"13 MacBook - Air or Pro?

lamboman · 26 Jun 2014 at 16:33

Can't say I've ever come across anyone that has noticed any trackpad lag with the Air. Have both the Air and an iMac with a Magic Trackpad, can't say I really notice a difference. I'll have a close look later.

As for the Air vs the Pro, it's been covered several times before on here, worth having a search. Essentially, while the Pro is the superior machine on paper, the iGPU still isn't up to the task of powering the display, which really hampers the experience (laggy OS X animations and scrolling on heavy webpages for example) that would really frustrate me if I owned one. I personally prefer the form factor of the Air too (the taper really makes it a lovely typing experience).

I can get a good 9+ hours running a Windows VM in Fusion, with basic productivity tasks (most recent being Access, some Notepad++). The rMBP doesn't match that, however it's probably more than enough for the majority of users.

crinkleshoes · 26 Jun 2014 at 16:59

There's a bit of lag on the iMac w/ magic trackpad, although not as much as the air.

The rMBP has the least lag, barely noticeable... one of the better laptop trackpads.

You can learn and adjust to the lag... it's just annoying for those of us who get bothered by that sort of thing.

Try them side-by-side and you will see what I mean... you'll be used to the lag on the air having owned it for a while. Use a rMBP for a day and when you move back to the air... you'll be over-shooting things until you re-adjust

I'm not so fond of even going back to iMac now after using rMBP! Although... it's OK

I haven't spent much time with one with just the iGPU... the GTX750 powers things nicely

jhmaeng · 26 Jun 2014 at 19:15

I went for the Air on the basis that the HiDPI resolution on the rMBP only provides the working space of 1280x780. Which is just not enough.

When you use the "More Space" option to expand the rMBP resolution to something larger i.e. 1440x900 or 1680x1050, (i) the Retina resolution advantage is lost so it is no longer crystal clear and you might as well use the native resolution in the Air, and (ii) it expands the resolution to 2880x1800 or 3360x2100 and then scales down, with many people reporting graphics lags as a result.

Amp34 · 26 Jun 2014 at 21:41

crinkleshoes said:
One of the reasons I went with the pro over air... that extra horsepower makes a big difference... even when using something like serato dj to simply analyse tracks... the rMBP takes 1/2 to 1/3 of the time of an air to load the track fully.

Let alone encoding... get the quad core 15, you will notice the difference.

The long battery life only really occurs under certain usage scenarios though... music production isn't really one of them

A day at the office... my 15" 2.3 quad i7 with gtx750 lasts the whole day with 20-30% remaining... using general office documents, wifi on all the time, remote desktop, some simple use of design software, no standby.

Switch on vmware or music/dj apps and that falls to 4-6 hours usually.

Use the CPU fully and it gets about 2.5 hours, with the likes of encoding or image conversions.

The 13/15 rMBP won't fall far behind the air in general use and you have the extra horsepower when you need it, wonderful life from these laptops.

You can't really compare the 13" and 15" RMBP tbh. There is such a massive difference in speed between them. Besides the dedicated GFX card in the 15" it also has a quad core, the 13" only has a dual core and has about half the processing power, which is about what you're seeing when comparing your 15" to the Air.

As Adsta was asking pro vs air I assume he's talking about the 13" pro, which is barely faster than the Air. Get the Air, it'll make little difference to the speed and is more portable and better battery life.

crinkleshoes · 26 Jun 2014 at 22:37

13" pro for the wife

The lag is still there and that's enough for both of us to want the pro, let alone the screen quality.

Metalface Mark · 28 Jun 2014 at 22:41

Got an imac with trackpad and macbook air, previously had 15" and 13" RMBPs.

not noticed any lag on any of them, moving my fingers on my air its instant, there is zero lag so i cant appreciate what you are saying with regards to it. Will check my imac when i get back to work on monday to see if it feels any different, if it does, im hunting you down and murdering you for pointing out something that has never bothered me before

crinkleshoes · 29 Jun 2014 at 16:53

Hahahaha

Easiest to notice comparison is Air vs rMBP... the magic trackpad seems to sit somewhere in the middle.

I blame the wife... I didn't say it was her fault

lamboman · 30 Jun 2014 at 15:13

Had a look, my Air's trackpad is pretty much instantaneous, the Magic Trackpad has more lag but certainly not enough to be annoying.

crinkleshoes · 30 Jun 2014 at 15:47

You won't notice til you compare a rMBP... I know it's there... on all models

lamboman · 30 Jun 2014 at 16:29

crinkleshoes said:
You won't notice til you compare a rMBP... I know it's there... on all models

Yeah, I'd notice the horrific lag on the 13" rMBP, you're right

Fallen god · 30 Jun 2014 at 17:20

Been using a 13" Haswell rMBP as my main machine (don't have a PC currently but will do in a few months). So far its been amazing, I get solid battery life, 10hours when I'm just browsing on chrome, solid 6hours when I'm at work, this is with a lot of chrome tabs, 2 IDEs, Linux VM and 2 extra monitors.

The screen is what really makes the difference, when I look at the Airs display is just bad, its not about the pixels which is a huge difference, its the colours, they seem bland and really washed out, the viewing angles are bad, the blacks didn't look to great, and contrast was rather lacking. As a whole the display is many magnitudes better.

Also the sliver bezel on the airs just annoys me, this is more personally I guess but its sort of distracting and I like the sleek glass bezel on the Pros, moreover with the retina where they dropped the 'macbook pro' text on the front.

I would get it over the air every time, the slight disadvantage is it drops below 60fps at times. It used to happen quiet a bit when I first got the machine but now its very seldom, and when it does happen its cause I have an IE vm, Linux VM and Photoshop processing something.

I think if you have a secondary machine then the Air is fine as a portable machine, but if you don't the rMBPs make a lot more sense.

crinkleshoes · 30 Jun 2014 at 18:09

lamboman said:
Yeah, I'd notice the horrific lag on the 13" rMBP, you're right

Good for you that you don't notice it on the air... doesn't mean it doesn't exist

Some of us are just more sensitive to it, it seems

jonney_joop · 8 Jul 2014 at 11:10

crinkleshoes said:
One of the reasons I went with the pro over air... that extra horsepower makes a big difference... even when using something like serato dj to simply analyse tracks... the rMBP takes 1/2 to 1/3 of the time of an air to load the track fully.

Let alone encoding... get the quad core 15, you will notice the difference.

The long battery life only really occurs under certain usage scenarios though... music production isn't really one of them

A day at the office... my 15" 2.3 quad i7 with gtx750 lasts the whole day with 20-30% remaining... using general office documents, wifi on all the time, remote desktop, some simple use of design software, no standby.

Switch on vmware or music/dj apps and that falls to 4-6 hours usually.

Use the CPU fully and it gets about 2.5 hours, with the likes of encoding or image conversions.

The 13/15 rMBP won't fall far behind the air in general use and you have the extra horsepower when you need it, wonderful life from these laptops.

There is no way you last a whole day on one single charge on a 15inch.

ive used many 15inch retina and they all only last 3-4 hour max on similar usage with wifi on.

crinkleshoes · 8 Jul 2014 at 12:11

jonney_joop said:
There is no way you last a whole day on one single charge on a 15inch.

ive used many 15inch retina and they all only last 3-4 hour max on similar usage with wifi on.

Well... I do... so

Screen/computer don't go into standby either :confused:

There's still some power left afterwards too...

jonney_joop · 8 Jul 2014 at 12:21

crinkleshoes said:
Well... I do... so

Screen/computer don't go into standby either

There's still some power left afterwards too...

Interesting. I could never get more then 4hours max.

I do Coding and browsing the net. Sometimes use Spotify.

mattyy · 8 Jul 2014 at 12:45

jonney_joop said:
Interesting. I could never get more then 4hours max.

I do Coding and browsing the net. Sometimes use Spotify.

I have a 15 inch retina and I have to say I get battery life similar to what crinkleshoes quotes.

Easily achieve 6 hours with some light browsing and streaming music via itunes and airplay in the evening.

MagicBoy · 8 Jul 2014 at 12:54

jonney_joop said:
Interesting. I could never get more then 4hours max.

I do Coding and browsing the net. Sometimes use Spotify.

Chrome user? If so that's most likely your issue.

crinkleshoes · 8 Jul 2014 at 13:47

MagicBoy said:
Chrome user? If so that's most likely your issue.

Some IDEs can eat up more resources than you might think too... for example, Netbeans I've noticed to be quite a resource hog (more than in should be, IMO).

jonney_joop · 8 Jul 2014 at 14:05

Yes i use chrome and inteliJ and eclipse

Fallen god · 8 Jul 2014 at 15:05

MagicBoy said:
Chrome user? If so that's most likely your issue.

crinkleshoes said:
Some IDEs can eat up more resources than you might think too... for example, Netbeans I've noticed to be quite a resource hog (more than in should be, IMO).

I use chrome + sublime text + netbeans for more serious work and I pull 7-8 hours on my 13" rMBP. I also have Vagrant box running a Ubuntu 14.10 VM to do my development on.

I've tried switching Chrome -> Safari and I gain maybe 30mins but I takes me a lot longer to do my work and I feel much less productive. The thing I found worse on Chrome is Flash, the 2 are killer on battery life.