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Thinking of trading MBP for MB Air. Opinions?

jnl1211

jnl1211

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 29, 2011
330
0
NWIndiana
I have a mid-2009 MBP. 17" Aperture, iLife, iWorks, MS Office, etc etc. I like the thinness of the Air, and the portability. I'm thinking of trading for a 13" air.

My MBP is the 2.8ghz Intel C2D, 4Gb/500GB I dont really burn cd's or dvd's, if I do, I'm sure I can use an external drive.

Basically my question is what would the pros/cons be of a trade like that? Any real performace difference? Any opinions/experience sharing would be great!
 
Pros:
- The MBAs are super light and infinitely more portable than a 17"
- The newest refresh has much more raw processing power than your MBP
- An SSD (which you'll instantly fall in love with due to its speed)
- Longer battery life

Cons:
- Notable drop in screen size (which I assume you're okay with)
- Lack of a dedicated graphics card (the MBAs all have integrated Intel graphics chips)
- Lack of a DVD drive, though Remote Disc works fine and most software vendors are distributing software online as opposed to physical discs anyway
- Lack of an ExpressCard slot
- Smaller HD

Given the programs you use, I would say that an MBA would certainly fit your needs well. I would consider moving to the 256GB SSD since the 128 is pretty small IMHO
 
the i5/i7 should be a lot faster, the HD3000 is better than the 9400m but worse than the 9600m. the air should be alot faster in booting and opening programs since its equipped with a flash storage.
 
I did pretty much just that. The 17" MBP is a great machine, but since I got the 2010 13" MBA, I have not been using the MBP a whole lot. I kept it because I have more RAM in it and it is more powerful than the 2010 MBA, which did come in handy now and then. Now that I got the 2011 13" MBA, which I use connected to an ACD when not traveling, the MBP is sitting here waiting for my next move. I have no doubt it will end up on eBay. Oh well, it was a great machine.
 
Don't know if you've seen the Air in action but I noticed the screen had a washed out look compared to the Pros sitting right next to it. Speed was fantastic but I feel most of that can be attributed to the SSD.
 
If you don't plan on doing much gaming, video editing, etc, the MBA should be a good fit for you. Not that it can't handle those intensive tasks, but they're not really designed to do them as well as the Pro models.

Your MBP will still fetch a good amount on ebay, so I say go for it.
 
If you can deal with what you currently have, I'm sure that the MBA will hold up just fine for you if you don't do any hardcore gaming.
 
Fair enough, I should check my email more :rolleyes:; gotta get my download on when I get home. Maybe it won't be iOS(yes, I know it's "OS X," but it's got too much iOS in it's blood) Vista anymore...
 
Yeah, I'm not at all a gamer. I haven't even opened the Angry Birds that's on my phone! My wife does school work and such, that and some light web browsing is really all that's done on it
 
jnl1211 said:
Yeah, I'm not at all a gamer. I haven't even opened the Angry Birds that's on my phone! My wife does school work and such, that and some light web browsing is really all that's done on it
Click to expand...

then the MBA sounds like a good option for you my friend :cool:
 
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