MacBook Purchase Advice

First, you should wait to see what Apple does when they announce their new computers in 6 days at WWDC. Second, I would go for a new model if you can due to future proofing and the fact that it will be relevant (software wise) longer. I recommend the 13" Air unless you really need a CD drive because they are light, fast and pretty powerful.

 

Right but it does have a much faster storage system (SSD vs HDD). What I do is make a chart with both models, and give them numbers for all criteria out of one (for example,in the weight category the MBA gets a 1 and the MBP gets 0.67). Include storage amount, speed, CPU,GPU, price, upgradeabiloty etc.Then weigh important categories,like battery life for me. Whichever one gets the most points is the technical winner, but it is still up to you.

 

Only one way to find out. However,the expected gains are in battery life and graphics performance,so if Apple could pull off a 10 hour battery in the MBA,that might be a reason to go new model.

 

We'll see what comes monday, but since you seem to be a student (so student discount) i'd say 13" air (consider 8gb of ram as well).

The 13" MacBook Pro is good, but unless you really need the optical drive or really want to not spend as much due to budgetary constraints I'd say Air.

If you can I would also suggest to go into a store and use each, see how fast they are at loading up apps and compare their weights.

I'd also look at refurb ones if you find newer ones too high priced, but often recent refurbs aren't as good a price as new ones with that juicy education discount! I'd say definitely don't get something as old as a 2010 White MacBook though.

 

What abort a refurb air? The price of those will probably drop on Monday.

 

Wait until next week, then go for the cheapest 13 inch Macbook Pro. Advantages over the air include; better battery life, larger screen, upgradable memory and hard drive, faster graphics, better screen (color reproduction).

 

He is debating 13" Air or 13" Pro. Most of those don't apply.

 

non-retina 13' Pro has:

Superior battery life
Superior screen
Easier to upgrade
optical drive
larger built in HD
higher Geekbench and Xbench scores

Well, if that stuff is important anyway.

 

It does not have a superior battery life. Check out Anandtech's review.

 

If you want the student opinion, get the 13" non-retina MBP. Mine from 2009 has held up reasonably well through college. Since you can always upgrade the RAM and the hard drive later, it should certainly last you a few years. As a student you don't really need retina. MBAs are certainly portable, but I question how sturdy they are. At $999 with the student discount the cMBP is an extremely good deal for any Apple computer. And you can always wait to see what happens Monday with refurbs and previous year models. If you have a college or university near you that sells Macs on campus, they should be running some good bundle deals.