Macbook Air or Pro

[Naeeldar]

So I'm about ready to upgrade my old macbook 2.1 intel duo. From what I've seen there is no real difference in performance from a macbook air 13 inch and the entry level pro. Because of that I believe the air is a better buy being cheaper, lighter, and with a nice SSD drive. Graphics card is the same until you move up to the 15inch.

So is there anything I'm missing before I purchase later this week?

 

[Red Storm]

The only downside to the Air is the lack of the black/glass bezel display.

I personally went with the Pro between the two, but that's because I actually use Ethernet port and the optical drive (do a lot of work with various VMs), as well as the Firewire port (backups). If I didn't need to do any of those things, I would probably have gone with the Air.

 

[Naeeldar]

The only downside to the Air is the lack of the black/glass bezel display.

I personally went with the Pro between the two, but that's because I actually use Ethernet port and the optical drive (do a lot of work with various VMs), as well as the Firewire port (backups). If I didn't need to do any of those things, I would probably have gone with the Air.

Honestly I can't think of any reason I would need an optical drive (could always buy one anyway). And I have never used a firewire port even on my pc.

Pretty much what I expected then I'll pick up a macbook air - it's mostly for internet, itunes, iphoto and some light word processing anyway.

I guess I need to figure out if I want to include the iPad (unlikely can't seem to find a use and the 3 is going to into production now it sounds like) and/or an Apple TV (seems like a few nice features and relatively cheap) when I go to buy the laptop next week.

 

[mshan]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2182680&highlight=mac+pro+air

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2187803&highlight=mac+pro+air

 

[disports]

Sounds like you made up your mind! It'll be a great buy! I wanna get a MBP but only if I can sell my MBA :X

 

[LookBehindYou]

Dont forget you can always yank the optical drive and add another drive, either ssd for speed or a fat drive for storage. That's what I'm going to do with my pro.

 

[Naeeldar]

Dont forget you can always yank the optical drive and add another drive, either ssd for speed or a fat drive for storage. That's what I'm going to do with my pro.

Question though is why go that route? I'm spending 200-300 more for the same system as the mac air and it's not as thin.

If the graphics card was better on the 13pro I'd probably go that route, but since it's not I don't see much point.

 

[disports]

Question though is why go that route? I'm spending 200-300 more for the same system as the mac air and it's not as thin.

If the graphics card was better on the 13pro I'd probably go that route, but since it's not I don't see much point.

Well if you're carrying it around a lot, I can see the thinness of the Air as more of a factor compared to the Pro. Which model MBA were you going for? I know the cheapest 13" MBP is the low end one for $999 @ Microcenter or refurbished @ the Apple online store.

 

[Naeeldar]

Well if you're carrying it around a lot, I can see the thinness of the Air as more of a factor compared to the Pro. Which model MBA were you going for? I know the cheapest 13" MBP is the low end one for $999 @ Microcenter or refurbished @ the Apple online store.

13 MBA. The next step on the MBPRO is the 15 at 1799. I basically would have to go to that level to get a higher performing machine. Best case scenario means I'm paying several hundred more.

It just seems to me that the MBA is the better buy. If I want more power may as well go imac for the desktop.

 

[disports]

13 MBA. The next step on the MBPRO is the 15 at 1799. I basically would have to go to that level to get a higher performing machine. Best case scenario means I'm paying several hundred more.

It just seems to me that the MBA is the better buy. If I want more power may as well go imac for the desktop.

Sounds good to me. Which 13" MBA are you going to get?

 

[pankajs]

Nothing is missing, If you seriously want to buy beginning model then go for Macbook Air.
Its slimmer, lighter and compatible. Good to Go on the go.

 

[Rottie]

If you were using old Macbook and you never used dvd drive to watch movie or use ethernet port (if the wifi is down or something like that) then MBA is for you.

 

[Oyeve]

The MBA is pretty cool, but, IMO, too thin for me. Even my MBP has a slight bend to it after about a year of heavy use and awkward angle holding.

 

[Emulex]

both MBA for light duty, macbook pro 17" (older core 2 duo, 8gb, ssd+hd) for 1920x1200 matte screen

old macbook air + sata ssd = $600 used (applecare 1.5 years left when bought)
old macbook pro core2duo 2.66 + ssd + 8gb (1920x1200 matte screen) with 1.5 years applecare left = $1300
also a year or so ago i picked up $1900 a mac pro with 2 quad core nehalem (4 core 8 thread each) system with two velociraptors and a cheesy gt120 card - easy to add HD 5870 hacked as second video card $150~ - going to move to dual SSD raid-0 - this is the 4,1 but you can flash it to 5,1 to use the newer westmere 6 core 12 thread cpu's Love it. Great for running many VM's of osx for other users to RDP into. Need to figure out how to run esxi 5 on it and see if it will met me fake the SMC to run tons of osx vm's on it applecare was 1.5 years left when i got it too. Original receipt was like $9K (!?!?)

Gotta love apple products when you score a deal (relative to when i got them).

MBA = most used hardware of all i own ..

 

[vi edit]

For me it wasn't about pure CPU speed. The Air simply felt faster. There's no waiting for anything. You just click and it works. Boot times are in seconds. And that doesn't even go into the weight of the device. My 13" air almost weighs as much as the power adapter of my old HP notebook

If you are just doing casual web browsing, word processing, email, and otherwise "light duty" work the Air is an amazing little critter. I've used mine on and off today for almost 12 hours and I'm still at 25% battery life. That's not continuous, but it's an easy 4 hours of consistent use, and another 8 hours of being woken up and used in 10-15 minutes spats checking emails and such between breaks every hour.

The SSD in these things is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's odd not waiting for a HD to churn away while you wait for an app to load.

 

[manly]

consider whether you might need 8GB RAM in the future. Rumors are of a minor speed bump for the MBP in November, but it doesn't sound like anything major.

 

[Red Storm]

For me it wasn't about pure CPU speed. The Air simply felt faster. There's no waiting for anything. You just click and it works. Boot times are in seconds. And that doesn't even go into the weight of the device. My 13" air almost weighs as much as the power adapter of my old HP notebook

If you are just doing casual web browsing, word processing, email, and otherwise "light duty" work the Air is an amazing little critter. I've used mine on and off today for almost 12 hours and I'm still at 25% battery life. That's not continuous, but it's an easy 4 hours of consistent use, and another 8 hours of being woken up and used in 10-15 minutes spats checking emails and such between breaks every hour.

The SSD in these things is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's odd not waiting for a HD to churn away while you wait for an app to load.

Pop an SSD in the Pro (as I did) and it bests the Air in every performance metric, but loses out in weight.

 

[disports]

Pop an SSD in the Pro (as I did) and it bests the Air in every performance metric, but loses out in weight.

Also loses out in resolution which I really wish it had!

 

[runawayprisoner]

Yeah, higher resolution is quite an important factor to consider if graphics editing, CAD, and the likes, is considered at all.

My 13" Air is quite a lot more useful than my 13" Pro if only for that I can see more information on the screen.

 

[chloros]

I went with the Air because of resolution. If the new refresh of the 13pro comes with a better screen.....ill be all over it.

 

[manly]

This could interest some folks:

Ultra-Thin 15" Mac Notebook Getting Closer to Production

 

[Illusio]

The other downside of the Air is the smaller hard drive. The MBP can get at least twice as large as the biggers Air. (IIRC)

 

[boomhower]

This could interest some folks:

Ultra-Thin 15" Mac Notebook Getting Closer to Production

Irrelevant for the time being. It's no where close to being in production.

 

[Naeeldar]

The other downside of the Air is the smaller hard drive. The MBP can get at least twice as large as the biggers Air. (IIRC)

I went with the air.

Quite frankly though I'm not sure why you would need more then 256gig on a mac laptop. Unless it's the only piece of equipment you have.

 

[Eug]

I stuck with the 13" Pro instead of getting an 11" Air.

I couldn't take the squint-inducing high pixel density of the Air. The 13" Pro is the perfect pixel density for me for a laptop. However, I did put an SSD in my 13" MBP.

That may change if OS X becomes resolution-independent, but Lion isn't.