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Mac Book Air (13 retina) Vs Mac Book Pro (13 retina)

L

leehong888222

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 8, 2012
9
0
Hey guys,

What the title suggest i suppose. If there was to be Mac Book Air 13 inch and Mac Book Pro 13 inch (slimed down just like the 2012 15 inch macbook pros); both with retina display. Which one would be the better option? Disregarding using it as a main rig (i have one for that purpose), but for typing up docos?

Both of them will have soldered SSD + Ram, integrated graphics. So the only difference here would be the CPU speed + thickness. Being MacBook air a tad thiner than the MacBook Pro 13. Maybe battery as well:confused:?

If apple decides to give the green light to both of these products. It is asking for trouble since they are both so alike.

Any repsonce will be appreciated :D
 
Macbook-Air Retina is technically not possible, cause there is no way to store a common battery that has enough energy capacity for a retina resolution in such a small case.
 
Hm...

interesting... i dont think the integrated graphics would be sufficient to push the resolution of the screen. If it does, it would use alot of GPU juice?
 
There's not much difference now between the 13" MBA and 13" MBP, that I think if another model gets the retina display, it will be the MBP not the MBA.
 
Sahee said:
Macbook-Air Retina is technically not possible, cause there is no way to store a common battery that has enough energy capacity for a retina resolution in such a small case.
Click to expand...

It is technically possible. The new iPad is very thin and has a retina display - it is only slightly heavier than the previous iPad. The new MacBook Pro has a retina display and it is slimmer than the previous generation (it is also lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro despite having a larger display and a dedicated graphics card). The Asus Zenbook Prime is as slim as a MacBook Air and has a 1920x1080 IPS display - which is not retina, but not very far from it either. And the Sony Vaio Z is lighter than a 11" MacBook Air and has a 1920x1080 13" display and a standard voltage processor. So, it should be possible to have a retina display in a MacBook Air.

----------
maflynn said:
There's not much difference now between the 13" MBA and 13" MBP, that I think if another model gets the retina display, it will be the MBP not the MBA.
Click to expand...

If I had to bet, I would say that Apple will discontinue the 13-inch Pro in favor of the 13-inch Air or merge them both in a single line of laptops. If the 13-inch Pro follows the 15-inch Pro, it will lose the optical disk drive, the Ethernet port, it will become thinner and lighter and get an SSD instead of an HD. It would be nearly identical to the 13-inch Air, except for the standard voltage processor. I don't think it makes sense for Apple to keep two lines of laptops which are so similar.
 
leehong888222 said:
interesting... i dont think the integrated graphics would be sufficient to push the resolution of the screen. If it does, it would use alot of GPU juice?
Click to expand...

The intel IGP quite happily drives the RMBP 15" retina resolution, why do you think it will have more problems with smaller resolutions? The HD 4000 has plenty of fillrate to do basic UI compositing. Its more demanding 3D stuff it will be having problems with (much higher fillrate and per-texel processing requirenments).
 
The rMBA is not going to exist for awhile. I think the 13 inch Retina will come soon. It will make the gap between the Air and Pro bigger, and finally finish the line of the "next generation" MacBook Pros
 
I have no idea at the moment how Apple would plan on making a 13" MBPR without seriously damaging the battery life (think max 5 hours). Several pieces of the MBPR had to be soldered to the board Just to make enough room for all the components. It's hard to even see how they'd be able to cut a fan considering the constant GPU/CPU requirements to keep the system running "cool" (read: 100F).
 
I'd love to see a retina with a smaller form factor than the 15.4,
but I'm not sure we will for some time.

Think, you'll have go 15.4 and pay 2K plus for a couple generations I'd bet.

How many other companies can sell 15" laptops for $2-3K in volume like the rMBP is selling...
 
I don't think we will see a Retina MBA 13", but we will probably see a Retina MBP 13" soon.

However, I have 3 concerns about the Retina MBP 13".

  • It's probably going to be 2560x1600, so it's going to be just a glorified 1280x800 (the same low screen real state).
  • Is the HD4000 enough for a smooth ultra-high resolution performance? At the end of the day, the rMBP 15" has a dedicated GPU, but the rMBP 13" wouldnt have it (no, don't day-dream: it just wont have it).
  • How will they manage to not hurt battery life? There's not much space in a thinned out 13" for a larger battery...

For all those reasons, I will still choose the MBA 13" over any rMBP 13".
 
WOW.. thanks for all the replies! Really Really appreciated it. I personally don't think retina displays dont matter that much if you are viewing on a larger screen and at a distance. Since Iphones and Ipads are interactive and mostly viewing them as close distance (bad for the eyes i know :eek:), that is when the retina display really shines.

However i really do hope that the Mac Book Airs have a slimmer bezzel. Kinda like a "edge to edge" kinda feel. Like the Dell XPS 13. :p
 
leehong888222 said:
What the title suggest i suppose. If there was to be Mac Book Air 13 inch and Mac Book Pro 13 inch (slimed down just like the 2012 15 inch macbook pros); both with retina display. Which one would be the better option? Disregarding using it as a main rig (i have one for that purpose), but for typing up docos?
Click to expand...

I don't think it's unreasonable to guess that next July we will see an all new rMBP 13" with retina display, sacrifice the OD for more battery with the new lower-power-consumption Haswell architecture and better IGP.
 
I am expecting that they will kill off the MBP13 and MBP15 very soon. I am hoping that the MBA lineup is going to switch to ARM cpu's accompanied with the retina display and OS X for ARM. They are going to keep the current rMBP15, keep the intel architecture for the pro's and hone the design. They might possible also add a rMBA15 with ARM to the MBA lineup.

Lo-Res screens, intel MBA11, intel MBA13, MBP13, MBP15 are things of the past now.
 
I doubt we will see a retina display Air for several years. Besides the technical limitations, Apple wants the Air to be the main entry level Macbook. They keep making it a better value for the money, and this year they even dropped the price on most models by $100.

I think it's pretty clear that they want it to take the place that used to be occupied by the 13" plastic Macbook and now the 13" MBP.
 
Stetrain said:
I doubt we will see a retina display Air for several years. Besides the technical limitations, Apple wants the Air to be the main entry level Macbook. They keep making it a better value for the money, and this year they even dropped the price on most models by $100.

I think it's pretty clear that they want it to take the place that used to be occupied by the 13" plastic Macbook and now the 13" MBP.
Click to expand...

I'd have to agree. Apple needs a couple "low" priced MacBooks.
 
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