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MBP 13 2011 for MBA 13 2011. Have you done this replacing?

F

fsmorelli

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 24, 2011
35
0
I'm think of replacing my a MBP 13 i5 2011 for a MBA 13 i5 2011.
I know about the differences in technical specifications. But I would like to hear from people who made this replacing what are the differences in the uses on the screen, resolution, keyboard, performance, and so on.
Is the replacing worth it?

Sorry about my english. Cheers!
 
Sounds like you answered your own question, but I am current in this process of swapping from a 2011 13" MBP to a 2011 13" MBA. So far, so good, although I was a bit spoiled with my MBP as I had upgraded to 8GB and a 160GB SSD. The Air does not perform quite as fast, but damn near. And the screen is an improvement.
 
technopimp, thank you for your answer... let me explain me better

I know the difference in numbers, but I wonder how they apply in everyday use. Can you go futher about the speed and de screen, please?

cheers
 
I just recently switched from the base 13 inch MBP to the base 13 inch Air, and so far I love it. The Air seems faster because of the SSD, and I never really did anything to push the Pro. The keyboard feels great, except for the top part of the space bar in unresponsive, I have to press lower on it, so I find myself not having a space while typing from time to time. The screen is amazing and much better than the MBP, and I also like the resolution and the size of everything, makes it feel like you have more screen real estate than you actually do. As well doesn't get nearly as hot as the MBP. Overall, I like it a lot more and I'm happy I made the switch.
 
pezasied182, thank you for your answer. But i'm confused about the screen.

I saw this in the AppleInseider Review: "The full sized model also provides an extra pound and a half of weight, a significantly lower resolution display, and a machine that's nearly twice as thick, but only $100 less than the 13 inch Air (with its somewhat less alluring TN LCD display)."

I understood that the MBA's screen is worse then Pro's.

However you wrote the oposite. could you explain more about the screen? the quality? which is more vivid, crisp, bright? or are the same?
and about the resolution? is the higher resolution better?
 
fsmorelli said:
pezasied182, thank you for your answer. But i'm confused about the screen.

I saw this in the AppleInseider Review: "The full sized model also provides an extra pound and a half of weight, a significantly lower resolution display, and a machine that's nearly twice as thick, but only $100 less than the 13 inch Air (with its somewhat less alluring TN LCD display)."

I understood that the MBA's screen is worse then Pro's.

However you wrote the oposite. could you explain more about the screen? the quality? which is more vivid, crisp, bright? or are the same?
and about the resolution? is the higher resolution better?
Click to expand...

The MBA's screen is much nicer imo. Its probably a bit more crisp than the MBP but its resolution is higher, which is better as it means you have more space on the screen. They're both physically 13 inch screens but the MBA will have a bigger desktop, etc. In terms of brightness, both are really bright so there's no issue there.
 
I was in the same position, have a 2011 pro 13" i5 with a vertex 3 SSD.

Was looking to get the new air so took my PRO to the apple store with me to compare with the stores MBA i5 13" and these are my points to note:

MBP has a better screen (slightly lower res), in that i mean the colours, blacks and whites are much better on the PRO. Also with the PRO you dont get the poor backlight distribution around the bottom and the sides of the screen like you do on the AIRs (the whites have a dark patch around these parts and looks rubbish compared to the PRO)


MBP with vertex SSD is much quicker than the AIRs ssd (mine does around 470mb/s transfer compared to 210ish from the AIR), this is noticible when opening large photoshop images and zipping/unzipping large files.


MBP battery life with SSD is better than the AIRs (7 hours quoted for 13" PRO with HDD and since SSDs use less power you get more power.) I get around 8.5 - 9 hours from my PRO with WI-FI, Bluetooth, backlit keyboard and screen backlight around just under half.


I ran some youtube videos on the store's AIR and my PRO and the fan kicked in quicker on the AIR and was louder than my PRO.


Lions Full screen animations seemed jerkier on the AIR compared to the PRO but that may be just me.


AIR seemed better to type on in that your wrists sat better on the body of the laptop with it being a tapered wedge.



AIR is lighter but in my opinion not by that much (since my PRO has an SSD which are lighter than 2.5" hdds).


AIR looks better as a unit (but still prefer the black screen surround on the PRO to the tacky silver on the AIR)


AIR is expensive for what it is, you are paying for the design rather than functionality (PRO has more ports, optical drive (which doesnt really bother me), better speakers and better battery life (model dependant))



So taking all of this into account I stuck with the 2011 PRO i5, yeah it doesnt look as nice but is better suited to what I need it for.

Hope this helps



(views above are from my point of view and don't reflect everyone's opinions between the two models)
 
mds1256, thank you for your points! they're are really helpful for me.. i've been looking for it. cheers
 
The Macbook Air's screen has a higher resolution and PPI.

The Macbook Pro's screen has better viewing angles and much better color reproduction.

So it all depends on which you prefer more.
 
I feel like my 2011 13" air has much better color than the 2011 13" mbp, and yes I have both. The pro looks washed out, the air seems much more vivid, but not in a pronounced "false" way. Of course both machines could stand to get IPS upgrades (next year?) but I consider the air better for sure.
 
I did not exchange my PRO for the AIR, but exchanged my former AIR for a new one, but:
Out of the box the screen of my PRO looks much better if forgetting about the lower resolution, no question about that.

I tried this color profile (http://db.tt/T1n0DBf) on my AIR (LG panel) and now the AIR's screen looks better than the PRO's. If only I could find such a nice profile for my PRO... It seems I'm totally incapable of properly calibrating a screen myself.
 
I'd highly recommend the 13 inch Air over the 13 inch MBP. The screen on the Air supports 1440 by 900 resolution, the same as a 15 inch MBP, meaning it feels the same screen real estate. From owning the two, I can definitely tell the Air has much better screen quality and I prefer it. One of my best friends has the 13 inch MBP, and having them side-by-side yesterday was crazy. The Pro just seemed big and clunky and so zoomed in.

For most daily tasks, the Air will out-perform the MBP simply because of the SSD. Applications open super fast and the computer runs so quiet it is amazing (I've yet to hear the fan, where as on my Pro it was going non-stop.) Sure you are losing a little bit of speed with the CPU, but unless you are doing CPU intensive tasks like video or photo editing, you will never even notice the difference. Truth be told though, you shouldn't be running those activities on neither a 13 inch MBP or MBA and expect it to go swimmingly.

The battery life is reportedly the same, though I feel like the Air's is slightly better. Perhaps it's because the computer isn't at like 100 degrees and the fan isn't constantly going. I have yet to try gaming on the Air yet, I will have to soon. The MBP ran Portal 2 really well and I'm curious to see how this does. I'm not a big gamer though. The lack of an optical drive is no big deal to me, as I never use it, and also because if need be I have a 15 inch 2010 MBP at my disposal that I can use it as a remote disk drive.

The only negative sides of the Air compared to the 13 inch MBP is how little SSD space there is (though I doubt I'll use all 128gb.) I just liked the comfort of knowing I had 320gb to work with. The other downside is the inability to upgrade ram higher than 4gb. What ultimately made my mind up about getting the Air and selling my Pro was that I knew at some point I was going to put an SSD in my MBP, and why should I pay $200 for one when I could just spend $200 and have a computer that better fits my needs?
 
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