45 replies to this topic 1 votes

[vhane]

rajputwarrior, on 23 April 2012 - 19:00, said:

macbook air's are toys at best. don't come with a USB stick to reinstall and to recover the damn thing you to be on wifi so it can download all of the components.

I disagree. I routinely run multiple virtual machines concurrently on an 11" MacBook Air. I am currently working on an integration project for a client and I can take this tiny laptop into a meeting and demo the whole stack right there on one machine. This thing is actually quite capable. The SSD makes a big difference.

I have also done a lot of iOS development on the MacBook Air. It's been my primary development machine for the past couple of years. And I've got a 27" iMac with a quad core i7 sitting on the desk at home.

[Enron]

Macbook Pro here, because it was easier to set up Windows 7 on it.

[+Vice]

17" Display was the only reason for me. If they do release a 17" Air I'd buy one. The display is all I care about when deciding which Mac to get as all the other specs are pretty much the same.

[Biohead]

13" Pro - More bang for buck, and not much heavier in all honesty.

[humanz.]

BoDEAN, on 23 April 2012 - 16:04, said:

What were some factors that you took into account when making the decision to purchase your Air or Mac Book Pro?

I built mine XD

[Manish]

Just wanted to add that you might want to hold out a bit longer (if you can) before you purchase either a MBP or MBA. The current product cycle for both lines is nearing its end and they're likely to get a refresh soon.

[Daniel Tablas]

Manish, on 24 April 2012 - 16:58, said:

Just wanted to add that you might want to hold out a bit longer (if you can) before you purchase either a MBP or MBA. The current product cycle for both lines is nearing its end and they're likely to get a refresh soon.

this.

[bbfc_uk]

I went with the 13" inch MBP because I wanted something powerful but not too expensive. It's been perfect for my needs but took me a while to get use to the size of the screen after using a 15" Windows laptop for a few years. The build quality is amazing though and NOTHING compares to it.

TBH nothing compares to Apple's build quality.

[+Vice]

Just realised I already posted in this thread haha

[Boz]

I was evaluating Mac Book Air and Mac Book Pro when I was getting a mac laptop and I've decided to go with Mac Book Air 13.3" because it was very light, super thin and very easy to work with and had almost the same power as MBP (with i7 CPU). I wasn't planning on doing desktop level Photoshop on it but it was powerful enough for coding, ocassional graphic work and it was very portable.

Mac Book Pro was too heavy, battery was weaker and the only benefit to me personally was the exchangeable HDD and more ram but in my case I really didn't need it. I wasn't going to use this laptop as a primary/desktop level replacement laptop so Mac Book Air was dead on.

I don't regret it one bit. I do Photoshop work, coding and ton of other stuff on MBA and no issues at all (even with 4gb of ram).

IMO if you want a desktop replacement laptop that will have more powerful processor now, more ram and exchangeable HDD with more connectivity and you will use it as your primary machine by hooking it to your home monitors, Mac Book Pro is still the way to go, but if you want a very light and portable but powerful laptop and you use it on the go and are on the move a lot, Mac Book Air is the winner.

Important to note is that I will probably sell my Mac Book Air when new Mac Book Pros come out in the same design and have 15" screen.

If they don't, I'll probably go with new Samsung Series 9 15" laptop and just install OSX on it but the point is that once you go super slim like Mac Book Air, using any other laptop that's not thin and light like that is a pain.

[hdca18]

BoDEAN, on 23 April 2012 - 16:04, said:

What were some factors that you took into account when making the decision to purchase your Air or Mac Book Pro?
I have an old windows laptop which is dead, and would like to replace that with an Apple laptop. I currently have a powerful windows desktop computer that I spend most of my computer time on when at home. I am a pilot who travels a lot, and have been using my iPAD 1 to replace my old windows laptop on the road. It has done a fine job.

I am now moving into a phase of my life where I am working on more reports for myself (MS word, but excited to try Pages). I also will be doing a lot of wordpress work and development. I am finding the iPAD is not an ideal tool for this. So I am now looking for an Apple laptop that I can take on the road, and use around the house. I've looking at 13 or 15 inch, nothing bigger than that. Would love to hear input from others. Thanks.

For me the deciding factor came down to the versatility of the Macbook Pro; which far outweighed that of the Macbook Air. For example, the Macbook Pro's contain a built in optical CD/DVD drive, which isn't used often, but at least it has one to be used for the odd time you need to burn a disc, watch a DVD, burn a data disk for file storage, etc. Also the dedicated video card is a plus for anything media involved.

So consider the relative HDD space and formats (SSD vs. Hard Disc), scene size for main use, etc.

[@mac]

I moved from a 15in Pro to a 13in Air.

I realized that I didn't need the more heavy duty GPU or CPU for just some coding, office, email and instant messaging. I also wanted a higher resolution than the 13in Pro had. So for me the Air was a better option. If the 13in Pro had 1440x900 resolution I'd have purchased that though just for the ability to have a cheaper to replace drive if it fails, and the ability to put in faster 1600MHz RAM.

The fact that I RARELY use optical media and already had an external USB DVD burner, and that most of my files live on a RAID in my house so internal storage size was not a big factor also made the choice easier.

It really boils down to:
1) What are your needs
2) Whats your budget
3) After covering your needs what "nice to haves" does your budget allow for

[rkenshin]

rajputwarrior, on 23 April 2012 - 19:25, said:

they are a nightmare for us at work...

+1

I love my company, because when a developer requests a MBP with extra RAM, we just go ahead and purchase the upgrade from Apple, so needless to say, we get ripped off (among other things).

I have a 13" MBP (late-2010) for portability. The first-gen Air didn't have the price-to-spec ratio I was looking for (second gen Air wasn't out yet).
If I were to buy a Mac again, I would stick with the MBP.

I still prefer my HP Envy 15 though.

[+imachip]

I would buy an air after the refresh. You lose too much in graphics performance on an HD 3000, although it won't be good for games even with the HD 4000 graphics (40-50% faster than the 3000), the battery life will be better.

If you don't care about games, and just want to watch movies, photos and do Word, Excel, etc then it's just fine.

If you don't care about the weight and would like a more versatile powerful machine, go with the Pro. I would personally take the top spec of the 15" model if I had a choice.

[@mac]

rkenshin, on 29 April 2012 - 16:39, said:

I still prefer my HP Envy 15 though.

I had one of those, sadly I spilled tea on it. If it had not of died I'd still have it. I wanted to get then an ENVY14 with the Radiance display to replace it but didn't have the money so I got a used 15in Core 2 MacBook Pro, and then bought my Air when I had the money to spend, and the nVidia chip died.