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Which one to keep...?

Nia3088

Nia3088

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 21, 2015
13
3
Japan
I have a Macbook Air (late 2010) and a Macbook Pro (early 2011).

I'll be giving one of them to my mother, who isn't particularly tech-savvy so she doesn't really care which one she gets. Which one is the better one to keep?

The Air feels a lots quicker than the Pro, but has a weaker CPU. The Pro feels really sluggish because of the HDD. I know I can upgrade the Pro's storage to SSD, but I don't have the money to do that anytime soon (lots of other things that need to be bought first).

Let me post the specs:
Air (late 2010)
1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB Ram 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 320M
128 GB SSD

Pro (early 2011)
2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
4GB Ram 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000
320 GB HDD

Thanks in advance for your advice!
 
Whatever makes your mom hassle you less about will be better. I'd guess the Air.
 
It's surprising that your MBA has the stronger graphics chip of the two (I think?). If the MBP is a 15", then the screen resolution should be slightly less dense than on the MBA: 1440x900 on both screens, right? So things would appear slightly "larger" on the MBP. You mom might appreciate that as she ages.

These are your laptops, so I would recommend keeping the one that you will enjoy using more. Your mom will probably appreciate either.
 
Hi all,

Thanks for your replies!

Re: Pakaku - Haha, yeah, you're right!

Re: wallaby - The MBP is a 13" one. Yeah, she won't mind (or know the difference), but I just wanted to see what the forum thought about which one is better to keep for the future.

Re: Meister - Yeah, I was thinking the same. Thanks!
 
Just checked and the CPU on 2011 machine is about 3 times faster than C2D on 2010. Gotta admit I didn't expect myself this kind of difference - C2D is much slower than I initially suspected.
 
SmOgER said:
Just checked and the CPU on 2011 machine is about 3 times faster than C2D on 2010. Gotta admit I didn't expect myself this kind of difference - C2D is much slower than I initially suspected.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the C2Ds just don't hold up these days - not to say they're not capable with an SSD, but there isn't a single mobile C2D that has more than half the performance of an i3-3110M.

OP, I suggest you give your mother the MBA as it's thinner, lighter, and has an SSD so it'll run smoothly. Just a nicer product to use, I really think she'd like it between the two. Even though the Pro is more powerful, the HDD bottleneck would make for a slower real-world experience for her anyway. Then throw an SSD in your 2011 Pro and you keep that one.
 
Nia3088 said:
I have a Macbook Air (late 2010) and a Macbook Pro (early 2011).

I'll be giving one of them to my mother, who isn't particularly tech-savvy so she doesn't really care which one she gets. Which one is the better one to keep?

The Air feels a lots quicker than the Pro, but has a weaker CPU. The Pro feels really sluggish because of the HDD. I know I can upgrade the Pro's storage to SSD, but I don't have the money to do that anytime soon (lots of other things that need to be bought first).

Let me post the specs:
Air (late 2010)
1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB Ram 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce 320M
128 GB SSD

Pro (early 2011)
2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
4GB Ram 1333 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 3000
320 GB HDD

Thanks in advance for your advice!
Click to expand...

I have the same spec MBA. For normal computer ops like Facebook it's fine performance wise. An SSD make all the difference so even running VMs is fast. Put el cap on it will mean it is even better with compressed memory. I looked at eBay to sell mine but for a selling price of $0.4k it didn't seem worth selling for such a low price so I kept it.
 
SmOgER said:
Just checked and the CPU on 2011 machine is about 3 times faster than C2D on 2010. Gotta admit I didn't expect myself this kind of difference - C2D is much slower than I initially suspected.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I really started to feel the lack of processing power when I was editing some videos on iMovie last year...
 
Hi all,

Thanks for your replies! I've decided to keep the MBP and give my mother the MBA. I don't think she'll be going anywhere with it, but it will definitely be easier for her to move around the house whilst Facetiming with her grandchild.
Thanks once again!
 
performance boost from overkill amount of RAM is absolutely nothing compared to the gains he will see after installing SSD.
 
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