MacBook Air For Digital Art?

[shuffles]

Is it suitable? Would a Cintiq 22HD and Adobe Suite be overkill for a 13" MBA with 8GB ram & 256 SSD?

 

[Matt Leaf]

An rMBP would certainly be a better option, but the MBA would offer you a very portable solution.

 

[RightMACatU]

A lot of people seem to doubt MBA capabilities, probably due to its size (small laptop syndrome I guess 😀). Have no doubts. The MBA has the latest Intel processor and video and with 8GB RAM, the vast majority of us will not reach its limits for years to come.

 

[zObsidian]

I bought 2012 13" Air specifically for running Adobe CS6 and some light 3D modelling work on a portable. With an upgrade to 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD, this runs perfectly fine. I'm using a Wacom Intuos 3.

 

[Titanium81]

Is it suitable? Would a Cintiq 22HD and Adobe Suite be overkill for a 13" MBA with 8GB ram & 256 SSD?

I think some people fail to remember that graphic designers were running all these programs on far slower C2D MBP's just a few years ago. The 2012 MBA is light years ahead of those machines...

 

[thekev]

I think some people fail to remember that graphic designers were running all these programs on far slower C2D MBP's just a few years ago. The 2012 MBA is light years ahead of those machines...

If you were doing a lot of painting at higher resolutions, they lagged like mad. C2D notebooks sucked if you got into higher resolution raster based media. Given the mention of the Cintiq, I'm guessing the OP does some painting or illustration. Even with settings turned down, the era of hardware you described would have still sucked, especially as you were mostly constricted to HDDs at that point and PS was still 32 bit meaning it displaced a lot of data. Now I'd say test the Air. There's still quite a gap, and it's not always about the lightest solution that could possibly run. With older computers you had to be much more careful with brush sizes and things. there was often subtle lag with painting. I would guess it'll probably be fine, but I'd suggest testing one if possible for an extended period of time. I'd want to know how it performs when it's running a bit hotter as things do throttle at times.

 

[Titanium81]

The new Ivy Bridge processors are SWEEEEET!!!! I have yet to throw something at my 2012 MBA, that it could not handle. It's a BEAST of machine. 🙂 Even giving the Mac Pro from a few years ago some competition in the (Benchmark Tests).

 

[lozpop]

I own the latest MacBook Air 13" with 8GB Ram and it's great. I'm a UI designer.

For the record, the Air is my secondary machine. I also have an iMac.

The Air is becoming more and more powerful, it's not like years ago when it was just a great piece of design.