Will the MBA work for me?

[Chub]

Truth be told I am slightly disappointed with the Macbook Air and I was hoping to purchase one relatively soon, in fact nearing the end of this Summer. I have been looking at alternatives in the mean time and to be honest in terms of power and technology seems to be lacking in the MBA.

Before anyone complains about this my views are simply that the screen should have been upgraded, maybe not a retina screen, maybe not even 1080P but an IPS display at the least and already I feel the 1080P screen of the Dell XPS 13 for example looks rather welcoming.

The battery is impressive yet I simply don't need a battery that lasts that long, however I like the idea of OSX Maverick. Moving on my real question is will I enjoy a MBA 2013? I also say this as I am used to the speed of a high powered desktop processor and whenever I use my current laptop a C2D it feels rather underpowered.

Now, gaming isn't really a priority for me as I have a desktop for that and the 5000 graphics I think will offer a nice boost for light gaming. So again as opposed to any of the current competition out there, will I be happy with the screen on the new MBA? And will I not regret the purchase of a new MBA over other alternatives?

 

[fa8362]

I don't think the MBA is for you based on what you describe about yourself. The MBA is for people who place primary importance on weight, size and battery life.

 

[Chub]

I don't think the MBA is for you based on what you describe about yourself. The MBA is for people who place primary importance on weight, size and battery life.

Well, from that I feel a Macbook Pro may be more suitable but I'd rather wait until those are upgraded with the latest Haswell processors.

 

[LarmanF]

It's completely up to you obviously, but the MacBook Air still has plenty of power, but of course how this feels to you depends on what you're going to be using it for.

Would you consider yourself a power user? If you're not going to be doing heavy duty gaming on an MBA it should easily be able to handle program's like GIMP or Photoshop if you have that sort of thing for image editing - I'm not sure what you do.

If you're looking for more power, an MBP is the way to go, but don't cast the MBA aside you may be surprised about how powerful it really is.

 

[B...]

No one here can tell you if you are going to be happy and not regret a purchase.

 

[Chub]

It's completely up to you obviously, but the MacBook Air still has plenty of power, but of course how this feels to you depends on what you're going to be using it for.

Would you consider yourself a power user? If you're not going to be doing heavy duty gaming on an MBA it should easily be able to handle program's like GIMP or Photoshop if you have that sort of thing for image editing - I'm not sure what you do.

If you're looking for more power, an MBP is the way to go, but don't cast the MBA aside you may be surprised about how powerful it really is.

That's helped a lot, as really I will mostly be using Photoshop and Dreamweaver and otherwise a little bit of basic video editing. I suppose I always have my desktop to do the heavy lifting and meanwhile I can use the MBA when on the move. Arguably on top of some light gaming, namely Team Fortress 2 the lower resolution will most likely improve performance.

The only other issue that comes to mind is using Photoshop at that resolution, does it work fine for you?

 

[LarmanF]

I don't actually have one so cannot say.

 

[jdechko]

Echoing everyone else, it sounds like you might be happier with a Retina MBP when they are updated.

However, you say that your current laptop feels underpowered. Maybe that's not the right word, as a C2D is still a quite capable CPU. But if you are still using a spinning platter hard drive, then it can cause the machine to feel slow, especially compared to a SSD-based computer.

Dreamweaver isn't a particularly demanding application, and for basic usage, Photoshop isn't either. Only when you get into High MP RAW files with tons of filters does Photoshop feel like a dog.

The best advice is to find one in a store and look at it in person.