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MacsBestFriend

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 6, 2008
574
0
upstate ny (purgatory)
hey there, going to buy a new mac in the next week and i'm trying to decide on two different setups. i'm a photographer that uses photoshop cs5 almost daily, and use autocad for school a lot. i also need to dualboot win7 for other autodesk apps, as well as a few different programming apps (mainly java). i like to do a little gaming here and there, mainly gta4. i want to know what will be the fastest option, as well as which will have the better resale value in a couple years.

option one is the 2011 Macbook Pro 13" base model, as well as a 500gb g-drive to store my files on. i like the instant on and the portability of the air, and i really don't have a use for the cd drive since i can just file share with the imac. it's also the newest option, but the lack of an hd facetime camera is annoying and i don't know if it will be as fast as the second option.

option two is a 2011 Macbook Pro 13' base model as well, but with a 128 gb ssd and no external drive. this would be the much faster option, but the cd-rom drive is really useless for me and a waste of space. the entire design is going to be replaced next year meaning that it'll lose resale value. plus the screen has a poor resolution, and 128 gb is not enough storage for me at all.

i'll appreciate any input i can get, thanks!
 
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