Which should be my 13" MBPs Replacement?

[Alvi]

So, I've been a Mac user for a while, first I had iMacs, until one really disappointed me in 2008 and then I decided to get a 2009 13" MacBook Pro model at the end of that year.
It has been one of the best experiences with a computer of my life, even though I use way more powerful computers for other stuff it has been one of my most "personal" computers, I am really satisfied about it but it's beginning to show it's age, especially the battery since I upgraded it to 1TB and 8GB of RAM a while ago.

I am not sure if I should get a high end 11" or 13" MacBook Air (i7, 8GB, 256GB or even 512GB) or go into the Retina MacBook Pro Territory when the Haswell ones come out. As you might know, the price is almost the same on a 13" MBA and a 13" rMBP if they have the same RAM and i7's.

Would the 11" MBA be too small for a "main computer" that I would use every day?
I also have to carry it with me to work and school sometimes so I appreciate the weight difference, however battery is really important to me. All MBP's are lighter than mine at the moment anyway, so I guess a few hundred grams more are not a problem. (Besides non-retina MBPs).


I am also speculating about the 15" Retina MacBook Pro, it is a lot of money to cash out but the graphics card would make a difference to me more than any other spec of the other models without it, I currently do all my photo and video editing on a windows PC and I probably won't stop doing it since it is still superior than a rMBP (Haswell i7, 16GB, 256GB SSD, GTX780) but it would get me very good performance on the go which I would love, is it worth to spend that extra cash or should I just be happy with a MBA?
I have used my MBP mainly for browsing and taking notes at school, doing presentations and stuff, but that is also because it's really slow. I've done some RAW editing on Aperture and it was not pleasant at all.

 

[ka-spot]

I have NO idea... which one you want ?

 

[mtneer]

In a nutshell, if you do a lot of photo editing; then I would recommend the 15" retina display. For all the other purposes you described, a MBA will be more than enough.

 

[Alvi]

I guess saving 1 grand and getting the air could be a better idea

 

[Krazy Bill]

I am not sure if I should get a high end 11" or 13" MacBook Air

the price is almost the same on a 13" MBA and a 13" rMBP...

I am also speculating about the 15" Retina MacBook Pro,

You're all over the place and have mentioned every laptop available I think. Narrow it down to 2 and I'll flip a coin for you.

 

[sarthak]

For a longer term haul, get the rMBP 13".

I have both the rMBP 15" and MBA 13" (mid-2011) and the display is vastly superior on the Retina MBP. I bought mine so I can use it as a 1920x1200 display.

With the rMBP 13" you can use it at a much higher resolution than the Air with everything still sharp and clear.

 

[Alvi]

I'm sorry I kinda confused you throwing in the whole lineup, It's more about "which MacBook should I get".

I played today with the 13" rMBP and it's pretty sweet, I like that it has HDMI directly, I hate those mini-display adapters, but I guess I will still have to use my mini-display to VGA adapter since some projectors at my school still have that crap.
I read that it's integrated graphics do have some trouble making up for that resolution, so yeah I guess I should wait for rMBP's Mk2 anyway.

For some reason, at least esthetically the MBA looks like a downgrade from the MBP, whereas the rMBP looks like a successor to mine. Getting the 15" would be sweet, however I still can't justify paying more than 3k$ (yeah, they're more expensive in my country too). I imagine the upcoming release will be better performance-wise and it will fix it's first generation's issues.

 

[Aegelward]

I'm in the same boat. I'm stuck without a computer since my MacBook died an undue death. I can borrow one fir now but ideally I need one asap.

best option looks like ether getting a MBA or cMBP.. personally I suspect Apple will drop the cMBP with haswell. but quite possibly reintroduce the vanilla MacBook.

considering Apple are releasing an lower cost iPhone I think it's a real possibility.

 

[PDFierro]

I'm in the same boat. I'm stuck without a computer since my MacBook died an undue death. I can borrow one fir now but ideally I need one asap.

best option looks like ether getting a MBA or cMBP.. personally I suspect Apple will drop the cMBP with haswell. but quite possibly reintroduce the vanilla MacBook.

considering Apple are releasing an lower cost iPhone I think it's a real possibility.

Apple making a lower-cost iPhone has nothing to do with a cheap white MacBook. No way it's a possibility.

 

[yliu]

I always thought the 13' rMBP was not worth it because there is no dedicated GPU. It is not better than a MacBook Air other than a faster CPU.
So I think you should avoid the 13' rMBP until it gets updated with a GPU that can handle the display better.

As you said, you have a PC for CPU and GPU intensive tasks. Unless you want to replace it, I'd say get a 13 inch MacBook Air. If you want a powerful computer to edit videos on the go, get the 15 inch MBPr.

 

[Alvi]

I always thought the 13' rMBP was not worth it because there is no dedicated GPU. It is not better than a MacBook Air other than a faster CPU.
So I think you should avoid the 13' rMBP until it gets updated with a GPU that can handle the display better.

This is so sad! The 13" rMBP is beautiful, and one thing I somewhat dislike about the Air is the lack of ports, especially a dedicated video one. I hate comparing stuff but Razer's Blade has almost the same size as the rMBP and it's a quad core laptop with a dedicated high end GPU. I wish apple would bring some of that to the rMBP.