I just purchased a 13" MBA 256SSD earlier this week to replace my dying 15" MBP from late 2007. Since so many years have passed, the current base 13" MBA is more powerful than my trusty and worn old MBP! The only thing the MBA is lacking is a superdrive and significantly more drive space. I know the space is something I could have pushed higher in the upgrade, but 256GB was expensive enough for me.
I love my machine. I use some heavy duty graphics applications on it (Autodesk Maya, VMWare, Motion Builder, After Effects) and it runs even better than my outdated MBP.
However, as much as I love my MBA, I'm getting "phantom pains" from the quiet knowledge that I no longer have a superdrive! Anyone else experience something that silly before after making the transition? My MBP was my only machine, and often times my only TV/DVD player, over the years as I travel a lot for work. Unless at home (where an external superdrive can do the same thing), I never carried physicals DVDs around with me. So I made the conclusion that I didn't need the superdrive and could get by with a sleek, portable and fast MBA -- and just plug in an external when I want to watch a movie at home.
And yet, even though my MBA has performed BEAUTIFULLY on all necessary applications, I keep fearing I'll hit a wall at some point and wish I had purchased a new MBP. Is that just outdated retoric echoing in my head? Is the performance gap between the MBA and the MBP getting smaller these days? Between the 13" MBA and 13" cMBP, I would say there is almost NO difference. Not to mention the screen on the MBA is amazing and the 13" 1280x800 screen is just too ancient to go back to after having used 1440x900 for years.
I still have my 14-day return window if I just can't handle not having a superdrive built in, but so far so good!
Am I taking a risk having the 13" MBA as my only machine? Take into consideration that a 2007 15" MBP was my only machine for about 6 years. Apologies for the scattered post, sorting out my feelings on a new machine -- not something I settle on easily, like buying a new car for me, haha!
I love my machine. I use some heavy duty graphics applications on it (Autodesk Maya, VMWare, Motion Builder, After Effects) and it runs even better than my outdated MBP.
However, as much as I love my MBA, I'm getting "phantom pains" from the quiet knowledge that I no longer have a superdrive! Anyone else experience something that silly before after making the transition? My MBP was my only machine, and often times my only TV/DVD player, over the years as I travel a lot for work. Unless at home (where an external superdrive can do the same thing), I never carried physicals DVDs around with me. So I made the conclusion that I didn't need the superdrive and could get by with a sleek, portable and fast MBA -- and just plug in an external when I want to watch a movie at home.
And yet, even though my MBA has performed BEAUTIFULLY on all necessary applications, I keep fearing I'll hit a wall at some point and wish I had purchased a new MBP. Is that just outdated retoric echoing in my head? Is the performance gap between the MBA and the MBP getting smaller these days? Between the 13" MBA and 13" cMBP, I would say there is almost NO difference. Not to mention the screen on the MBA is amazing and the 13" 1280x800 screen is just too ancient to go back to after having used 1440x900 for years.
I still have my 14-day return window if I just can't handle not having a superdrive built in, but so far so good!
Am I taking a risk having the 13" MBA as my only machine? Take into consideration that a 2007 15" MBP was my only machine for about 6 years. Apologies for the scattered post, sorting out my feelings on a new machine -- not something I settle on easily, like buying a new car for me, haha!
won't support with an internal drive anyway even if they did keep internal ODDs) on a >40" display (obviously not fitting a subnotebook), where the point is to maximize image quality and size; since I have such a home theater setup I'll use it, but if I didn't I'd not miss it much.