Macbook Pro Vs. Macbook Air Advice Please

OREGATO

Hey guys,

Looking for a bit of advice on the above.

Looking to get my first Apple laptop and would really appreciate some advice and guidance on what to get.

I'm a web developer/software programmer by day, so have the work laptop (windows) that I can bring home now and again if required, have an iPad 1 for browsing the net etc at home and also a netbook - which is now hogged by my Dad so I've gotten it into my head that I want one of the above..

I do a bit of personal web development outside of work, would a mac book be sufficient for this? Mainly just PHP and stuff like that, ideally, I'd like to be able to set up XAMPP or something - can this be done?

Apart from that, I really like the Macbook air due to the size, would be ideal for travelling and meetings etc.. is there any benefit/downfall to getting this over a normal macbook?

Also, in terms of dual booting, can it be done? I think i've read about it somewhere that you can boot Windows and OS X off the same machine? Difficult to set up? Any limitations after this is done at all?

Also, in terms of releases, when would a macbook air replacement be due out? I don't mind waiting a while for one (a month or two max) if it's going to have better features etc..

Advice/help/suggestions would be great!

Sorry for the long post!

Zapp Brannigan

Can't answer your Q's about coding and stuff but I'll try some of your other ones.

Apart from portability, the Airs come with SSD as standard so that's a huge plus. It's so fast!

You can use bootcamp to install a windows partition on to the computer. This allows you to boot into whichever OS you choose. There are also programs that will run the two OS' simultaneously, Parallels and VMWare Fusion come to mind.

As for the refresh, I believe the Airs and Pro's were just very recently upgraded so it would seem unlikely that there'll be a new model out soon.

Zimmerframe

First, know nought about web development apart from using iWeb a little, so will pass on that, but can't see any issues as either mac are plenty powerful enough and as you mentioned you could dual boot.

Dual booting with Windows is no problem and piece of cake to setup with bootcamp.
Also using Vmware or Paralells it's possible to run Windows "inside" Osx.

re. Macbook air, it's obvious benefit is size/lightness for travel.
No downfalls that I can think of.
Macbook air is "new" so can't see any replacement on the horizon.

Lol I guess Zapp types a lot faster than me.

im...LOST

You can get MAMP which is just a Mac version of XAMP

Sad Professor

The MBP is due a refresh sometime in the new year. This is worth waiting for IMO. But the MBA was only updated 2 months ago.

Talisman

The projected release date for the next Intel chipset has slipped so it is unlikely that there will be a refresh of the MBP line by Apple early in the new year. The Ivy Bridge chipset is expected to be launched in April so the next MBP refresh will take place after that.

As previously mentioned, MAMP is available for web development as well as a host of nice tools such as Espresso, Coda, Textmate and Text Expander.

Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion provide virtualization options which will allow you to run Windows as a virtual machine inside OS X.

In terms of the MBA vs MBP comparison, the major difference is that the MBA is not upgradeable in any way. With the MBP you can upgrade the RAM or hard drive yourself at a later date. The SSDs used by Apple are not the best performers either, you pay a premium price for a SSD that provides the level of performance of older generation products.

OREGATO

Hi guys,

sorry for taking so long to write back!

Thanks for all the useful help and information, I did a bit of digging on the whole dual booting thing and there appears to be a few different ways to do it. Can people give their feedback on which way is the best and if there are any benefits over others?

I think I have my heart set now on the MBA, mainly due to the thinness of it, I know I'm going to compromise a bit on performance, but I honestly think that the spec on it is good enough for me, although I may go for the 128GB one which has 4GB RAM too. I'm thinking that if I want to dual boot, it would probably be better to have a bigger hard drive.

Talisman, thank you for the post and the links, going to check them out now.

mikemac

OREGATO wrote: »

Also, in terms of releases, when would a macbook air replacement be due out? I don't mind waiting a while for one (a month or two max) if it's going to have better features etc..

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

I use this when I'm considering a purchase.

And for your question, now is a good time to get the Air, just been updated

ayjayirl

Personally I prefer the MBP to MBA but it is only a preference for what I use it for - everything. Personally I don't like the limitation of the HDD on MBA in terms of size but as I said, I use for everything including the primary storage of my music and movies.

As for running windows, I would use a virtual image rather than mess around with boot camp. I am sure its easy but Vbox is really easy to use and will give you the ability to take a virtual image of the instance to any machine, install vbox (free) and have you system as you like it for windows. It also allows to run both operating systems at the same time - this might be handy when testing a web development on IE 9 quickly and easily.

Just get the extra RAM option when getting either MBP/MBA - http://www.virtualbox.org/

Aj

MartMax

I use MBA (that was released in Oct 2010) for Lightroom and Photoshop on the move, can't complain about the performance decent enough. The new MBA should be faster.

Sad Professor

If you get a MBA, make sure it it's a 4GB model. You can't add RAM later and 2GB isn't enough for running a virtual machine.

Zimmerframe

If you are doing any traveling, the Air wins easily.
It's light, it's new and it's quick.
Get the 4gb/128gb version as Lion sucks with 2gb and as mentioned earlier , you can't upgrade it yourself.

I have used Vmware fusion and Parallels and although they work perfectly, I actually prefer Bootcamp.
It's free, easy to setup and you have two "separate" machines, both having full resources, rather than sharing resources, but to be honest, I almost never use/need Windows at all.

Hobbes

I have the top range MBA (latest one).

PRO: It is fast. Very fast. Dual boot works fine. Actually I run windows on the bootcamp via Parallels. It is faster then my windows laptop running that way. The speed of it actually makes it painful to use my desktop/windows laptop.

CON: It isn't a games machine. You can play games on it, but I wouldn't bother.

OREGATO

Thanks again for all the info guys.

Going against what a lot are saying here, I ended up picking up a 2gig, 64gig hard drive model yesterday.

First impressions are its quick, still getting used to the controls and layout but liking it so far.

I've downloaded mamp, text wrangler and a few other tools and they seem to work flawlessly! I've also downloaded virtual box but ran out of time last night so couldn't put windows 7 ultimate on it. I'll hopefully get this done today. Should the virtualisation be slow, I'll use boot camp instead but reading a few different articles on line, it should be ok. I've a powerfully specced laptop from work should I need it, but I think it should be fine!

One thing that is bugging me is mail, I cannot for the life of me connect it to my works exchange server! Is there a setting I need to change on the mail server or anything? All credentials are fine as i have my mail set up over 3 or 4 different devices!

Any help would be great. Thanks again guys!

OREGATO

Also, can you guys recommend me some really good software for the general stuff, I have vlc, extractor, MSN etc. Anything else that is worthwhile to get??

Talisman

OREGATO wrote: »

One thing that is bugging me is mail, I cannot for the life of me connect it to my works exchange server! Is there a setting I need to change on the mail server or anything? All credentials are fine as i have my mail set up over 3 or 4 different devices!

The Exchange server will need basic authentication enabled in order for the Apple Mail be able to access it. By default Exchange uses NTLM or Kerberos authentication and the native OS X Mail program does not play nice with them though the iOS version does.

Talisman

OREGATO wrote: »

Also, can you guys recommend me some really good software for the general stuff, I have vlc, extractor, MSN etc. Anything else that is worthwhile to get??

Skitch - Screen capture
Evernote - Note taking
Adium - Best chat client
Cyberduck - FTP/SFTP client

OREGATO

Talisman wrote: »

The Exchange server will need basic authentication enabled in order for the Apple Mail be able to access it. By default Exchange uses NTLM or Kerberos authentication and the native OS X Mail program does not play nice with them though the iOS version does.

thanks again for the help Talisman.

I have a version of Office for Mac 2011 here and even outlook on that has problem connecting, I can sort of connect via POP but would much prefer to have it connected to the exchange as I have rules and folders etc set up.

I'll take a look at the exchange server tomorrow morning and see if there are any settings I can change to sort this.

I'm still struggling to get the ISO image for Windows 7 Ultimate loaded into Virtualbox, downloaded a copy from MSDN and when I point to the ISO file on the external drive, it keeps saying the file is not usable or something like that.

Any ideas of where I can download a good ISO image for it, I have product keys so just need an ISO that will work!

Talisman

Have you tried double clicking on the ISO file in the Finder? It should open and perform a CRC check on the image.

I have yet to install the Windows 7 monster in a VM - Vista and XP have sufficed for now.

OREGATO

Talisman wrote: »

Have you tried double clicking on the ISO file in the Finder? It should open and perform a CRC check on the image.

I have yet to install the Windows 7 monster in a VM - Vista and XP have sufficed for now.

Hi Talisman,

thanks for the advice. Turns out to be a corrupt ISO from the MSDN webpage. This happened on three of the ones I tried.

I ended up rooting out an older ISO I had used for another machine and it worked without a hitch.

First impressions are very good, very fast and no lag in both Windows and Lion.

I'm very impressed with it so far!!! Love it, except for the fact that I cannot for the life of me connect to Exchange.

I've made a few changes to settings on our server, so will try this evening.

Hobbes

OREGATO wrote: »

Any ideas of where I can download a good ISO image for it, I have product keys so just need an ISO that will work!

You should be able to download the ISO from the Microsoft website. Might want to give MS a ring to check that. How I downloaded mine.

Not sure about VirtualBox, but I use Parallels. What I did was install bootcamp and then hook Parallels to the bootcamp drive. Saves space and allows you to native boot if you ever need it.

OREGATO

Hobbes wrote: »

You should be able to download the ISO from the Microsoft website. Might want to give MS a ring to check that. How I downloaded mine.

Not sure about VirtualBox, but I use Parallels. What I did was install bootcamp and then hook Parallels to the bootcamp drive. Saves space and allows you to native boot if you ever need it.

Thanks Hobbes, I have an MSDN subscription as part of work so I have the ISO's for all the different products (even got Office for MAC 2011 for free too )

One massive issue I'm having is trying to connect any mail client to our exchange server.. It just won't work.

I've tried to enable IMAP etc, but nothing.

Anyone any ideas?