Macbook Pro or AIr

[Tech198]

Hi all..

Thinking of buying either a Macbook Pro (Mid-2012) or the 13' Air (8gig Ram etc). My decision, however, has not been easy.


I use Parallels, sometimes multiple virtual machine at once (hence the 8 Gig), but thats about it... General web browsing/email on the mac is all light stuff. However, my biggest concern is not the display, and probably not storage either as external HD can be ok. WIll the 13' Aire comforbatly be able to handle these ? Or should I get the 15' Pro for "future-proof" ? As the Air is kind of "get it now and live with it"


However, I have no idea what i will be using it for in the next year or so, so that may limit me with the Air.


Suggestions ?

 

[Matthew Yohe]

What operating systems do you run? (ie. How much RAM are you giving the guest OS?)

That I think would be the differentiator for you, how much RAM you are going to require based on how much you use in VMs.

 

[Tech198]

What operating systems do you run? (ie. How much RAM are you giving the guest OS?)

Windows 7 mostly, but maybie Windows XP Pro as well for legacy stuff

2 Gig for Windows 7, and 1 Gig for Windows XP.

 

[Matthew Yohe]

When you said "sometimes multiple virtual machine at once" did you mean both running at the same time? If not, then you should be more than fine with 8GB of RAM.

 

[Tech198]

..

ok.. sorry... ya i meant multiple VM's running at the same time...

 

[WesCole]

ok.. sorry... ya i meant multiple VM's running at the same time...

Well, I know on my Air that when I have a few programs open in OS X and my W7 & Linux VMs up via Parallels, it get a little tight on the available memory (I allocate 2GB to W7 and 1GB to Linux). I generally have Safari (with a few tabs open), Eclipse Java IDE, iTunes, Mail, Calendar, and several Finder windows open in OS X.

Even though the available memory gets low sometimes, I rarely see a slow down since the SSD of the Air is much faster when it needs to page out than a HDD.

I would guess I generally have ~400MB of free memory and ~500MB of inactive (read: free) memory at most times running this setup, so at least you can compare your usage with mine and see what you think.