Trying to make a future decision...

[HIMAN1998]

I am planning on buying a new Mac in the next year or so, whenever I get the money. I was looking at the 15" Pro (non-Retina, too expensive), 13" Pro Retina, and now I'm looking at the 13" Air. The thing I love about the Air is the 12-hour battery. But, I would get it with upgraded CPU and RAM to the max, but keep the 128GB SSD. With the Pro 15", I would probably get the base model and do the upgrades myself. With the 13" Pro Retina, I would order it with max RAM, and maybe upgraded CPU. The thing that is deterring me from the Air and Pro Retina is the maximum of 8GB RAM. I know that the next gen of each of these devices will probably be out when I buy, so do you guys think that when they do come out, that they will have a 16GB RAM option? I was thinking the Pro 15" because of the dedicated graphics card, but I've heard that HD5000 is actually pretty decent. I would be doing stuff like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign CS6, some lighter gaming like Minecraft and Portal, and I might get into some Blender. Would the HD5000 do good on these things and not lag?

 

[Spink10]

I hope this isnt rude.

Since you are able to wait a year or so - it would probably due little good to speculate at this point about future updates.

 

[HIMAN1998]

I hope this isnt rude.

Since you are able to wait a year or so - it would probably due little good to speculate at this point about future updates.

Oh, I'm thinking about those. I know that the Pro line is gonna get Haswell probably, but the Air already has it. I don't know how soon or how long it will take for me to get the money, I'm a high schooler in search for a job and I have some other things to worry about along with this. As you can see in my signature, I'm running on kinda old hardware, so I want a sort of refresh (too bad the current MacBook Pro 13" logic board can't work in this or I would have an i5 in this if possible). I know I want to stick to a Mac for a portable. I'm looking at it price-wise currently. Which model would give me the most when I get it (I'm factoring in adding the RAM to the 15" Pro for the price- $150 about). I might also do a refurb if they take away the ability to upgrade in the regular Pros. I don't necessarily need a DVD drive, there's always external. I'm looking at price to performance between models. Sorry for the rambling.

 

[Astroboy907]

Oh, I'm thinking about those. I know that the Pro line is gonna get Haswell probably, but the Air already has it. I don't know how soon or how long it will take for me to get the money, I'm a high schooler in search for a job and I have some other things to worry about along with this. As you can see in my signature, I'm running on kinda old hardware, so I want a sort of refresh (too bad the current MacBook Pro 13" logic board can't work in this or I would have an i5 in this if possible). I know I want to stick to a Mac for a portable. I'm looking at it price-wise currently. Which model would give me the most when I get it (I'm factoring in adding the RAM to the 15" Pro for the price- $150 about). I might also do a refurb if they take away the ability to upgrade in the regular Pros. I don't necessarily need a DVD drive, there's always external. I'm looking at price to performance between models. Sorry for the rambling.

Ok, seeing as how you are already waiting a year... why not wait two? I know it sounds *really* terrible to wait that long, but that is my plan and I'm basically in the same situation. Right now it's the Haswell release, then Broadwell (slightly faster/better than haswell) in 2014. 2015 should bring another modest increase in speeds and battery life, better than the broadwell update would. So waiting 2 years would bring around some pretty good processor updates, and if your username is accurate to your age that will put it between your junior and senior year of high school (depending on when you were born I guess). Perfectly acceptable, and if you are going to college that should tide you over for a few years. I can tell you unless you are doing some advanced programming or video encoding that your model should cut it for another two years. Slap an optibay SSD in it (~$180-450 depending on size), and max out the RAM. Unless your school has you doing some crazy, high level stuff. Heck, we have an old 2006 iMac that can still do photoshop, dreamweaver and the like (moderately, mind you), with 3gb of RAM and a 2.16gHz C2D.
My best advice to you, wait, and see what happens. If you do get a new model, the least I recommend is upgrading the RAM. My 2008 MBP runs so much better with 8gb than 4. I'm pretty confident I could max out 16 or even 32gb with what I usually have open
Let me know your opinion. I'd like to see what you eventually decide on.

 

[HIMAN1998]

Ok, seeing as how you are already waiting a year... why not wait two? I know it sounds *really* terrible to wait that long, but that is my plan and I'm basically in the same situation. Right now it's the Haswell release, then Broadwell (slightly faster/better than haswell) in 2014. 2015 should bring another modest increase in speeds and battery life, better than the broadwell update would. So waiting 2 years would bring around some pretty good processor updates, and if your username is accurate to your age that will put it between your junior and senior year of high school (depending on when you were born I guess). Perfectly acceptable, and if you are going to college that should tide you over for a few years. I can tell you unless you are doing some advanced programming or video encoding that your model should cut it for another two years. Slap an optibay SSD in it (~$180-450 depending on size), and max out the RAM. Unless your school has you doing some crazy, high level stuff. Heck, we have an old 2006 iMac that can still do photoshop, dreamweaver and the like (moderately, mind you), with 3gb of RAM and a 2.16gHz C2D.
My best advice to you, wait, and see what happens. If you do get a new model, the least I recommend is upgrading the RAM. My 2008 MBP runs so much better with 8gb than 4. I'm pretty confident I could max out 16 or even 32gb with what I usually have open
Let me know your opinion. I'd like to see what you eventually decide on.

Well I just found out I'm gonna be going on a mission trip to Spain, so I need to pay for that first (about $2,000). I'll look into the computer more after I get back from that. I'll probably end up doing an Air, though, just for something with enough power and portability.

 

[Consultant]

Even today, a new MacBook Air will be more responsive than a 5 year old MBP. So a new MBA will be a good choice.

Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign CS6 work fine on my GF's MBA.

 

[Spink10]

MBA will serve you very well

 

[HIMAN1998]

My only problem with the Air is not CS6 (that runs on my Late '08 MacBook non-Pro), but the problem is that I'm getting into some game design. I would run that on a Windows partition. Does the HD 5000 have a comparable graphics card to the 15" Pro's stock one?

 

[HIMAN1998]

I just looked at the prices, and with my education discount I can get the 13 inch air with the i7 and 8GB RAM for a little under $1300. Very reasonable for what it has. I will look into it more when I get the money.