Looking to buy first MacBook. This is all new to me.
MacBook Air or MacBook Pro? Why would you make that pick?
Thanks for the help.

 

Depends entirely on how you plan to use it. What/where/how?

 

Yep^, you also need to decide if on-board optical drive is important to you. You also need to decide if the Air has enough internal storage.

 

iPad

 

Yep, what they said. A MacBook Air doesn't come close to meeting my needs. What are you using it for?

 

He's a guy and from New Jersey, porn is the only answer.

 

 

MacBook Pro 13 here...it's fine for what I need it for.

 

If you have to ask, get the Air.

 

Both...

 

9 responses and no one said it?


Get a PC.

 

We are not that retarded.

 

Oh yeah? Well... Well... Whatever Jerk!

 

+1

 

Mac Pro

 

Posting from my 15" i5 MBP here... the optical drive was a must for me, never touched a MBA during the buying process. I also got it with the anti-glare high-res screen.

 

17" i7 here! I got it with the glossy screen; to the OP, if you have to ask I say go with the air or regular MacBook.

 

I have Windows 7 on my MBP

 

Questions to ask yourself, how much computing power do you need, and how much physical storage do you need, how much RAM will you need.

Those are the major limiting items on the two machines you are looking at. Answer those questions and you'll pretty much have your answer. If you can't answer those questions, no one can answer them for you.

 

I bought my first Mac (a Macbook Pro) two years ago. I use it as an everyday computer at home. I've always understood that the Macbook Air is a great "travel" computer. Meaning it's not great as an everyday computer. If it's an everyday computer you're looking for, go with the Macbook Pro. If you're going to travel with it, take it to use at meetings, the Air will serve your needs.

 

A standard macbook is ample computing power for most home users. I'd say a MBP are for those that need the extra computing power for photo editing, are a programmer, need the extra computing power for something else, or just want to say they own a MBP.

 

If you're talking a MacBook v. MacBook Pro then my assumption is that you're OK with a 13" screen?

Go Pro. Upgrade the hard drive to an SSD. Enjoy life.

 

Forgot about the screen size difference.

How confident are you on the reliability of SSD drives? I'm still not sold on them, they make me feel

 

Buy one, install it, and then you will wonder why you waited so long.

 

They have gotten better with the last few releases. Anything I've read said they are better than befores.

 

I understand the benefits. The part that concerns me is the degradation of quality as you make more and more writes to the flash memory. And with as many writes the OS makes to the hard drive, especially for your personal data, how long can you expect the SSD hard drive to last compared to a standard platter setup.

 

Intel is stating MTBF of 2 million hours on their high end drives.
http://www.intel.com/design/flash/na...reme/index.htm

Their mainstream drives have MTBF of 1.2 million hours
http://www.intel.com/design/flash/na...ream/index.htm

IMO the write degradation issue is overblown. The drives makes a best effort to evenly write to sectors.

There is some good info in those Intel links. Read this http://download.intel.com/it/pdf/Imp...rives_2009.pdf

 

2 million hours?

 

No dice. That's only 228 years. I need my drives to last WAY longer than that...

 

Ill be using this for home, Internet, iTunes, photos, and also for work. Portability does not matter. This will also be replacing my old POS Dell desktop.

 

Go MBP.

 

In that case, MBP.

 

If you don't need it to be portable, buy an iMac.

 

He speaks truth.

 

Even if the computer is 90% gonna be placed on a desktop, I'd say get a laptop for the 10% of the time you can take it somewhere (travelling, in the bedroom, in the living room, etc)

I'd say get a macbook for your needs (provided you are not a graphic designer or needs a computer that requires processing/rendering power) ... the hundreds you save by not getting a MBP ... that can go towards car stuff ...

 

For most graphic design, a MBP with 8GB is a good start. With the latest version of Photoshop CS5 now finally supporting 64, rendering should be faster, especially if you have bumped up your RAM.

If you do get the MBP and use it 90% of the time at home at a desk, please save yourself the heartache and get a nice external display, the 27" displays are

 

Pick something from the refurb store http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...mco=OTY2ODY3Nw

and use the money you saved to get a SSD drive.