Macbook air or macbook pro?

[prone2xl]

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Macbook pro. No doubt.
13" is fine. 15" is luxury... 17" is just excessive.

The 15" i7 is what I have. I am in love with it.

so you'd recommend the 15" i7 quad core over the 13" ?
do you find the extra 2" screen is useful?
what bout anti-glare screen?

 

[addo]

Is the SSD worth the extra money, or would you opt for a slightly faster processor? I am hoping that by the time I go to buy a new mac that SSD prices will be a little more reasonable.

imo, for most things youll see a bigger increase in speed if you get an ssd, than if you get a slightly faster processor.

ssds for me from here on out... never going back to hdds again. well except for my external

 

[FIREitUP]

so you'd recommend the 15" i7 quad core over the 13" ?
do you find the extra 2" screen is useful?
what bout anti-glare screen?

Don't get a 15" with quad core for two reasons. 1) It's pretty heavy to bring back and forth every day. 2) Quad Core unecessarily eats up battery life and builds up heat for cores that you don't need (dual core is sufficient for multitasking).

 

[HH Holmes]

I walked into an Apple Store last week deadset on buying the fully loaded 15" MBP... Quad core Intel Core i7, and all the goodies. The guy at the Apple Store told me unless I'm majoring in communications or film, that 15" is useless. Waste of money, but also the i7 eats battery life and makes the aluminum extremely hot.

I'm on the 13" now, with the Core i5, 4 gb of DDR3 RAM and 500 gb hard drive space all for $1099 (student discount holla). Well worth it. The MBA is expensive for no CPU power. If you're planning on running Mail, Safari, MS Word, MS Powerpoint, iTunes, and iChat at the same time -- which seems like the norm for any student -- the MBA will not fit your needs. Yeah, it can fit in a manila envelope, but get the MBP. It's light, more powerful and cheap(er).

 

[addo]

I walked into an Apple Store last week deadset on buying the fully loaded 15" MBP... Quad core Intel Core i7, and all the goodies. The guy at the Apple Store told me unless I'm majoring in communications or film, that 15" is useless. Waste of money, but also the i7 eats battery life and makes the aluminum extremely hot.

I'm on the 13" now, with the Core i5, 4 gb of DDR3 RAM and 500 gb hard drive space all for $1099 (student discount holla). Well worth it. The MBA is expensive for no CPU power. If you're planning on running Mail, Safari, MS Word, MS Powerpoint, iTunes, and iChat at the same time -- which seems like the norm for any student -- the MBA will not fit your needs. Yeah, it can fit in a manila envelope, but get the MBP. It's light, more powerful and cheap(er).

thats a cakewalk even for the mba.... i do that on my iphone

i had a core 2 duo mbp before i got this, id put twice the load of what you mentioned and the fans would not even come on, at least not until i threw in some HD streaming or something like that. my point obviously that the core 2 duo(mba) is perfectly suited for average computing needs of a med student which are not in any way special.

 

[HH Holmes]

thats a cakewalk even for the mba.... i do that on my iphone

i had a core 2 duo mbp before i got this, id put twice the load of what you mentioned and the fans would not even come on, at least not until i threw in some HD streaming or something like that. my point obviously that the core 2 duo(mba) is perfectly suited for average computing needs of a med student which are not in any way special.

Yes, but your MBP did not have a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, did it? Hell, my old white macbook had a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo and I bought that almost four years ago! The OP is a student, and can get the base 13" MBP for $1099 (Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD). The base MBA is $999 (1.4 Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 64 GB HDD). 64 GB really means about 50 after OS X and the basic installs. Tack on an iTunes library, iPhoto library, MS word documents, MS powerpoints from lectures... You're left with no space.

It's an obvious choice. Maybe my example was a bit tame, but the MBA won't run nearly as much as someone would realistically use... But that's just my $0.02.

 

[addo]

Yes, but your MBP did not have a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, did it? Hell, my old white macbook had a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo and I bought that almost four years ago! The OP is a student, and can get the base 13" MBP for $1099 (Core i5, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD). The base MBA is $999 (1.4 Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 64 GB HDD). 64 GB really means about 50 after OS X and the basic installs. Tack on an iTunes library, iPhoto library, MS word documents, MS powerpoints from lectures... You're left with no space.

It's an obvious choice. Maybe my example was a bit tame, but the MBA won't run nearly as much as someone would realistically use... But that's just my $0.02.

point taken.... youre right it did not, i forgot about that. that is a pretty ****ty duo 2. Im sure the next gen mba is definitely going to kick ass though. theyll probably put 2nd gen i3 and i5s in them.

as far as the premium over the mba.... well you have to admit that is impressively portable. Still i wouldnt go for the mba though, but i can see their pros.

 

[HH Holmes]

point taken.... youre right it did not, i forgot about that. that is a pretty ****ty duo 2. Im sure the next gen mba is definitely going to kick ass though. theyll probably put 2nd gen i3 and i5s in them.

as far as the premium over the mba.... well you have to admit that is impressively portable. Still i wouldnt go for the mba though, but i can see their pros.

Yeah, Apple has hinted that the new MBAs will have i5 and i7 (Intel's new kick-a** Sandy Bridge) processors. I always liked the concept of the MBA, but to me its just an over glorified netbook. Crappy hard drive and CPU power, but hopefully Apple will change that.

I remember when the MBAs started at $1799 and I was like 😱. At $999, it's a decent deal for a mac, but if they want to really be competitive, they will have to drop another $100 or so to entice the upper-end net book shoppers.

OS X Lion looks amazing. I can't wait to get my hands on that, and I'm impatiently waiting for the new iPhone/iOS 5 to drop so I can get rid of my god forsaken BlackBerry once and for all. The fact that OS X and iOS are now fully integrated is ridiculous... Maybe the MBA will fit in with iCloud somehow and make it as popular as the MBPs.

 

[addo]

Yeah, Apple has hinted that the new MBAs will have i5 and i7 (Intel's new kick-a** Sandy Bridge) processors. I always liked the concept of the MBA, but to me its just an over glorified netbook. Crappy hard drive and CPU power, but hopefully Apple will change that.

I remember when the MBAs started at $1799 and I was like 😱. At $999, it's a decent deal for a mac, but if they want to really be competitive, they will have to drop another $100 or so to entice the upper-end net book shoppers.

OS X Lion looks amazing. I can't wait to get my hands on that, and I'm impatiently waiting for the new iPhone/iOS 5 to drop so I can get rid of my god forsaken BlackBerry once and for all. The fact that OS X and iOS are now fully integrated is ridiculous... Maybe the MBA will fit in with iCloud somehow and make it as popular as the MBPs.

lol wut??

what is this os x lion stuff, i hadnt even heard about that. Is that replacing snow leopard? in july?? looks good

 

[HH Holmes]

lol wut??

what is this os x lion stuff, i hadnt even heard about that. Is that replacing snow leopard? in july?? looks good

Yes! Looks very good... Check out the new features and such on Apple's website. Best part: It'll only cost $30.

 

[Andnosoupforyou]

I will be getting a new laptop for medical school and I was wondering whether I should get a macbook air or macbook pro?

Well there ya go.

 

[dragon529]

Keep in mind that MBA is getting refresh tomorrow. Almost certainly they're getting refreshed with core i5 sandy proc and probably some other goodies! Look out in 8 hours! (I'm definitely excited) 😀

 

[Etorphine]

I walked into an Apple Store last week deadset on buying the fully loaded 15" MBP... Quad core Intel Core i7, and all the goodies. The guy at the Apple Store told me unless I'm majoring in communications or film, that 15" is useless. Waste of money, but also the i7 eats battery life and makes the aluminum extremely hot.

I'm on the 13" now, with the Core i5, 4 gb of DDR3 RAM and 500 gb hard drive space all for $1099 (student discount holla). Well worth it. The MBA is expensive for no CPU power. If you're planning on running Mail, Safari, MS Word, MS Powerpoint, iTunes, and iChat at the same time -- which seems like the norm for any student -- the MBA will not fit your needs. Yeah, it can fit in a manila envelope, but get the MBP. It's light, more powerful and cheap(er).

I can run all those programs + Starcraft II on low settings on my MBA without lag. (4 GB DDR3 version)

 

[ucbsmd]

Keep in mind that MBA is getting refresh tomorrow. Almost certainly they're getting refreshed with core i5 sandy proc and probably some other goodies! Look out in 8 hours! (I'm definitely excited) 😀

No refresh today....Chronic made a mistake

http://twitter.com/#!/chronicwire

 

[raltima07]

I might get a MBA for next year - I hope it will be even better!

 

[prone2xl]

anybody have any input on whether they find the Anti-glare option available on the 15" MBP beneficial over the glossy screen default?

thanks so much!

 

[ucbsmd]

anybody have any input on whether they find the Anti-glare option available on the 15" MBP beneficial over the glossy screen default?

thanks so much!

That's a personal preference thing. Go to an Apple store and look at the two to decide. I would recommend one of the hi-res screens regardless of which finish you choose. The extra screen real estate is worth the extra $100.

 

[FIREitUP]

you should get the 17" one, it's totally worth $2500.

 

[HH Holmes]

I can run all those programs + Starcraft II on low settings on my MBA without lag. (4 GB DDR3 version)

Yes, you're the third person to claim "their" macbook air can run all of this... They are not selling any 'stock' models of the MBA with 4 GB of RAM, so the extra cost online is $100 bucks, and in the store, with added features (Apple usually carries 2 to 3 versions of each screen size) would be anywhere from $1199 to $1399. I do not know what you paid for yours, but again, the 13" MBP costs $1099 for a student and has much, much better stats than the MBA (for now). I know the new ones are being announced sometime this week with the new Sandy Bridge i5 and possibly i7 processors.

I htink the MBP is a much better deal, and has far more CPU power for the price, and that the MBA is just a gimmick due to it's size and weight... but that's just me. The MBP is still pretty damn light (besides the 17"), and I don't know about anyone else, but I sure as hell do not want to be working on an 11" screen. I have 2" bigger with my 13", but it makes all the difference.

anybody have any input on whether they find the Anti-glare option available on the 15" MBP beneficial over the glossy screen default?

Unless you'll be outside for the majority of your computer usage time, go with the glossy screen. The colors pop a lot better (not that you probably care), but overall the screen just looks so much nicer. Plus, the one piece of glass is a breeze to clean. One wipe down with a microfiber cloth and boom, it's spotless. With the anti glare screen (comparable to the old white macbook, which I had), it was a b*tch to clean since it wasn't one even surface.