Macbook Pro or Macbook Air?

It depends whether you will be doing anything resource heavy like editing video/audio regularly. If so I would try get a Pro if I were you. Either should be fine though.

Very important decision to make when buying mac computers:

Nowadays MacBooks are non upgradable, so you need to choose what you want to do with it before you buy, as later on if you decide you want more space,more ram, not easy doable.

For general use, browsing, emails, Word, Excel, reading, Facebook, photos, etc Macbook air is a perfect device and much cheaper then a pro version.

If you want a medium video or photo editor , start with an entry level Macbook pro 13

If you'r going to focus mainly on heavy video edition, photo procession, heavy multitasking, you will need a top Macbook pro 15" i7, 16gb, Nvidia, and this is not a cheap machine.

Hope that makes sense.

Fir3Fly1995 wrote: »

I would always advise 13" MBP as these have the optical drive which can be replaced with an SSD for storing the OS and apps that require a high speed I/O. You can manually upgrade the RAM and HDD just make sure you backed everything up with time machine so you can restore everything to the new HDD/SSD. finally I will go by what was said above for heavy applications. Nothing can beat the Mac Pro. However to help cool your mac, go to eBay and get yourself a rear cover, drill holes in it over the fan. If a problem arises just swap the covers before bringing it into Apple for a repair or replacement.

Avoid an iMac if your doing heavy stuff as they are no good for that due to persistent cooling problems. MBA is dreadful due to the undersized fan and underpowered hardware. MBP W/ retina display is probably best for editing on the go. Just invest in a large SSD if at all possible. Avoid the retina mac if you think you'll need to upgrade the ram as it's soldered to the machine.

I wish apple would set the CPU and GPU in a socket so that you can future proof your mac.

Hope I helped. Sorry if I didn't.

optical drive was ditched when they switched to retina was it not..

shanec1928 wrote:

optical drive was ditched when they switched to retina was it not..

Nope. Not on the €1,249 model. The MBP 13" model without the retina display has the drive.

I'm new to Mac and was planning on getting the 13in Air, 4gig ram, 128gig flash drive.
I was thinking of upgrading the 4gig to 8gig ram (€113 extra), would the extra ram be worth the investment?
Thanks.

Graham wrote: »

If you're working on your machine a lot, you'll probably appreciate the larger screen/keyboard of the 13" models so I'll limit my comments to:

The 13" MacBook Pro €1399 8GB/128GB (from Argos)
The 13" MacBook Air is €1179 4GB/128GB

If you value portability, the MacBook air is the obvious choice but I'd stop and think how important saving an extra half kg, 1.08kg/1.58kg. For the extra €220 you get an additional 4GB of RAM, a retina display a faster processor and an extra hour of battery use (10hrs).

The Air is a stunning machine so light and thin BUT that comes at a price. You sacrifice on speed (1.6GHz/2.7GHz) screen (1366 x 767 / 2560 x 1600) and RAM (4GB/8GB).

I've had both, two MacBook Airs and my current machine is a MacBook Pro. The MacBook was ideal when I was moving from site to site several times a day on foot but for me now, I'd rather carry the additional half kg.

The keyboards on both are broadly similar so I can't imagine a situation where one would be much benefit over the other. Build quality, they're neck and neck.

If you're on a budget, get a refurb model from Apple directly. You'll save up-to 20% on the list price but you'll still get a machine with the same warranty that looks/feels brand new. If you're buying new you might save a couple of quid by shopping around but keep in mind Apple are running a back to school promo at the moment, you get a set of Beats Solo2 Headphones and a few quid off list price for the Mac http://www.apple.com/ie-edu/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro

The battery life of the 13" Air is 12 hours so you're getting more battery with the Air.

I had the same choice recently it comes
down to what you need most. Portability and battery life then get the Air, power and retina then get the Pro.

I went with the Air, amazing machine

Sad Professor wrote: »

The 13-inch with optical drive hasn't been updated in over 3 years. It's a joke that Apple are still selling it. You'd have to be mad to buy it.

I don't think that you would be crazy to buy it. Its still a beautiful machine and has some features that were later ditched i.e. infra red receiver, battery indicator lights, sleep indicator light, optical drive, ethernet port, firewire etc. The cpu is 3rd gen ivy bridge but by 2012, cpu's had reached a really good level where the os used between 1 - 5% in idle mode and was available for work, its still a very capable cpu and not actually that far behind Broadwells at the moment, and far better than anything in an Air.

To purchase a new rMBP with 16gb RAM and a 512gb ssd will cost you €2,289. To buy a 2012 MBP and upgrade to 16gb RAM and a 512gb ssd (at a cost of as little as €280 now - Crucial Website) will cost you €1,529 a whole €769 less. And you could put another HDD in the Optical bay.

Ok, so you won't have the retina screen but you have a seriously capable machine. Use €400 to buy a qhd 27 inch screen and you will have an awesome display and still have saved approx €400 squids.

Yes, the retina has PCI-e storage that is amazingly fast, better integrated graphics but the difference will not be noticeable for most users who are not gaming and doing massive video processing.

I have a 2012 mbp and a 2015 rmbp. I use the older one just as much as the newer one and if I didn't have it, I think I would be getting one quickly before they are taken off the market altogether. A truly awesome machine that was at its peak in 2012 and still a massive seller for Apple.

Dades wrote: »

Thanks. Looks like the wait time is only 10 days or so. I think I'd regret not upgrading just out of impatience.

It's usually quicker than the time quoted.