MacBook Air? Or MacBook Pro? HELP!!!!!

[imjoee]

If you're reading this then please finish because it's a big deal to me which computer i spend all my money on! I was looking at the MacBook air 13" 128gb for 1149$ after studen discount. I love the thinness and the look of the machine. I really want it. The other MacBook is the Pro 13" 500gb 1099$ after student discount! I would be installing photoshop, final cut pro and iWork. ONLY. I also want mountain lion in so I was wondering which one I should get. I love to watch movies, searching the web is a huge one!!!, editing photos in photoshop(not to advanced), and maybe making a little videos in final cut pro, but if I need more room I would delete the videos. I also love to have all my iphone photos stored and my iTunes all on my Mac. PLEASE CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHICH ONE I SHOULD GET!!! HELPP!!!!!!

 

[RocketRed]

Macbook Air's can run Photoshop just fine.

It all boils down to the weight. How often would you take your notebook outside the home?

 

[imjoee]

Thanks for responding! I probably wouldn't take it out. But I love the thinness of it. I'm just worried if I would run out of space. I don't care of I have to get an external HD, I'll still enjoy the style of the air. I feel the pro will become outdated because its so thick.

 

[ChancyJohn]

128GB feels too little ... if its going to be your main Mac

Music + Photos + Vids + Apps

Note - If you plan to run windows (latter) on BootCamp - 128 won't be enough as you d put at least 30 Gig ... windows -> if you want to play some old games

But then again - MBA looks really neat ... no chance of the 256GB MBA??? => Perfect

 

[palpatine]

If you are willing to rethink your approach, then the MBA is the way to go. Put everything on a combination of Google Drive and Dropbox, and use external drives as needed, and you take away the need for the large storage. The MBP will be better for all sorts of things, but you're going to have to lug it around all day, every day, so I guess it is up to you whether it is worth it.

As someone who just moved from the 13" MBP to the 11" MBA I can say that the 13" display is gorgeous, even though it has lower resolution. However, it is an outdated display, and no matter how nice it looks, I just prefer to have more portability. Get a monitor and hook it up at home if you want to watch movies.

 

[imjoee]

128GB feels too little ... if its going to be your main Mac

Music + Photos + Vids + Apps

Note - If you plan to run windows (latter) on BootCamp - 128 won't be enough as you d put at least 30 Gig ... windows -> if you want to play some old games

But then again - MBA looks really neat ... no chance of the 256GB MBA??? => Perfect

I don't think I would run windows. Only iWork. I hope that doesn't take a lot up.

----------

If you are willing to rethink your approach, then the MBA is the way to go. Put everything on a combination of Google Drive and Dropbox, and use external drives as needed, and you take away the need for the large storage. The MBP will be better for all sorts of things, but you're going to have to lug it around all day, every day, so I guess it is up to you whether it is worth it.

As someone who just moved from the 13" MBP to the 11" MBA I can say that the 13" display is gorgeous, even though it has lower resolution. However, it is an outdated display, and no matter how nice it looks, I just prefer to have more portability. Get a monitor and hook it up at home if you want to watch movies.

I'm actually using it as my main computer. I probably won't bring it out of the house. Maybe Idk. I just love the Air because the weight and design. I love th pro because of space but I will only download photoshop, FCPx and iWork. Softwares like mountain lion.

 

[dkersten]

There are a couple options could you go for...

1) Get a MacBook Air 13in and store media and other things on a network drive or portable/desktop external HDD or,

2) Get a Pro and possibly get an external HDD if needed with the larger HDD.

However you stated that you probably wouldn't take it out of the house much so I would go with the Pro. You get more bang for your buck that way. And if the lower res screen on the Pro is what is holding you back... just get an external monitor. And honestly, the 13in Pro is quite portable as it is so if you ever do need to bring it out of the house, its not like dragging a huge 15in Windows laptop around

 

[imjoee]

Understandable but I really love the way the air looks. The air is actually 50$ more dollars for 400 leads GB that's what is holding me back

 

[ohenriquez]

Go for the Macbook Air

Get the MBA
I did switch from Macbook Pro to MBA and I have never looked back, I have fotoshop plus other software such ABBYY, also Desktop parallels with windows 7, etc and I dont have problems with performance. I have more than 1 TB of videos in Livedrive, so 128 GB is sufficient for my needs. If I were you I would get the MAC of my preference and this would be the MBA. These days the MBA are capable and fast devices. In my opinion, no other laptop can excel the beauty and design of a MBA. The question is 11' vs 13' I had 13' and switched to 11' and I am very happy with it, but it is just my preference, in my eyes the 13' one looks gigantic when compared with the 11' and in reality you dont loose much screen space, there are several threads about this and at the end of the day is a matter of personal preference.

 

[Liquinn]

I'd get the fat 13" or 15" Pro since you can always upgrade the RAM/HDD down the road.

 

[imjoee]

Get the MBA
I did switch from Macbook Pro to MBA and I have never looked back, I have fotoshop plus other software such ABBYY, also Desktop parallels with windows 7, etc and I dont have problems with performance. I have more than 1 TB of videos in Livedrive, so 128 GB is sufficient for my needs. If I were you I would get the MAC of my preference and this would be the MBA. These days the MBA are capable and fast devices. In my opinion, no other laptop can excel the beauty and design of a MBA. The question is 11' vs 13' I had 13' and switched to 11' and I am very happy with it, but it is just my preference, in my eyes the 13' one looks gigantic when compared with the 11' and in reality you dont loose much screen space, there are several threads about this and at the end of the day is a matter of personal preference.

Thanks for responding! Ya I might go with the pro, I just hope it's worth the 50$ more

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I'd get the fat 13" or 15" Pro since you can always upgrade the RAM/HDD down the road.

Do you think an external HDD would be to much

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Honestly, I would recommend the mba over the mbp to just about anyone. The fat, spinning harddrive weilding, optical drive packing 13" mbp is quickly becoming outdated technology. I'm going to be buying a new laptop soon myself and I realized a few months ago that I wouldn't buy another computer again without SSD. Sure it's not that big of a deal now, but I plan on keeping my next computer for 5-6 years. SSD lasts longer, runs cooler, is thinner, faster... it's basically the future.

Don't think about the computer you need at the moment. Look at it as your investment for the next 5 years. MBA is significantly lighter and thinner. It has a better display. And it has SSD.

The perks of the mbp are the extra 372GB and it has an optical drive. If you think you will really need all that extra storage without the hassle of needing an external hard drive. Or if you will use the optical drive a lot. Then maybe the mbp is for you.

As for me? My macbook that I've had for 5 years has under 100GB used, plus I anticipate a lot of storage space mitigated in the future with iCloud, iTunes match, DropBox, etc. So for me, I'm deciding if I should pounce on the MBA now, or wait it out one more refresh to get the next MBA or the retina 13" mbp (which surely will be released within a year).

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Do you think an external HDD would be to much

you can get a 500gb, usb3 enabled, external HDD for about $70.

 

[imjoee]

Wow thank you for the long examples why I should get the MacBook air! And is the SSD slot the thing on the 13" air on the right side of the computer? I'm not defiantly getting the air. I hope it lasts me a couple of year!

 

[glenb2]

I got the base MBA and love it.

Couple things that informed my decision

Size/Weight. The 13" MBP/MBA models are the most popular because of their excellent size/performance balance. 15" computers are becoming a rather niche product as most people never need discrete graphics or quad core processing. The rMBP is lighter, but it is still feels like a MBP vs close to a MBA

Price $1199. I doubt most people will truly see $1000 worth of real world value between these the two.

Speed.
The rMBP is only 74% faster computationally than the base MBA under CPU load. This is significant, but will only be realized in CPU intensive very specific tasks. Graphically the rMBP is a beast, but again this only realized in GPU intensive tasks.

SSD. Both offer fast SSDs

Memory. Both offer up to 8GB. Few people need 16GB or 8GB for that matter. When the MBA came out, the base 11" only had 2GB of RAM. Not much, but was doable then (Core2Duo days) with the same OS, and now 4GB is standard across the bored with Ivy Bridge speeds. This is enough for Mail, iCal, Web, iTunes, and Office simultaneously. OSX/Core i-series handles memory very well

Retina. Non-optimized apps (most) are scaled to look like 1440x900, the native size of the MBA and non-rMBP, which lowers image quality. I don't think anyone is missing much until apps are updated. Even then I think photo/video apps would benefit more than anything. The Retina display on the iPad was met with similar feedback. I think the same will happen here. MBA is already hi-res due to the overall screen size.

Facetime. Both have HD cameras

Upgradeability. NEITHER are upgradeable (Practically)

USB 3. Both have

Thunderbolt. Both have

SD. Both have

Intel HD 4000. The graphical performance/power savings of the new IGP will primarily be realized in the MBA, as the rMBP will surely switch to the 650 every chance it gets. I recall my old MBP switching to discrete when running Chrome...

Really nice alternates. $1300 15" quad core Sandy Bridge refurb + $300 256GB Samsung 830 SSD + $100 8GB RAM = $1700. $500 less with 85% of the rMBP, while maintaining upgradeability.

 

[imjoee]

I got the base MBA and love it.

Couple things that informed my decision

Size/Weight. The 13" MBP/MBA models are the most popular because of their excellent size/performance balance. 15" computers are becoming a rather niche product as most people never need discrete graphics or quad core processing. The rMBP is lighter, but it is still feels like a MBP vs close to a MBA

Price $1199. I doubt most people will truly see $1000 worth of real world value between these the two.

Speed.
The rMBP is only 74% faster computationally than the base MBA under CPU load. This is significant, but will only be realized in CPU intensive very specific tasks. Graphically the rMBP is a beast, but again this only realized in GPU intensive tasks.

SSD. Both offer fast SSDs

Memory. Both offer up to 8GB. Few people need 16GB or 8GB for that matter. When the MBA came out, the base 11" only had 2GB of RAM. Not much, but was doable then (Core2Duo days) with the same OS, and now 4GB is standard across the bored with Ivy Bridge speeds. This is enough for Mail, iCal, Web, iTunes, and Office simultaneously. OSX/Core i-series handles memory very well

Retina. Non-optimized apps (most) are scaled to look like 1440x900, the native size of the MBA and non-rMBP, which lowers image quality. I don't think anyone is missing much until apps are updated. Even then I think photo/video apps would benefit more than anything. The Retina display on the iPad was met with similar feedback. I think the same will happen here. MBA is already hi-res due to the overall screen size.

Facetime. Both have HD cameras

Upgradeability. NEITHER are upgradeable (Practically)

USB 3. Both have

Thunderbolt. Both have

SD. Both have

Intel HD 4000. The graphical performance/power savings of the new IGP will primarily be realized in the MBA, as the rMBP will surely switch to the 650 every chance it gets. I recall my old MBP switching to discrete when running Chrome...

Really nice alternates. $1300 15" quad core Sandy Bridge refurb + $300 256GB Samsung 830 SSD + $100 8GB RAM = $1700. $500 less with 85% of the rMBP, while maintaining upgradeability.

Wow thank you very much for the reasonings! I'm defiantly going with the air. Do you know why for the student discount the air and the pro are both 1199$ but the discount only takes 50$ off the air and 100$ off the pro. The air is an incredible machine and I wish to own one this summer! Thanks for the amazing response!!!!

 

[jbouklas]

Wow thank you very much for the reasonings! I'm defiantly going with the air. Do you know why for the student discount the air and the pro are both 1199$ but the discount only takes 50$ off the air and 100$ off the pro. The air is an incredible machine and I wish to own one this summer! Thanks for the amazing response!!!!

Definitely the right choice. I have the 13" MBP (Core2 model, bought it just over two years ago), can't wait to replace it with the 13" Air. The form factor leaves a lot to be desired on the MBP (notwithstanding the new 15" retina model). My laptop feels like a bag of bricks compared with my wife's 11" Air or with my brother's 13" Air, and the edges are too sharp to be comfortable, which isn't a problem with the Air. Honestly, if the 13" MBP had discrete graphics, then that might push me over the edge, but if I have to endure the Intel integrated graphics, then for almost the same exact money, the Air is the better purchase.