Personally, I would never buy a macbook air. They are (wwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy) slower than a macbook pro and not as portable as an ipad - So where do they fit? For the same money a macbook pro would be way faster.
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need help deciding between a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air...
- Thread starter Smiller4128
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Yeah, well it seems like it'd be best for me to go with the 17" MacBook Pro, especially if I can update the RAM and maybe add a SSD drive without voiding the warranty. Then the differences would be pretty much nullified right?
JoeG4
macrumors 68040
Honestly, I think you should just get an iMac! For the money you could easily get a 21.5" and even a 13" air.
Your primary concern with the Air is probably storage space. The weight wasn't a concern of mine either (since I was originally going to buy a 15" MBP), but after owning one a few days you'll get really used to having a <3lb laptop if you do that.
No doubt, the air should be enough for most people. I've been ok playing games around the complexity of Portal on it as well, although the fan eventually goes to full blast. Then again, I'd expect the same out of a MBP. Having an SSD to begin with helps a TON with perceived speed.
If you want a 17" MBP do it for the 1920x1200 screen, the quad I7, and the tons of space. Even then, 95% of the time the machine will perform no better than an Air unless you're always doing video editing (and most people do not 😉)
It sounds like you're already sold on a 17" Pro though, so get that! When I bought my 15" PowerBook G4 I really wanted a 17" and couldn't get one (I needed a laptop before then and the store didn't have any in stock - long story). The last laptop I had before my air was a 16" Vaio and the screen resolution is truly glorious when you have a 1920x1080 screen (or 1920x1200 in the case of the MBP). I really missed that screen. Oh man.
Really, that screen was awesome! Too bad the rest of the laptop sucked; I was lucky to get 2 hours of battery out of it and the power brick was enormous! It only weighed 6.9lbs, but with the brick I was always carrying 9lbs of laptop around with me when I needed it :'(
Your primary concern with the Air is probably storage space. The weight wasn't a concern of mine either (since I was originally going to buy a 15" MBP), but after owning one a few days you'll get really used to having a <3lb laptop if you do that.
No doubt, the air should be enough for most people. I've been ok playing games around the complexity of Portal on it as well, although the fan eventually goes to full blast. Then again, I'd expect the same out of a MBP. Having an SSD to begin with helps a TON with perceived speed.
If you want a 17" MBP do it for the 1920x1200 screen, the quad I7, and the tons of space. Even then, 95% of the time the machine will perform no better than an Air unless you're always doing video editing (and most people do not 😉)
It sounds like you're already sold on a 17" Pro though, so get that! When I bought my 15" PowerBook G4 I really wanted a 17" and couldn't get one (I needed a laptop before then and the store didn't have any in stock - long story). The last laptop I had before my air was a 16" Vaio and the screen resolution is truly glorious when you have a 1920x1080 screen (or 1920x1200 in the case of the MBP). I really missed that screen. Oh man.
Really, that screen was awesome! Too bad the rest of the laptop sucked; I was lucky to get 2 hours of battery out of it and the power brick was enormous! It only weighed 6.9lbs, but with the brick I was always carrying 9lbs of laptop around with me when I needed it :'(
New MBP in about a month
If you've done your research you'll know that there will be a complete redesign of the macbook pros in a month or so. they will come with a retina display, much slimmer, lighter, and way better hardware options. So basically you will be getting the best of both so wait a month or so and get the MBP 😀
If you've done your research you'll know that there will be a complete redesign of the macbook pros in a month or so. they will come with a retina display, much slimmer, lighter, and way better hardware options. So basically you will be getting the best of both so wait a month or so and get the MBP 😀
What he said.
If you have to buy "urgently", get the MBA. It's a fine machine and will meet your needs. You can readily sell it later and trade up. Migrating data to a new machine is easy.
If you leave the house at all with your laptop and want high end performance, go for the 15 inch MBP. If portability is especially needed, see what the next 13" specs are. Expecting the next MBP's to have similar performance distributions as now, the difference between a 15 and 17 " MBP's is small, and for your uses will not be noticeable. The express card slot on the 17" is not a concern for what you describe.
The 15" is more portable, even for moving around the house and much more for traveling. Even my power user friends who have been crazy about every generation of the 17" models and lugged them cross country for years are now using iPads and MBA's most of the time. If they bring the 17 inch, they're leaving it in the luggage most of the time.
Use the $900 savings to buy one or even two good external monitors for the home. That would make a huge difference for home viewing, way more than a 17 inch screen. Even the 11inch MBA can drive an external monitor satisfactorily for the uses listed here.
You could also get an iPad (or for that matter, a refurb MBA) with the savings.
If you're really rich, just buy everything. All of the choices are nice machines with different advantages.
throAU
macrumors G4
Seriously?
Go to the apple store and pick both of them up.
They're not in the same market, one is a desktop replacement, the other is a portable.
JHUFrank
macrumors 6502a
I totally agree. Feel free to express an opinion, but don't make it an absolute statement. I am much more willing to listen to someone who says, "IMO, the MBA doesn't work as a primary workstation because it doesnt do X,Y or Z as fast as I like it" rather than, "The AIR will not do as a primary machine"
Bring some examples to the discussion. Give me reasons. I have heard that absolute statement way too many times.
Bring some examples to the discussion. Give me reasons. I have heard that absolute statement way too many times.
I've heard the new MBP won't have a DVD drive on it although the current version does. For Handbrake, you might want that to import DVDs into Handbrake. I like the look and feel of the MBA, but I would personally get the MBP as it is a more powerful computer and at least for now, it contains the DVD drive.
thuchu1
macrumors regular
This is a choice I just recently made. I went with a 15" Macbook Pro, moved the HDD to the optical drive bay, and added an SSD. If you are even considering the 17" then weight/size won't be an issue whatsoever. Even going with the 15" hi-res screen + 120GB SSD with a datadoubler from OWC you are lower than the base price of a 17" MBP ($2499 vs. $2098), and have a much more powerful/expandable machine than the MBA. You've even got enough left to put 8 or 16GB of ram.
I'm incredibly happy I went this route. I basically never see the beach ball anymore.
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See my post above this one, but also add in that you could upgrade the the higher level 15 with more GPU Ram.
I'm incredibly happy I went this route. I basically never see the beach ball anymore.
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See my post above this one, but also add in that you could upgrade the the higher level 15 with more GPU Ram.
schopaia
macrumors member
I was in a similar situation about 10 months ago. I originally bought a 13" Air. I loved it but became disenchanted with the viewing angles and low color gamut of its screen. Also, because I usually have a ton of tabs open in Chrome, have some very large spreadsheets open in Excel, and use Handbrake occasionally, I started realizing that only having 4gb of non-expandable RAM might be a problem for me -- especially since I might want to run Windows 7 in a VM on my machine in the future.
I decided that I needed the expandability of a Pro more than the mobility of the Air. And I didn't want to compromise on the screen qulaity either. I initially chose the 15 inch Pro with anti-glare, high-res screen. It was a great machine. I was so enamored by the screen size that I decided if I was going to go big I should go all the way. So, in the end, I ended up with a 17" Pro with anti-glare screen (I actually bought a glossy first but couldn't stand the reflections). I upgraded to 8gb RAM (I may even be going up to 16gb soon) and an Intel SSD. I also put the original 750gb HDD in the optibay and bought an external blue-ray drive to satisfy my occasional need for it (OS X won't play blue-rays directly, but you can rip them and play them with 3rd party software).
I am extremely satisfied with my decision to go with the 17 Pro vs the 13 Air. Since I usually just travel with my iPad and only carry my laptop from room to room around my house, the decision made sense. You'll have to figure out what aspects of each laptop you value more. They are all great machines.
As others have already said, I would wait a couple days to see what Apple announces at WWDC before making your decision.
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For CPU intensive tasks (like Handbrake), the Air is definitely way slower. For non-intensive tasks, the speed difference is much less noticeable (as long as the Pro also has an SSD).
I decided that I needed the expandability of a Pro more than the mobility of the Air. And I didn't want to compromise on the screen qulaity either. I initially chose the 15 inch Pro with anti-glare, high-res screen. It was a great machine. I was so enamored by the screen size that I decided if I was going to go big I should go all the way. So, in the end, I ended up with a 17" Pro with anti-glare screen (I actually bought a glossy first but couldn't stand the reflections). I upgraded to 8gb RAM (I may even be going up to 16gb soon) and an Intel SSD. I also put the original 750gb HDD in the optibay and bought an external blue-ray drive to satisfy my occasional need for it (OS X won't play blue-rays directly, but you can rip them and play them with 3rd party software).
I am extremely satisfied with my decision to go with the 17 Pro vs the 13 Air. Since I usually just travel with my iPad and only carry my laptop from room to room around my house, the decision made sense. You'll have to figure out what aspects of each laptop you value more. They are all great machines.
As others have already said, I would wait a couple days to see what Apple announces at WWDC before making your decision.
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For CPU intensive tasks (like Handbrake), the Air is definitely way slower. For non-intensive tasks, the speed difference is much less noticeable (as long as the Pro also has an SSD).