Dilemma: MacBook Air Or Pro?

Calgary22

Hey guys, I've been having a major dilemma here. I'm about to get a new laptop and I've decided to join the bandwagon of the Mac laptops (which to be honest, look awesome as I tried one a few days ago and was ready to get one on the spot!). However, I'm unsure as to which one would be best for me between the 13 inches Mac Air and 13 inches MBPro. Or should i even add MBPro retina to the list.

Here's what I need it for:
- regular web surfing
- writing
- picture and video creation and editing using Jing and Camtasia for my biz.
- being fast, able to handle multiple windows and apps open at the same time.
- I'll be bringing it with my on my trips so weight is important and that's one main reason I'm looking at the Mac as they are very light even compared to my current laptop.

So in light of all of the above, what would you guys recommend I get between the 2 for a first time Mac user? Which would be the best to make as smooth of a transition as possible from the PC to the MAC? The Air or the Pro? What has been your experience with a Mac, whether it be a MBA or a MBP?

Appreciate all your feedbacks guys!

Cheers!

miralize

I've had and enjoyed using both. For about 80% of what you want it for, I would recommend the Air. The only thing you might want to consider the Pro is for video, but the Air is still capable of it, it might just take a bit longer.

Colonel Panic

Whatever you buy, wait until June.

mcw92

New Macbooks are being announced in around a month at the Apple conference.
Theyl prob update the Pro and Air, maybe update the retina.

Your best to wait til then if buying new.
I am anyways

Seriously wait until Haswell arrives.

It will have really good integrated graphics.

Macs ? seriously expensive for what you get, they look good though.

Calgary22

Thanks guys i will be heading to canada in July so will pick one up then:D when are new models expected to be released? thanks for the advice:D

Just been looking up a bit about Haswell any ideas on a release date and roughly how much?:D

Calgary22

Calgary22 wrote: »

Thanks guys i will be heading to canada in July so will pick one up then:D when are new models expected to be released? thanks for the advice:D

Just been looking up a bit about Haswell any ideas on a release date and roughly how much?:D

Not sure on both, rumours that Haswell will be available in July, but you never know.

As for price, I would expect it to be similar.

Just remember some of the mac book airs and pro's have the memory soldered onto the motherboard and isn't upgradeable and they charge a fortune for more ram, ssd etc.

You really can get a better spec windows machine.

Retina would be seriously expensive, worth the money ? who knows, I sure wouldn't pay for it.

You can install virtual box these days and install windows xp etc and run your windows programs. It's handy.

mcw92

Calgary22 wrote: »

Thanks guys i will be heading to canada in July so will pick one up then:D when are new models expected to be released? thanks for the advice:D

Just been looking up a bit about Haswell any ideas on a release date and roughly how much?:D

The next Models being announced next month will hopefully have Haswell , and price should be around the same if not the exact same as current models on the apple store.

mcw92

mcw92 wrote: »

The next Models being announced next month will hopefully have Haswell , and price should be around the same if not the exact same as current models on the apple store.

Going to be expensive, just make sure you realise that you are paying mainly for the name and design and nothing more. Okay if you want retina, but that will cost you.

Just think of the memory and make sure you either purchase enough or that you can actually upgrade it.

I think Haswell will be named as 4th Gen I3,7, etc. Looks really good for the Graphics, sure a dedicated gaming rig will be better but the haswell will be as good as a nividia Gt 660 M afaik. that's really good for integrated graphics.

I think the best graphics performance on haswell will be on 15" size machines. due to cooling etc. But wait for reviews.

mcw92

Deleted User wrote: »

Going to be expensive, just make sure you realise that you are paying mainly for the name and design and nothing more. Okay if you want retina, but that will cost you.

Just think of the memory and make sure you either purchase enough or that you can actually upgrade it.

I think Haswell will be named as 4th Gen I3,7, etc. Looks really good for the Graphics, sure a dedicated gaming rig will be better but the haswell will be as good as a nividia Gt 660 M afaik. that's really good for integrated graphics.

I think the best graphics performance on haswell will be on 15" size machines. due to cooling etc. But wait for reviews.

Im aware im paying for name and design, and IMO its worth it.
I bought a Macbook new in 2009, price was around 1000€, only sold it there a few weeks ago for 700€. Only upgrade was 8GB ram from 2GB.

A major thing Macbooks have, is resale value.
Compare it to a laptop my bro got around start of 2009, he paid around 900, it was one of the best spec'd at that price.
Not only is is now performing worse than my macbook was, fans have failed and battery has lost all charge. Reslae value would be around 200-300€ if even.

I just hope that their lower end 13" MBP and rMBP's have the haswell chip, and maintain their current price bracket.

mcw92

mcw92 wrote: »

Im aware im paying for name and design, and IMO its worth it.
I bought a Macbook new in 2009, price was around 1000€, only sold it there a few weeks ago for 700€. Only upgrade was 8GB ram from 2GB.

A major thing Macbooks have, is resale value.
Compare it to a laptop my bro got around start of 2009, he paid around 900, it was one of the best spec'd at that price.
Not only is is now performing worse than my macbook was, fans have failed and battery has lost all charge. Reslae value would be around 200-300€ if even.

I just hope that their lower end 13" MBP and rMBP's have the haswell chip, and maintain their current price bracket.

Fair enough if it's what you want.

If you wait long enough they will have Haswell.

opinion guy

Deleted User wrote: »

Going to be expensive, just make sure you realise that you are paying mainly for the name and design and nothing more. Okay if you want retina, but that will cost you.

I pay mainly for the superior build quality.

nialler

The MacBook Air is a beautiful machine but limited in RAM and SSD capacity. I purchased a MBP 13" a couple of days ago for a client and bought 16gb RAM from crucial, took me 3 minutes to install and it's a wee beastie. I also bought one for my daughter at christmas. If you need ultra mobility and not lugging around something a tad heavier then go for the air, if you need large capacity and plenty of RAM go for the MBP.

opinion guy

opinion guy wrote: »

I pay mainly for the superior build quality.

It's well built for sure.

I just look at my 2nd Dell and I swear, never again. for an 1100 Euro laptop it's a piece of crap.

The DC jack connector keeps breaking and it's a pita to open it and fix it every time. The DC jack is too big and the wire too heavy for the jack and so I can't charge the battery and every time I move or the cat hops up on my legs the damn thing switches off.

It overheats, the heatsink is completely inadequate and not able to dissipate the heat from the 1st gen I7 740qm, it overheats a lot and shuts down.

I had to go into the advanced settings anc change the processor max to around 30% to throttle it. Some web pages with all that flash tend to use a lot of cpu power, (I really Hate Flash ) sure I could disable it but some sites won't work properly then.

The 1st Dell I had really fell apart.

My brothers is a pile of crap too, over heats as well.

My GF Siaters Dell was also a pile of crap.

The Apples are nice but I don't know if I could justify spending so much ?

nialler

nialler wrote: »

The MacBook Air is a beautiful machine but limited in RAM and SSD capacity. I purchased a MBP 13" a couple of days ago for a client and bought 16gb RAM from crucial, took me 3 minutes to install and it's a wee beastie. I also bought one for my daughter at christmas. If you need ultra mobility and not lugging around something a tad heavier then go for the air, if you need large capacity and plenty of RAM go for the MBP.

Some of the MBA and MBP's don't allow you to upgrade ram ?

whiterebel

More opinions

And more.....

Yeah someone said in that thread that you can't upgrade the ram in the MBP, but I'd say it varies between models if I remember correctly from reading specs before on a 3rd party site.

But If I was to get one I'd need a crap load of ram to run virtualbox to install a windows os to run all the windows software I need, so I suppose that means I really need a windows machine lol.

nialler

MadLad

My daughter's laptop has 16gb ram from crucial.com/eu around €80 I think. It's running win8 (for my sins) through VMware Fusion and it flies all the while as I'm cursing win8.

Calgary22

Thanks all i am going to canada in july so i will wait and pick one up there works out 300-400 euro cheaper happy days:D
Thanks again:D

nialler

nialler wrote: »

MadLad

My daughter's laptop has 16gb ram from crucial.com/eu around €80 I think. It's running win8 (for my sins) through VMware Fusion and it flies all the while as I'm cursing win8.

16GB of ram you would need al right. For a virtual machine to run smooth.

IS it a MBP or air ? I know that some definitely have no possibility to upgrade the ram as it's soldered directly to the motherboard.

opinion guy

Calgary22 wrote: »

Thanks all i am going to canada in july so i will wait and pick one up there works out 300-400 euro cheaper happy days:D
Thanks again:D

Also cheaper if you drive to Belfast - without the pesky problem of airfares.

Also - if you have a student card - the student discount in the North is WAAAAYYYYYY better than the one in the republic. This is because in addition to the usual student discount of approx 10% in the UK, and almost only the UK, Apple Care is heavily discounted for students i.e. instead of 10% off it is something like 75% off

Calgary22

Calgary22 wrote: »

Thanks all i am going to canada in july so i will wait and pick one up there works out 300-400 euro cheaper happy days:D
Thanks again:D

Make sure you ditch the packaging, if they find it you'll be hammered by tax at customs on your way back.

They can also these days I believe scan the serial Number and see when it was made, so there would be no saying you have it a while.

Maybe you can post the box home as it will be handy if you sell it in the future!

Calgary22

i am moving there for the next year r so so hopefully i wont have to worry about that:D but that's a good idea with regards coming home at Christmas with presents etc probably will be bringing home an Ipad as a present so will have to work something out for that:D

Calgary22

Calgary22 wrote: »

i am moving there for the next year r so so hopefully i wont have to worry about that:D but that's a good idea with regards coming home at Christmas with presents etc probably will be bringing home an Ipad as a present so will have to work something out for that:D

Moving ? nice one. Nice place Canada.

But yeah they are getting stricter now, probably a slim chance getting pulled, but not worth the risk.

whiterebel

Deleted User wrote: »

16GB of ram you would need al right. For a virtual machine to run smooth.

IS it a MBP or air ? I know that some definitely have no possibility to upgrade the ram as it's soldered directly to the motherboard.

I've 8GB on a recent MBA, and Parallels runs fine.

opinion guy

Deleted User wrote: »

16GB of ram you would need al right. For a virtual machine to run smooth.

IS it a MBP or air ? I know that some definitely have no possibility to upgrade the ram as it's soldered directly to the motherboard.

AFAIK its the retina MBP that you can't upgrade the RAM.

The non-retina MBP's are all upgradeable AFAIK

Not sure about MBA's

Sad Professor

You can't upgrade the RAM in MBAs either. Only the regular non-Retina MBP.

15-inch: 2.3GHz

2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
4GB 1600MHz memory
500GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
Built-in battery (7 hours)2
Dispatched:
Within 24 hours
Free Delivery
€1,849.00
Includes VAT of approx. €346.00.*


NA I don't care what anyone says about Apple's design, they charge over twice the price for the hardware, that's madness, and without retina.

No freaking way.

Even without the mad 346 Euro VAT they are still hugely over priced.

Sorry mac fans, no offence intended. I do Have an Ipad which I love though if that makes ye feel better ?

opinion guy

Deleted User wrote: »

15-inch: 2.3GHz

2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
4GB 1600MHz memory
500GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
Built-in battery (7 hours)2
Dispatched:
Within 24 hours
Free Delivery
€1,849.00
Includes VAT of approx. €346.00.*


NA I don't care what anyone says about Apple's design, they charge over twice the price for the hardware, that's madness, and without retina.

No freaking way.

Even without the mad 346 Euro VAT they are still hugely over priced.

Sorry mac fans, no offence intended. I do Have an Ipad which I love though if that makes ye feel better ?

Well thats your choice - EUR1800 for a machine that will last you years and years - or EUR1100 for Dell - 'it's a piece of crap'. How long did the Dell last ?

Your choice

Sad Professor

Can we stay on topic please. I'm pretty sure the OP wasn't looking to start a Mac vs PC debate.

opinion guy

opinion guy wrote: »

Well thats your choice - EUR1800 for a machine that will last you years and years - or EUR1100 for Dell - 'it's a piece of crap'. How long did the Dell last ?

Your choice

2 years, No one keeps their laptop years and years though.

There are Laptops that will last. My choice in dell for a 2nd and last time was because you could configure the specs yourself, now this is not possible any more and so I've no reason to buy dell again, I wouldn't buy one anyway.

I can see the attraction to Apple, but 2400 for retina is really mad !

Calgary22

Tbh i hope to keep my mac for years and years i see it as an investment. i would not be up to date with all the techo talk but i have had a dell lapto it cos 1000 plus and it was rubbish and i am on a toshiba not bad but very slow and very heavy and it cost me 600 plus so that's 1600 wasted on laptops. i was just looking on the apple.ca page MBP 13-inch: 2.5GHz
with Retina display is coming in at 1083 euro and the MBP 13-inch standard is coming in at 862 euro to me these are very fare prices for what seems a great piece of kit:D i agree the Irish prices would be a turn off that's why i am gonna wait:D

Fair enough if ye can get it at that price, and if you're keeping it for years.

Check this out http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/622-14-macbook-air-ssd-upgrade.html

Mad the way Apple disabled TRIM for 3rd party SSD's. I thought I'd be able to install my Vertex 4 ssd, but NOOOOOOOO !

Check out this link.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Mid+2011+Teardown/6130/2

On this MBA the ram isn't upgradeable.

Colonel Panic

Calgary22, Macs hold their value well and I've always found them pretty sturdy.

I've had my MBP for 2 years now and lug it everywhere and it's still a good performer and in good nick. I'll keep it for at least another year, and it's not like it's no longer powerful. These days the focus is on things like reduced power consumption, improved integrated graphics and adding more OpenCL style compute shaders to mobile chipsets. Those days of huge jumps are over.

Sure, you can get cheaper machines for less, but they're usually not as good. Airs in particular are competitive with Sony and Samsung Ultrabooks in the Windows arena.

This generation, I would have said get a 13" Air over a 13" Pro. Retina on the Sandy Bridge GPU has been a bit disappointing and you don't gain much portability.

For the next gen with Haswell chipsets, it's going to be a more difficult decision. I think most people don't really need as much power as they think they do from a computer. Unless you're using it for professional editing, rendering, resource intensive software development etc and Air is fine.

Calgary22

Thanks for all the advice is there any reason why the air does not have retina? And could it in the future?

frozenfrozen

I have a MBA and love it, but would rather have a MBP now because I'm seriously into video production and video djing and the MBA simply can't handle it. However if you were 'dabbling' in video (As in not working with 10bit 175mbit DNxHD 1080p footage, like I require) like editing video straight from a DSLR or iPhone, iMovie on my 2011 11 inch 1.7(?)Ghz MBA scrubs perfectly and plays back flawlessly and just takes a while to render. Only thing though, if you're traveling the MBA is light and great to carry around, but my god the battery life is woeful, I get 3 hours from one charge. THREE HOURS. It's the 11 inch so you should be looking at more like 5 hours on the 13", but still, be prepared to be always looking for a plug.

Another thing to note is I cracked the screen on my Air, and it's 700 quid to replace through apple. Ouch. Buying the part yourself is around 250 quid but you have to use a heat gun to melt the glue off around the screen and take it all out, no thank you. I'm sure the MBP is a bit more sturdy around the screen since it has actual glass, and would therefore probably be a better choice because of those few little problems/features.

You'll be totally happy either way, just don't crack the screen on the Air because you'll be crying when you find out how much hassle it is to replace

cython

Calgary22 wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice is there any reason why the air does not have retina? And could it in the future?

A significantly limiting factor is the increased power demand from higher resolution screen. The Air already has a smaller form factor, and hence battery, than the MBP, and so this could cripple the battery life.

TBi

Interesting that no one mentioned that the air has a higher resolution screen than the MBP. Same resolution as a 15" MBP. That would be a big reason for me to choose a MBA.

Losty Dublin

Deleted User wrote: »

2 years, No one keeps their laptop years and years though.

You'd be surprised. I've a 12" Powerbook from late 2003 that, barring a new battery, actually is still quite a capable machine that can outpace a lot of low end machines. While it can't run a lot of the new software that we take for granted (Such as today's iTunes and ) it is more than enough for day to day e mail, web surfing, MS Office, iWorks, Graphic Converter etc etc.

Calgary22

Ok guys so time has come to buy and i am still unsure of which to get as stated will be used mostly to keep in contact with friends watch movies update i pod the usual nothing to serious. so i can get the new 13 inch MBA for 1099$ or get the 13inch MBP with retina for 1499$ any suggestions on which you guys would choose for what i have described cheers:)

nialler

I'm literally about to buy a 13" MBA with 512 ssd and 8gb RAM, used a new one the other day, 8 sec startup very impressive and quite nippy forgot to mention €1390 all in ex vat

Calgary22

yea i am swaying towards the same mate i am getting it in canada so hence why the $$ signs lol i just dont want to get it then a month down the line it comes out with retina or the MBP comes out with haswell:D

nialler

I don't think we'll see a retina MBA for at least a year, MBP though will probably get an autumn refresh to haswell I was hoping that it would happen at the WWDC hence me holding off but I've been lugging on around for a week and that's what swayed me towards the air, it's just so light

nialler

Just an update, I went for a 13" MacBook Air, 8gb RAM, 512 SSD, Core i7.

Three words

What A Beast.

Starts up in about 4 seconds and opens Photoshop 6, Outlook and Safari in under 10 from power up, 12 hour battery life I'm not sure about unless I'm pushing it into turbo mode all the time, although just browsing now and email is telling me 7.5 hours so good enough.

excellent,

I would have loved one but I will wait another while.

Is there something like a power save option like in Windows ?

In the settings you can set the min and max processor in %, so in power saver on battery I set it to 30% max which is plenty for browsing wit a quad core I7 740 QM. In "plugged in" I set it to 50% in power save when I don't need the juice.

I saw the mac book air in he shop it's a sexy piece of kit. Pity it doesn't have retina.

nialler

Howya MadLad

Effectively the machine puts itself into sleep within 1 minute but it's instantaneous reawaken. Also the chip has a turbo mode so it'll go from 1.7 to 3.4ghz when pushed, I just converted a 1080p five minute video down to 720p in 1 minute and 4 seconds, processor was running at 345% in activity monitor. Haven't plugged the machine in since friday and I've got about 17% battery life left.

It's a damn impressive machine even though it's only got 8gb RAM.

N

Nialler,

I wouldn't bother even converting a 1080P video, 1.5 hrs+ with 740qm quad core.

8gb ram is more than fine, I never use all mine.

Probably the best thing in the new air is the use of the pic express hard drive, bypassing the sata interface altogether making it very fast.