professional-class features* wouldn't fit into their apparent grand vision of a consumer-oriented iToys utopia.
*I'd buy the 15" model without reservation if I had any intention of using a laptop as my primary machine. But since that day will be long in coming, I like the size and weight of the 13" form factor, I'm unwilling (or even unable) to sacrifice power and certain features on the road, and I don't see the sense in spending $2000 on a computer that will spend most of its time idle in a closet, the 13" MBP with a few choice upgrades strikes an ideal compromise.
