Upgrading from late-2008 unibody MBP, MBA right for me?

[jt90]

I have a late-2008 unibody MBP, 15inch, Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.4Ghz, 4GB Ram. I'm still currently using it and have no trouble with it. I need not actually get a new computer except for the fact that the hinge broke and now it's a desktop (screen resting on a support)

I'm entering University in August and originally intended to get a non-retina Macbook Pro, 13 inch entry model. With mostly surfing, downloading, movies, music, basic presentations, word documents and occasionally simple photoshop use I believe it would fit my needs perfectly.

Unfortunately, no updates for non-retina MBP at WWDC. And while there may be an update in September/October that's a little late and rumours of Apple focusing on retina MBP isn't helping.

The MBA with 10-12 hour battery life is a huge attraction. But I'm worried it's not powerful enough to last 4 years? A non-retina 13inch MBP with Haswell processors and a similar 10-12 battery life will make me feel silly getting the MBA now. Plus a MBA always seemed as a spare computer than a main one to me. And portability is not an issue after carrying around a 15inch for a long time.

Thoughts?

Plus a MBP 13 inch will get me a faster computer, twice the hard drive space even if not SSD, hopefully with improved battery life and at almost $300 less than a MBA.

 

[AJB1971]

I made a similar change in 2011 going from the same specification MBP as yours to a 2011 Macbook Air 13” i5.

I thought it might be difficult going to the smaller screen size, but the resolution of both displays was the same and this wasn’t an issue.

The SSD drives make a huge difference to the performance, which is noticeable in everyday use, and you should bear that in mind when comparing it against the cMBP without SSD. The downside is obviously the cost/size factor. You either go for a smaller size hard drive or pay a lot more for a larger one. In some ways the smaller size makes you more organized and you can always use cloud storage as well. I went for the standard 128GB model and purchased a portable external drive.

If I was replacing my machine today, with the intention of keeping it for four years, I would go with 8GB of ram. You can always upgrade the SSD later, but you can’t do anything about the ram.

The performance of my 2011 model is still so good, for what I use it for, that I can’t really justify changing it for the 2013 model, as I don’t think I’d notice any difference. Battery life isn’t an issue for me.

Instead, I’ve decided to wait for the second generation 13" rMBP, at least the high resolution display will offer some tangible difference.

I would still try and repair your 2008 model , they're still a good machine and fetch a good price on eBay. Have a look at the guides on www.ifixit.com and see if you can repair it yourself. You might be able to find replacement parts on eBay.