Macbook Pro vs Air, which to buy?

January 9, 2012 8:00 PM

I'm buying a Mac tomorrow, which mac should I buy?

I need to buy a new mac for school. I'm going to the Apple store after work tomorrow. I'm a Computer Science student who does a lot of Web development, Java/C#, Assembly Language and C. I primarily use xCode and Eclipse. I also use Photoshop, text mate, safari and firefox regularly.

I'm debating should I buy the Base Model Macbook Pro 13" or the 13" MacBook Air?

posted by snow_mac to Computers & Internet (29 answers total)

Get the Pro, for the simple reason that the limited storage in the Air will get sucked up fast by IDEs, Photoshop, etc; plus, photoshop will see a real benefit from the faster processor. Actually getting your homework done, I can promise you, will almost certainly be exactly the same on either one.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:09 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Air is a very solid little machine.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:09 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Depends on if this is your primary machine or not. If you have a desktop to develop on, then the Air is the best choice.

But if not, the Macbook Pro is a decent primary machine (typing on one right now). As the above poster says, the big difference is storage size. The Air has 64GB, a Macbook Pro is going to have like half a terabyte, at least. The Apple Developer install (Xcode and what comes with it) takes up a surprising amount of space (7 GB for me). I imagine Photoshop takes up a lot of space too. You could get an external hard drive, but it's a matter of whether Air+external drive is more convenient than the Pro.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:16 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have both an air and a pro, and prefer the air, by a wide margin.

The macbook air has a 250 GB hard drive, which i've found to be more than enough - especially since most of your code, etc. will live "in the cloud" on github, gmail, etc.

I actually prefer photoshop on the air- it boots up in half the time than a base pro.

If you can swing it, get the the base model pro with an SSD - otherwise i would definitely get the air.
posted by unexpected at 8:17 PM on January 9, 2012

Make sure to check out the refurb section of the online Apple store for MacBook Pros:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro/15

You can save anywhere from 12-25% of the retail price, same AppleCare options (and I'd suggest investing in extending your warranty to 3 years for a laptop).
posted by dbiedny at 8:17 PM on January 9, 2012

I'd get the Air, but that's mainly because I think the MBP's are big and clunky now compared to the Airs. Granted, I do have a 15" MBP, but I've been secretly coveting the Air for a while. Will you spend a lot of time away from a power source? Because basically the differences between two are i5 vs i7, and hard drive space favoring the MBP. Although the high-end Air has 256GB, and the base model MBP has only 500GB, so the MBP is only 2x as big. And SSDs are so awesome.

Also, the Air's battery life is easily twice the MBP. To me, this is a huge deal. Do you need an optical drive, because only the MBP has one of those. Will you be carrying it around a lot? If you are, obviously the Air is a lot better in this department. I'm also a web dev, but I don't do a lot of compiling, so I don't know how the i5 and i7 compare doing that. But otherwise, I don't notice a difference at all between my i7 MBP and i5 iMac.

Keep in mind that it's just a rumour and there is always a new version coming out soon, but I've heard the Airs are due for a spec bump sometime in late Q1 2012 -- so the next 2.5 months.

Still, I'd go Air. My 2c. But definitely do your own research to determine which features you think will impact your life the most, and base you decision on that.
posted by cgg at 8:22 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

My 2 cents on the air as well. After using computers with solid state drives, even the best computer with a regular hard drive feels slow as heck.
posted by ajackson at 8:28 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'd get the Air for two reasons:

1. SSD. So much faster than the 13" MBP's hard drive.
2. Screen resolution. The 13" Pro's monitor is 1280x800 with no upgrade option, whereas the 13" Air's resolution is 1440x900, the same as the stock 15" Pro's resolution.

The battery life should be roughly the same between the two since the 13" Pro is limited to the dual-core i5s as opposed to the more power-hungry quad-core 15" and 17" MBPs.
posted by ccrazy88 at 8:44 PM on January 9, 2012

I would say if you are going to be taking your laptop with you anywhere on a regular basis, get the 13" Macbook Air—they’re like half the weight of a Macbook Pro. My friend has one and it feels like picking up a spiral notebook. I love my 15" Macbook Pro, but it's almost 6 pounds.
posted by blueberry at 9:49 PM on January 9, 2012

I'd also say Air all the way, but 4 GB of RAM might be a little tight given how heavy Eclipse can be for large projects. Also, how are you developing in C#? Against Mono, or running Windows in a VM? If the latter, again, memory might be a small issue.
posted by SemiSophos at 9:54 PM on January 9, 2012

The Air, for all the reasons above, but be certain to spring for the 4gb RAM and 128gb or 256gb SSD version. The 2gb/64gb base model is underpowered, and you cannot add memory or internal HDD later.
posted by rokusan at 10:28 PM on January 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

If you can afford the fully decked out top of the line Air, go for it. But the base 13" MBP offers a much better price for the performance.
posted by j03 at 10:49 PM on January 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

4GB of RAM seems like a severe restriction to me. For the work you do it seems to me an 8GB 13" MBP w/512GB SSD would be the ideal machine... Except I'd want yet more RAM.
posted by bz at 11:02 PM on January 9, 2012

If you're using Xcode, I'd suggest you get any of the 15" MacBook Pros, preferably with a screen upgrade so the display resolution is 1680*1050 rather than 1440*900, it costs a bit more but trust me, you'll thank yourself later.
posted by _frog at 1:59 AM on January 10, 2012

If you are a student, check out the education discounts available. Computers ordered online typically take 2 days to arrive. The discounts are worth it.

Since you're doing development, I would recommend a 15" MacBook Pro because of the expandability. _frog has the correct answer.

A 13" MacBook Air is a great casual use computer. You'll be doing intensive work. Upgrade to a bigger screen, more RAM, more hard disk, etc. by getting the MacBook Pro.
posted by blob at 5:48 AM on January 10, 2012

If your budget can swing it, a 15" MBP with an SSD and the optical drive tossed in favor of a spinning platter gives you the speed of an SSD, the storage of a spinning platter and a screen that's actually a decent enough size. Don't get me wrong, the MBA flies for web surfing and email and iPhoto, which is what most people do. Got two virtual machines running and a huge compile running and want to switch gears to photoshop? MBP.
posted by Brian Puccio at 5:55 AM on January 10, 2012

I love my macbook air, but if you're doing development, you're going to want the pro, I think.
posted by empath at 6:02 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I do all my dev work on the 11" air. 13" sounds monstrously huge to me now!
posted by gregglind at 6:03 AM on January 10, 2012

As someone who develops with xcode and eclipse and has an air, it's really pretty tight with 4 gigs of RAM. When traveling (my primary air time), I make do, but most of the time I use an iMac. If I could only have one machine though, I'd go with a pro.
posted by yeoldefortran at 6:37 AM on January 10, 2012

Also consider getting the air and buying a monitor that supports thunderbolt or use a minidisplay adapter.
posted by andendau at 7:05 AM on January 10, 2012

Developers want memory. People who carry notebooks want less mass.

The key question -- is this going to be a notebook that moves every once in a while, mostly being used in one place, or is this going to be a notebook that's going to live on you shoulder and be used everywhere?

If the former, get the Pro -- it's a better, more expandable, faster machine. If the latter, get the Air -- two pounds doesn't sound like much, but believe me, if you have it with you all the time, it is a *big* difference.

Finally, if this is a machine that will never leave the desk, get an iMac, which will be better than the MBP dollar for dollar, and has the best thing in the world for development -- more screen real estate.
posted by eriko at 7:47 AM on January 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

You can do plenty of development on the Air. 4GB of RAM is essential of course. You can get by with 128GB of storage if you're even a little careful. Keep your music and videos somewhere else.
posted by Nelson at 8:16 AM on January 10, 2012

4GB of RAM seems a little constrained, certainly for my primary machine or if you ever plan to run any kind of virtual machine. The SSD makes paging out to the disk a whole lot less painful, I suppose.
posted by pjaust at 9:00 AM on January 10, 2012

Faced the same decision a few months ago and went with the 13" Pro, with a 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM. I'm a developer who moves around and frequently needs to run 1 or 2 memory intensive virtual machines.

I know people who develop on the AIR and are very happy. The screen on the AIR is nicer. The added portability is a lot nicer. I liked the AIR but the 4GB limit on the RAM was a deal breaker for me.

The 15" pro is too big for me to carry around daily.

Over all I'm satisfied. The biggest limitation is disk space. In hindsight a larger SSD might have been worth the extra cost.
posted by samhyland at 9:03 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was pondering this exact decision a couple months ago. I was very seriously considering a 13" Air but went with the 13" Pro instead. What convinced me to go the somewhat heavier route:

- Display: The Pro has a significantly better screen on it. If you're doing Photoshop work this is probably pretty important to you.
- Storage: Maxed-out Air has only 128GB of storage, which is plenty for a netbook/secondary machine, but not for a primary machine you intend to do development on.
- Processor/GPU: Pro has significantly faster CPU (2.4GHz i5 vs. 1.6/1.7GHz i5). An SSD is a nice performance boost, sure (I have one on my Windows desktop, it's great), but the better CPU has the edge on heavy lifting.
- Ports: The Pro has an Ethernet jack. The Air does not. I'm not sure if I could live without one, myself.

I'm sure the Air is great but it just wasn't enough for my needs. If I got a secondary laptop it would be an Air, definitely.
posted by neckro23 at 10:35 AM on January 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Air does not. I'm not sure if I could live without one, myself.

The ethernet adapter for the Air works just fine -- I've used it for tcpdump/wireshark in debugging network issues, and it was able to handle gigabit ether traffic just fine. As often as I don't use it, I can see why it's better to be thin and have a dongle, but if you use it all the time, that's a very different thing.
posted by eriko at 11:39 AM on January 10, 2012

I don't know how it is now, but when I went with the Pro it was because the Air didn't have a decent graphics subsystem.
posted by rickim at 1:16 PM on January 10, 2012

I meet with a bunch of iOS developers on a regular basis and see plenty of Pros and Airs both. Based on my experience, I'd prefer the Pro simply because iOS development always seems to demand n+1 USB ports. USB hubs are a substandard solution as most cannot deliver the high current needed to charge an iPad without an external charger.

I also find there is never enough screen real estate. And development environments are big. My /Development folder here is 8.15G. That's just the XCode suite. So I'd say get the Pro (seriously consider the 15" instead) but you can't really go wrong with the Air either.
posted by chairface at 12:05 PM on January 11, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions guys! I went base model MBP. I'm going third party for memory and SSD. I decided the power is what I need.
posted by snow_mac at 7:39 PM on January 11, 2012