Air or Pro??

Zamp

My wife has decided she wants to buy me a laptop for my 30th birthday. I'm not sure whether to go for the 13" air or pro. I'd mostly use it for movies, music & sometimes work on it also (mainly excel, word & powerpoint related work). Anyway, I'd be very interested in people's opinions as to which one is best for me..... Thanks!

The Big Gig

in the simplest terms, I think you gotta weigh up the difference between having an optical Drive v Size & portability.
Pro is bigger with optical Drive
Air is Smaller without

alexlyons

ok if all you are using it for is what you state, then the processing power of the air will do you. It's not the quickest of machines and if you keep it tidy and not a huge amount of files all over the place while keeping loads of programs open then its brilliant.

However if you want a more day to day machine that you can work on a bit of this and that keeping your movie open along with a good few safari tabs as well as excel and powerpoint each with a few files open while listening to music and loading in photos, then you need the pro.

I could get into technicalities but in every day terms that's roughly how it works.
The air is great for doing 2 or 3 things and then quitting them and looking at something else etc.

This is made much easier now with Lion which I spent months testing. It's a great OS which will come with it and you can quit say "quicktime" with a movie half way through and when you reopen it it will be where you left off. You can have 5 pdf documents open in preview, quit it and it will all be there when you open preview again.
You can also shut down the computer leaving everything open, the computer will fully turn off and when you reboot it will open it all up again.

I'd say if all your doing is what you say and are a light user, go for the air.

Just bear in mind the storage options with the air aren't as big as the pro, and can be quite expensive. Remember this and think about how much music and movies you have etc.

any questions just ask, and this thread will probably be moved to the Mac section rather than the Apple media devices which are iPods etc

Zamp

Thank you both for the information.

@alexlyons - Based on what you've said I think the air is the one for me. I wouldn't be a heavy user at all and this will be mostly for personal use. I assume I can attach an external hard drive to the air and use that for additional storage if required? Also, I have read that an 'Ethernet Adapter' is a popular accessory for the air. Is this something I'd need? (I don't know what it is....!). Again, thank you for you're time. Much appreciated.

alexlyons

no prob.

ye the air has 2 USB ports for external rives etc.

an ethernet adapter is an adapter that lets you plug an internet cable (ethernet cable) into the Air. Most computers have them, but the air doesn't as apple decided to leave it off for spacial reasons. You can only connect the Air to the interment wirelessly if you don't have this adapter.
If the Air is the only computer in the house then an ethernet adapter is handy for connecting directly to the router if you need to fix anything in relation to the internet/wireless network. If there is another computer with an ethernet port then you should be ok. You can always pick one up later if needs be.

ethernet port and cable

vinnycoyne

alexlyons wrote: »

However if you want a more day to day machine that you can work on a bit of this and that keeping your movie open along with a good few safari tabs as well as excel and powerpoint each with a few files open while listening to music and loading in photos, then you need the pro.

Have you used the newer Core i7 MBA? That's what I'm using and have no need to quit apps for performance reasons. I can have dozens of windows open (e.g. Xcode, Safari, iTunes, Pages, Preview, Pixelmator, Acorn, Twitter, iCal, BBEdit) with no noticeable slowdown.

alexlyons

no not yet unfortunately, it sounds like a great machine.

However for the OP I wasn't expecting him to go for the top of the range, more a general mid range purchase which is what most buy, and if you start going really heavy on them they do get a bit sluggish at times.

Stainless_Steel

RAM is what you need to keep lots of apps open. The CPU wouldn't be the bottleneck usually unless your watching a flash video and doing something else for example.

Doesn't the Air have min 4GB?

Creamy Goodness

air's are great as a second device, primary no.

it complements my 27" iMac superbly but it couldn't replace it.

dr.kenneth noisewater

Anyone have any suggestions on the best (cheapest) place to buy the macbook pro? midlands/connacht region

godtabh

I was in the exact same postion for my 30th a couple of weeks ago.

I got the 13 inch pro.

I have it hooked up to a 23 inch screen when needed and can use it on the fly as its small enough to carry around

mathepac

dr.kenneth noisewater wrote: »

???

Your question was answered in the thread you created previously.

silvine

Anyone have any suggestions on the best (cheapest) place to buy the macbook pro? midlands/connacht region

Try adverts.ie, the Apple refurb store or campus.ie

Praetorian

I would go with air personally. They are a simply magical laptop. The slimness still baffles me every time I see my own sitting on a coffee table. I know the other companies are bringing out slim models soon, but apple is ahead in this department. The pro is more powerful but doesn't offer anything special compared to the competition. My friends pro with hard drive actually feels slower than my air with ssd. Amazing portability, great battery life, sexy looking. Go air.