Macbook Air vs Macbook Pro

[SkillerNiller]

Hi so i was hoping i could get some advice on this subject.

 

Im wondering whether to buy a Macbook Air 13'' (baseline model with 8 gigs of ram and 256 gigs of storage) or buying the Macbook Pro 13'' (baseline model with 8 gigs of ram and 256 gigs of storage).

Im a student so i suppose the Air would be better for portability, but im willing to compromise on portability if the performance difference is really big.

Price is not a concern, as there's only a 14 bucks in difference where i live.

I will be doing some CAD work and a lot of photoshop since im attending a technology high school, but most of the time i will just be using Word and Excel and stuff like that.

One thing to taek into account though is, that i like the aesthetics of the Air a bit better, but performance is my main concern.

 

TL;DR: is there a big performance gap between the basline model Air and Pro.

[ShadowCaptain]

2 minutes ago, SkillerNiller said:

SNIP

13" retina pro, its still lighter and slimmer than most ultrabooks on the market anyway

[spellmanuk]

the pro is so light that you wouldnt complain if it was in you backpack it also has a much much much better screen and is more powerful if you can afford it definatly go for the pro it will last you longer hell mines 5 years old and going strong 

[Macronus]

Air is perfect, one of the best laptops I've had so far, and that is coming from a Web Developer but wait for the new releases of newer line of Macbook Pro's and maybe Airs but I think Macbook is replacing Air's. Anyway it has been a long time since a new laptop was released, so new lines is coming soon, you can either get current ones for 100-200$ off then or get the new ones. 

I'd say if you can wait. Also as a student you don't need anything more than the Air

[SkillerNiller]

14 minutes ago, gFrenken97 said:

I replaced my MacBook Air with a Pro, best decision ever

The Air has a TERRIBLE screen, the viewing angles are a joke and the res is 1440x900

What about battery life?

[SkillerNiller]

Just now, Macronus said:

Air is perfect, one of the best laptops I've had so far, and that is coming from a Web Developer but wait for the new releases of newer line of Macbook Pro's and maybe Airs but I think Macbook is replacing Air's. Anyway it has been a long time since a new laptop was released, so new lines is coming soon, you can either get current ones for 100-200$ off then or get the new ones. 

I'd say if you can wait. Also as a student you don't need anything more than the Air

Yeah, i was also thinking about getting into web development since i have some classes that intergrates some aspects of it. And I would wait.

[spellmanuk]

Just now, SkillerNiller said:

What about battery life?

battery life on the pros are fine as long as your not doing anything to strenuous id recommend that you plug in for use of video editing ect 

[Macronus]

Just now, SkillerNiller said:

Yeah, i was also thinking about getting into web development since i have some classes that intergrates some aspects of it. And I would wait.

For web development you don't require much power under the hood. Only problem I'd say is a real estate, but that can be managed too, battery life on it is anything from 10-15 hours. Depending if Internet is on and other stuff.

I've used my Air for development for half a year till I moved to a hackintosh on 3 monitors.

[ThinkWithPortals]

24 minutes ago, SkillerNiller said:

 

Retina Pro, much better screen, more powerful. Arguably the best of the Macbooks. Difference in weight and size will be negligible.

[SkillerNiller]

1 minute ago, ThinkWithPortals said:

Retina Pro, much better screen, more powerful. Arguably the best of the Macbooks. Difference in weight and size will be negligible.

But how big is the performance difference, can i do most things on the Air as i can do on the Pro? That is my only concern 

[ThinkWithPortals]

1 minute ago, SkillerNiller said:

But how big is the performance difference, can i do most things on the Air as i can do on the Pro? That is my only concern 

The performance difference shouldn't be big, but it exists. The problem is the screen on the Air SUCKS. Low resolution and the viewing angles are pretty awful.

[ChrisCross]

while macbooks have many advantages over windows, for CAD and microsoft office they are not brilliant. not all CAD programms are available on mac and AutoCAD for example cant run anything but the newest licenses on yosemite. also not all features are supported on mac and because of the higher resolution displays the performance is worse. A friend of mine says that ms office isnt the most stable program on mac but i havent tested that myself.

im a mechanical engineering student and im using a thinkpad with a dualboot of win10 and ubuntu gnome. i can highly recommend that because for some stuff you really need windows and in some ways windows really sucks. having the choice is really awesome. also the thinkpad keyboard is the best i have ever seen on a laptop. i have programmed a week on mac book pro and i would pick my thinkpad over it again.

[SkillerNiller]

3 minutes ago, ChrisCross said:

while macbooks have many advantages over windows, for CAD and microsoft office they are not brilliant. not all CAD programms are available on mac and AutoCAD for example cant run anything but the newest licenses on yosemite. also not all features are supported on mac and because of the higher resolution displays the performance is worse. A friend of mine says that ms office isnt the most stable program on mac but i havent tested that myself.

im a mechanical engineering student and im using a thinkpad with a dualboot of win10 and ubuntu gnome. i can highly recommend that because for some stuff you really need windows and in some ways windows really sucks. having the choice is really awesome. also the thinkpad keyboard is the best i have ever seen on a laptop. i have programmed a week on mac book pro and i would pick my thinkpad over it again.

I already have 2 Windows pcs and i wasnt really looking into getting another one, also the stuff i cant do on my mac i would do on my pc. But thanks for your insight though.

[ChrisCross]

Just now, SkillerNiller said:

I already have 2 Windows pcs and i wasnt really looking into getting another one, also the stuff i cant do on my mac i would do on my pc. But thanks for your insight though.

for school you normally get a single license anyways so you could really do that at home. i would get a pro because of screen and battery life. air is rated at 9 pro at 10

[SkillerNiller]

18 minutes ago, ChrisCross said:

for school you normally get a single license anyways so you could really do that at home. i would get a pro because of screen and battery life. air is rated at 9 pro at 10

I might get the Pro i think, havent really decided yet, im just really unsure since Air looks pretty nice and i really like the form factor, but I might go with the Pro for the power.

[OldFart]

I think its a wash as to which of the two you take from a performance perspective, unless you plan to principly use it as a gamer.  I am still using a 2008 year Macbook Air for my coding development work, and light email/video/photo work.  Once the refresh occurs this year, if the macbook air is updated with Skylake or A9 chip series, I may consider biting the bullet and buying a current gen at discounted prices.

 

For me though, the macbook pro would be the winner at the same price point, if only for one reason - TWO Thunderbolt-2 ports rather than the one on the air.  If you haven't worked with thunderbolt accessories yet, not too many carry that second port required for daisy chaining passthroughs.  So if I want to run more than a single external drive on the air, I would be looking at either finding drive enclosures with passthrough ( can be a price point item ) or lugging around additional hardware in the form of a thunderbolt hub -- though oddly most thunderbolt hubs contain nearly every port you want, except extra thunderbolt :-P.

[SkillerNiller]

1 hour ago, OldFart said:

I think its a wash as to which of the two you take from a performance perspective, unless you plan to principly use it as a gamer.  I am still using a 2008 year Macbook Air for my coding development work, and light email/video/photo work.  Once the refresh occurs this year, if the macbook air is updated with Skylake or A9 chip series, I may consider biting the bullet and buying a current gen at discounted prices.

 

For me though, the macbook pro would be the winner at the same price point, if only for one reason - TWO Thunderbolt-2 ports rather than the one on the air.  If you haven't worked with thunderbolt accessories yet, not too many carry that second port required for daisy chaining passthroughs.  So if I want to run more than a single external drive on the air, I would be looking at either finding drive enclosures with passthrough ( can be a price point item ) or lugging around additional hardware in the form of a thunderbolt hub -- though oddly most thunderbolt hubs contain nearly every port you want, except extra thunderbolt :-P.

I have already got a good gaming rig with a gtx 970 and an i5-6500, so I wont be using my laptop for gaming. I just went to an Apple Store today, and i must say that the Air felt more responsive and better in someway (that might just be me) but I think im going to buy the new Air when it comes out.

[OldFart]

1 hour ago, SkillerNiller said:

I have already got a good gaming rig with a gtx 970 and an i5-6500, so I wont be using my laptop for gaming. I just went to an Apple Store today, and i must say that the Air felt more responsive and better in someway (that might just be me) but I think im going to buy the new Air when it comes out.

You'll do fine with the air then.  enjoy!

[SkillerNiller]

1 hour ago, OldFart said:

You'll do fine with the air then.  enjoy!

Thanks  cant wait

[Stepanos]

Do not get an Air. It thermal-throttles... a lot. If you have gaming rig(s) of that caliber, you might as well splurge to get the Pro and have additional functionality that can be used if necessary. The performance difference is monumental, the display resolution quality is unmatched by most consumer grade laptops, and the price difference really doesn't matter much.

 

The reason the Air seemed more responsive is because the Pros have that new Force Touch thingy that you can easily turn off in the Trackpad settings. Force Touch is basically like the right click of right clicking. If you have two fingers on your trackpad, might as well press them both than rely on a silly gimmick. 

 

 

[Macronus]

15 hours ago, Stepanos said:

Do not get an Air. It thermal-throttles... a lot. If you have gaming rig(s) of that caliber, you might as well splurge to get the Pro and have additional functionality that can be used if necessary. The performance difference is monumental, the display resolution quality is unmatched by most consumer grade laptops, and the price difference really doesn't matter much.

 

The reason the Air seemed more responsive is because the Pros have that new Force Touch thingy that you can easily turn off in the Trackpad settings. Force Touch is basically like the right click of right clicking. If you have two fingers on your trackpad, might as well press them both than rely on a silly gimmick. 

 

 

What are you doing when yours is heating that much? Mine never turns on the vents well it does when watching Twitch but thats it. Or you might be talking about Macbook since you are saying it has Force Touch and I can assure you Macbook Air does not have it Macbook does. On that note, don't even consider Macbook ( 12 inch ) variant

[AlphaGamer46]

Get the Pro.

 

You will notice a fair speed difference between the Air 13" and the Pro 13".

 

I'm assuming you're talking about the Retina Pro because their base clock speed is the i5 at 2.7GHz which should be fine for everything.

 

I've got friends with the Air and they can't do everything they want on their MacBook Air because of the slow clock speed.

 

If I were you, just wing it and get the Pro 13".

[Stepanos]

5 hours ago, Macronus said:

What are you doing when yours is heating that much? Mine never turns on the vents well it does when watching Twitch but thats it. Or you might be talking about Macbook since you are saying it has Force Touch and I can assure you Macbook Air does not have it Macbook does. On that note, don't even consider Macbook ( 12 inch ) variant

Usually if I have 20 tabs open, Youtube, LTT, Facebook, etc. 

 

The 2015 Retina MacBook Pro has Force Touch, which can make it seem like the trackpad isn't responding as smoothly to clicks. 

 

MacBooks (other than the 12 inch 2015 MacBook) haven't been manufactured since Apple changed its model to MacBook Pro and MacBook Air (Early 2009)