13" MBP or MBA?

Hamish

Hamish

Hamish

Soldato
Joined
14 Apr 2003
Posts
4,950
Location
Deepest Yorkshire
Hi Guys,
Currently I have a 2006 15" MBP, 2Ghz CD, 2Gb Ram. I've upgraded the Ram and HDD, got a new battery and power supply under warranty, replaced the top cover myself when the trackpad broke. However now the power supply has broken again (spark, bang, burning smell), the battery only lasts about half an hour, and the laptop is dog slow, it beachballs even when doing stuff in iTunes. I think it is time for an upgrade.

As my brother is a student and I am not a UK resident I am going to try and get HE discount and/or VAT refund which will hopefully save me 15-30% off the normal prices.

The main problem is that I can't decide between the 13" MBP or MBA. I have always had a soft spot for the MBA but there's a few things that put me off - the small RAM of 2Gb and value compared to the MBP being the main issues.

My main use for the laptop is sofa web surfing, listening to music, FTPing files off my Seedbox, organising photos from my camera, and the odd bit of Photoshop. I don't take my laptop out of the house much but I take it back to the UK at least a couple of times a year and on holiday.

So what would you do:

MBP
or
Pay 100 pounds more for:
sexy slim and light form factor,
2Gb less ram
60Gb less space
but an SSD
800Mhz slower processor

for people with a MBA - do you find them slow for general day-to-day use, e.g. browsing sites, itunes etc... e.g. on my current MBP if you scroll a webpage or itunes it will freeze as you go down.

for people with MBP/MBA - do you find the laptop gets hot? with my MBP at the moment even with light usage I can feel it slowly sterilising me from the heat on my lap. if it is anything other than light use it is hot to the point of being painful. Are they still like this?

cheers,
Hamish
 
I had the same dilemma last week.

In the end I caved in and ordered the MBA with 4gb Ram.

For what you are going to use it for the CPU speed isnt really going to be an issue and having the SSD should help.
 
If you buy with your head you'll get the MBP but there is no denying that the Air is a thing of beauty. I had the old Air before the SSD models and it was still very powerful. Web pages and iTunes won't even test it in terms of power. Never had PS on it as I had it on my desktop but it ran elements fine.

As for heat, yes, lots. I've not used a new one so I don't what improvments have been made.
 
for what you've posted MBA without a doubt. Maybe even the 11" model as that is very nice.

The main benefit of the 13MBP is extremely long battery life, and since you dont take it out much this is not required.
 
Personally I recently bought the top spec 13 inch MBP to replace my old Powerbook.

The trouble with your case is that the MBA would probably be better, based on what you use it for. However, the real benefit of the MBA is it's portability which it sounds like you don't need.

In the case, the MBP is probably better as you won't be really carrying it about much, not that it's heavy anyways.
 
My old last laptop was the first gen 13" unibody macbook and compared to that my 13" MBA with 4gb seems sooo much faster and quieter/cooler. The SSD helps a great deal with general day to day task and general usage feels very snappy and responsive. It loads applications much quicker than my old macbook and when loading photoshop, its actually takes the same if not shorter amount of time than my i7 PC with SSD.
 
Think I'm going to get the top spec 13" one with the upgraded RAM. Think I'll leave the upgraded processor as not sure it'll be worth it.

How long does it usually take to arrive if I order it tonight? I think I'm correct in saying that if I order anything other than standard it will come from china.
 
get the MBP. i just ordered one and cant wait. Got an 8gb RAM upgrade for £87 and you can always put a SSD into the pro later on. It also has the benefit of card reader, NIC etc
 
topshot said:
get the MBP. i just ordered one and cant wait. Got an 8gb RAM upgrade for £87 and you can always put a SSD into the pro later on. It also has the benefit of card reader, NIC etc
Click to expand...

MBA has card reader too. NIC and CD-ROM is an advantage but tbh don't think I'll miss them too much. Have an airport express for times I need a wired connection and work laptop for cd drive.

RAM is so much cheaper on the MBPs. I resent paying Apples prices for the MBA. I usually buy them with the lowest RAM possible and upgrade to whatever double the standard RAM is (8Gb these days) from Crucial. I guess its another thing you have to make do with on the MBA.
 
You want MBP if you want a more versatile computer, yeh its not as light, not as fast as the SSD but you can run a lot more programs just so much easier and all you music and videos on one place without having to connect to a external device, the air is great if you travel otherwise why!
btw if you cant get apple to give you student discount go to currys and tell them apple are offering you the laptop at £858 price match this for me, which i did
 
Sweet, ordered it on the 19th, arrived just now (12pm, 21st!) Not bad considering the snow, flight disruption and christmas!

As expected it's beautiful! The first thing that suprised me is how good the speakers are, they're as good as the ones on my old Macbook Pro!
 
It's the top spec 13" one with the ram and CPU upgrade
2.13ghz/4gb ram/256gb flash

£1298 with student discount
 
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