Switching to MBA from MBP

[yongren]

If it helps, I made the same switch about 6 months ago, and I do not regret it at all. (13" MBP to 11" Air)

As for storage—
I have 128 GB and it's plenty for me—but I tend to store all my videos on an external drive, except ones I might want to watch soon (usually not more than 15 GB). Other than that, I have about 15 GB of music, 10 GB of pictures, and 10 GB of applications. Another 25 GB or so for documents and system stuff, and that leaves me with nearly half my SSD empty.

 

[KohPhiPhi]

As for storage—
I have 128 GB and it's plenty for me — I tend to store all my videos on an external drive.

Same here: I keep my SSD exclusively for OSX, applications and work files, and I store all my heavy media files (films/videos/photos/music) in an external HD. With this setup, the current SSD size is more than enough for me.

 

[jimbo1mcm]

Getting ready to switch...I think!!

I have a 2011 13 inch MBP. I put 8 GB in it and a 6GB SATA Samsung 830 SSD, 128 GB Drive. It works flawlessly, but now I am thinking about getting the new( 2012 ) 13 inch MBA. I don't game extensively and mainly use my computer for surfing and word stuff. Of course I know I have overkill now, but who cares? I would only switch to the new MBA if it has the Samsung 830 SSD drive type. I know Samsung has said that they have run out of 470 ( sata 3 ) drives and are now shipping just 830 type. I am looking for the better resolution of the MBA and at least the speed of my current machine. Less weight would be good also. Hardly ever use the optical drive in my MBP. Am I nuts? Somebody is going to get a very good MBP!!!!

 

[orfeas0]

1) What do you think of the display vs. the MBP? Less gamut, etc?
2) How do you manage with only 128gb? Do you have Photoshop and heavy games installed or not? How much free space do you usually have? (I'm not really interested in the 256gb model).
3) Do you feel you have long battery life? I read the "deep sleep" of the MBA actually more efficient battery life, is this true?

Thanks!

I moved from a windows 15" laptop to a 11" air.
From 500gb to 64gb. From 6gb ram to 2gb ram. From core i5 (first gen) 2,4ghz to core i5 (second gen) 1,6ghz. From 1gb nvidia 330m gt to 256mb intel HD3000.
I'm very happy with it.

1) The resolution is great (the 11" has the same resolution as my old 15"). You'll see a big difference going from a MBP to a MBA of the same size.
2) Although my old laptop had 450gb used, I now own an external drive of 1TB so the low storage doesn't mind me (much). If I had 128gb I would be more than enough.
3) Battery life is AWESOME. Apple says it lasts 5 hours but it has lasted me 6 and 7 with wi-fi closed and low brightness (reading mode). And that's on the 11", the 13 lasts even longer.

I strongly recommend it to anyone.

And did I mention it's faster than my old pc? Maybe not in games, but in everyday usage (surfing,reading,opening programs, booting etc).
The ONLY time I saw some slowdown was when editing high resolution images.
Everything else is blazing fast, you can't even imagine without using one for a while!

 

[GearDriven]

the OP mentioned gaming -- I'd stick it out until the MBA refresh rumored to have Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture is out. It will see a marked improvement in graphics performance.

Also -- I will never own a laptop that uses a mechanical hard drive ever again -- SSD or bust.