MacBook Air or MacBook Pro

[michael69]

Hello, my 4 year old black MacBook (specs below) is still doing well, apart from the battery being dead, and the laptop sorta falling apart, so I'm looking for a new one. Just doubting whether to get a MacBook Air or a Pro. The 2 choices I'd go for are:

MacBook Pro 13", 2.8Ghz, 4GB Ram
MacBook Air 11", 1.8 Ghz, 4GB Ram

The most important things to me are speed and weight, as I travel a bit. I've looked up the BenchMark values for these 3 Mac's and they are:

My old MacBook: 2928/3272 (32/64 bit)
MacBook Air: 5784/6485
MacBook Pro: 7049/7722

I'm not sure how to read these figures tho. Would that mean the Air is about twice as fast as my old MacBook, and the Pro is another 20% faster? Would the Air be good enough for me? I'm a web developer, and although I do most stuff on my work Mac, I do some crunching on my private Mac. Would the Air be able to handle that?

 

[NutsNGum]

I do the same stuff as you. I can run Apache, Coda and some CS5.5 applications without too much trouble at the same time.

The Air would be perfectly suited to your needs. It's not an ideal sole computer if you're a web dev, but only due to the smallish screen.

If you've got another computer, it's perfect.

 

[michael69]

Thanks! Will still do my work stuff on the other computer, and the CS programs run fine even on my old Mac. I guess the Air will be good enough. I don't care much about disk space (128 Gb is enough) as I have loads of external hard drives, I actually work on a 13" screen which is enough for me, so 11" should be good enough for my private stuff. Weight is a very important thing as I travel much, and speed is important, but I guess the i7 1.8 GHz processor and the fact that it's a Flash drive will be still be a huge improvement to my old Mac?

 

[NikFinn]

Thanks! Will still do my work stuff on the other computer, and the CS programs run fine even on my old Mac. I guess the Air will be good enough. I don't care much about disk space (128 Gb is enough) as I have loads of external hard drives, I actually work on a 13" screen which is enough for me, so 11" should be good enough for my private stuff. Weight is a very important thing as I travel much, and speed is important, but I guess the i7 1.8 GHz processor and the fact that it's a Flash drive will be still be a huge improvement to my old Mac?

I'm not sure what resolution your 13" screen is, but the 11" Air has more pixels per inch than the 13" MBP. Throwing the Air in a backpack, with some other school things, you don't even notice it's there. The SSD will make quite the difference in things like boot times, launching apps and general quickness. I'm sure it will seem/be much quicker for anything that isn't too processor intensive. Even then, it can turboboost to give you a little extra power.

 

[warfed]

I'm a web developer, and although I do most stuff on my work Mac, I do some crunching on my private Mac. Would the Air be able to handle that?

The Air can easily handle that and since you are considering the 13" MBP I would get the the 13" MBA. It has a higher resolution (1440x900) which is much better for developing (as I'm sure you know).

 

[matixryder]

Hello,

I would choose macbook air 13". To my own experience, i5 is more than enough for my daily work, i7 in macbook air only 10% faster than i5, so it doesn't worth the extra money to upgrade. I would consider spend that money into extra ssd space 256gb is the best size to store all the programs that I need. Just my 2 cents.

 

[WarpSpawn]

Space is something I am kind of torn on and one of the main reasons I am still looking at the MBPs as well (that, the price and the black surround for the screen). Even though I should be able to get it for HE prices, the difference between 128 and 256GB is quite a lot, especially if it goes unused. Whichever I go for, I kind of anticipate it becoming my main machine for a lot of tasks, though it does not necessarily follow that i will need to store a lot on it. Part of the problem is that I cannot help having urges to try and make it the games machine it so blatantly is not. If I can get over that, the 128GB might be enough.