Non Retina MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air

[mrcarter2]

I'm about to be a sophomore in high school next year. I was set on buying the 13" MacBook Air but now with Apples recent price cuts the baseline MacBook Pro is $150 cheaper than the baseline MacBook Air (with education discount). I already have an iPad and iPhone so I'm not sure how much I'd need the extra portability of the air. Is the difference screen resolution, weight, and storage speed that noticeable? Is the MacBook Air worth the extra money?

 

[renosausage]

I'm about to be a sophomore in high school next year. I was set on buying the 13" MacBook Air but now with Apples recent price cuts the baseline MacBook Pro is $150 cheaper than the baseline MacBook Air (with education discount). I already have an iPad and iPhone so I'm not sure how much I'd need the extra portability of the air. Is the difference screen resolution, weight, and storage speed that noticeable? Is the MacBook Air worth the extra money?

I have both laptops, There is a HUGE difference in portability. The Macbook Air is so much easier to carry around and use. Its almost half the weight of the Pro 13" inch.

Storage speed is also a LOT more noticeable. You are talking 450 mb/s compared to 80 mb/s. Even though you will be getting over twice the amount of storage with the pro, the speed is totally worth the cost in storage.

The display on the air is actually slighter better than the pro. The Air has a 1440 by 900 while the Pro has a 1280 by 800. This is very noticeable to me.

Even though the Pro has a faster CPU, the integrated graphics are the same and the SSD speeds from the Air make is faster than the Pros CPU and HDD.

Considering you are in High School, I think the Air would be your best option. My Fiance uses a 13inch Air in college and she absolutely loves it.

The only reason I would get the Pro is unless I REALLY needed one of the following options:

500 gb of HDD space, remember not nearly as fast as the Air's SSD

Ethernet Port

CD/DVD Drive

FireWire Port

If you truly need one of the options above then get the Pro, but if you don't the Air is totally what you need.

Like I said before, I have both of them. I use the Air a lot more than the Pro and have never needed seen my Air not be able to handle my workload.

 

[mrcarter2]

Thanks for the quick reply! And I know. I also don't wanna drop a thousand dollars on a new laptop that will be outdated in a week. I think I'll just wait till WWDC and see if Apple makes anything that catches my eye.

 

[Saturn1217]

I recently upgraded from a 2009 13" MBP to a 2012 MBA and I have to say I disagree. Don't get me wrong, I love the MBA and if money is no issue you should definitely get it but keep in mind that if you need more than 128gb of storage and more than 4gb of ram (I did) it is an exceedingly poor value compared to the MBP. And it isn't that much lighter. I was hoping the difference would be night and day but if I am honest it is a little more convenient to carry around but not much.

Also a ssd doesn't make as big a difference as everyone claims. You also have the option of cheaply doing the ssd upgrade yourself with the MBP. The one area where I appreciate the speed of ssds is booting up windows in a virtual machine. Soooo much faster! But for ordinary things I never noticed that big a difference.

This is not to dissuade you from a MBA if that is what you really want. I really wanted a MBA and I love my new machine. But if money is an issue just know that the MBP is still a very good machine. Also wait for haswell! I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't wait.

 

[old-wiz]

Thanks for the quick reply! And I know. I also don't wanna drop a thousand dollars on a new laptop that will be outdated in a week. I think I'll just wait till WWDC and see if Apple makes anything that catches my eye.

Absolutely wait for WWDC! I'm hoping for a slightly cheaper rMBP with 500gb SSD.