Macbook Air or regular Macbook

silenthunterstudios

silenthunterstudios

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I've been looking at Macbooks. I don't really need a Mac, that's just what I prefer. I've been looking at the Air, and at the regular laptops. I want to move my cd collection to my iPod, ultimately to the iCloud, maybe watch some movies on my computer, that's about it for the drive. This will mainly be used for internet and a little graphic design, all my own stuff. If I get the Air, I'll probably get an external DVD drive. I will probably go for the smaller screen. Should I get a Mac laptop with it's own DVD drive, or get an Air with an external DVD drive?
 
silenthunterstudios said:
I've been looking at Macbooks. I don't really need a Mac, that's just what I prefer. I've been looking at the Air, and at the regular laptops. I want to move my cd collection to my iPod, ultimately to the iCloud, maybe watch some movies on my computer, that's about it for the drive. This will mainly be used for internet and a little graphic design, all my own stuff. If I get the Air, I'll probably get an external DVD drive. I will probably go for the smaller screen. Should I get a Mac laptop with it's own DVD drive, or get an Air with an external DVD drive?
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DVD! Because you never know how you'll feel a year from now!
 
I would advise the Macbook Air, hands down. I've utilized both, had multiple laptops, half a dozen high end tablets, and I have found the Macbook Air to be the best all around portable computer. It is significantly lighter, slimmer, and easier to carry, along with being less expensive. Insofar as capabilities and power, you would only notice a performance difference if you use it like a workstation laptop for large amounts of high end video work and editing, or massive database work. An external DVD drive is an easy remedy for the occasional CD/DVD rip or burn. Not to mention, after not having one on a laptop or tablet for years now, I've truly never missed it. In fact, it took me a good 6 months to even install a DVD drive in my gaming build desktop.

I currently have a setup of my 2013 11.6" Macbook Air and a custom-built gaming desktop. Aside from a select few tasks, the Macbook Air is equally as fast and fluid, if not more in some everyday-type things. Working in tech support, from what I can gather by your listed needs, I think the Air would fit best.

If you have any further questions about anything with the Air, please feel free to email or PM me.

Best,
Thomas
 
I've had both, and stick to the Macbook Pro's. I prefer the size of the Air, but I'll tell you why I stick to the Pro's. I had a Macbook Air that lost some sort of connection with the screen, so it was all black unless tilted a certain way. So, of course I took it to the Apple store, and they said because of the parts used for the Macbook Air, the Air's always have to be sent back to Apple for repairs. The Macbook Pro's can usually be repaired in the store. This is a big deal to me, because it would cut down on the time away from it. With all that said, Mac's rarely have problems, so this may not be an issue at all. Either way, its a great choice in computer. I've been strictly Apple for years now, and will never go back to a PC.

Disclaimer: This is just what I was told by Apple rep's. Maybe Thomas can enlighten this as well, as someone in tech support.
 
If it has to be a mac then my vote goes to the 13.3 inch retina macbook pro. Same footprint (or smaller?) as the air and better specs.
 
Most of the current gen Macbooks don't have a dvd drive in them anymore. I'm personally inclined to the Macbook Pro.If I need lighter I'm using my ipad.
 
MacBook Pro.

The screen size of the Air is too small IMO.

DVDs are dead technology and most laptops no longer come with them.
 
Just get the Pro, main reason for the computer graphic design. The Air is closer to slow poking it around on the internet and simple tasks, you have more options with the Pro to get something more powerful if you feel the need for something a bit more powerful. I would also go with the Pro to get a higher resolution monitor, I own an Samsung Chromebook with an 11.6in screen and it's the same resolution as their 11in and I can tell you I feel it's lacking if I were to try to do some heavy duty typing sessions on it unless I were to put Google docs full screen and the brower full screen without displaying the menu, and both their interfaces are quite minimal already. I wouldn't want to attempt graphic design on such a monitor.

If you want more battery life disable bluetooth and other ports your not using. Disabling them in BIOs should cut down on the most power from what I recall, I used to do this trick is the distant past back when I had a laptop weighing 10pounds and batteries weighed 1-2pounds a piece. Disable them in BIOs gave the best results, disabling them in the OS still gave results but not as good. How you do this on a Mac or if it's possible is another story as I don't work with Macs.
 
Mitchell Knives said:
MacBook Pro.

The screen size of the Air is too small IMO.

DVDs are dead technology and most laptops no longer come with them.
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It's funny, I snagged a 15" Macbook Pro quite literally a week before the new one was released. I passed up my brother's suggestion that I return and exchange mine(just claim it crashed on me and deleted my files). I was thinking the internal DVD drive would be handy if I wanted to watch something in between classes, plus I liked the larger hard disk drive and cheaper cost.

Well, now I mostly find myself napping in the gap between classes and most of my files on the laptop are word documents and PDF files, so I have yet to chip away at my 1 TB hard drive, nor touch the DVD drive at all.

But on the other hand, nothing I do with it requires super fast program loading(just Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Safari), so it's not like I lost out on much...other than the weight I guess.
 
Macbook Air.

Last year I was getting a new computer and I was at a friends house using his Macbook Air. I asked about the Macbook to compare and he handed it to me- He didn't even get to let it go when I said- No Thanks. It was really heavy after using the Macbook Air.

I got the the maxed out version a year ago March and it's the best thing computer oriented I've ever bought.

Mitch
 
This might help. http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/29/macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review-13-inch-2013/

When in doubt go try them out. There is no substitute for hands on experience.

Don't go buying a bunch of bulky accessories to clutter up your desk. If you need a DVD drive get a computer with a dvd drive built in. (Protip: most people don't need DVD drives anymore). Buy a big enough internal hard drive that you don't need to mess around with external drives. The only accessories really worth having IMHO are external screens, keyboards, mice and document scanners. I won't say printer because I no longer really need one.

Search your soul and decide what size screen you want. The 13 inch models are for people who have external screens at home and need portability above all else. The 15 and bigger screens are for people who will be using their laptop as a mobile workstation without any external screens. The 13 inch screen as a primary gets old pretty fast.
 
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texas gun person said:
Sir, you are using your gaming desktop wrong then. :p


The Air works fine if you use it for what it's intended for. Their compact size is quite nice.
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Not the case in the least bit. Those select few tasks are the graphics-intensive games and video compression/editing. That really is the key - nearly any device will work well if used as intended. The Macbook Air is certainly no gaming machine, but it is made for a fluid, ultraportable everyday task machine (though it does impressively well with some games).
 
MacBook Pro w/Retina. As some have said here the CD/DVD drive has gone the way of the floppy in most portable computers (and even slowly in desktops). The only MacBook of any kind you can get with a DVD drive is the bottom of line 13" non-retina model. Everything else won't have one. Don't get me wrong on the Air though, they are very nice, very light and portable machines. I almost bought one when I replaced my older MacBook Pro in February. Went with the 13" Retina Pro instead. I'm an iOS and Mac developer and am on my iMac and MacBook Pro probably 16-18 hours a day.

If you are ok with slightly lower storage and slightly less ram, go for the Air. If when you say graphic design you mean vector stuff (like Illustrator) an Air will serve you well. If you mean raster graphics (like Photoshop) then you'll want to go Pro for sure.

Oh, and the comment about MacBook Airs having to be sent in and Pros being able to be repaired in-house. Nope..not the case. Former Mac Genius here and I can tell you pretty much ANY issue with an Apple Laptop is going to a service center to be fixed. (most likely the one in Tennessee or Texas for portable computers)
 
Shooter1075 said:
I've had both, and stick to the Macbook Pro's. I prefer the size of the Air, but I'll tell you why I stick to the Pro's. I had a Macbook Air that lost some sort of connection with the screen, so it was all black unless tilted a certain way. So, of course I took it to the Apple store, and they said because of the parts used for the Macbook Air, the Air's always have to be sent back to Apple for repairs. The Macbook Pro's can usually be repaired in the store. This is a big deal to me, because it would cut down on the time away from it. With all that said, Mac's rarely have problems, so this may not be an issue at all. Either way, its a great choice in computer. I've been strictly Apple for years now, and will never go back to a PC.

Disclaimer: This is just what I was told by Apple rep's. Maybe Thomas can enlighten this as well, as someone in tech support.
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I myself read about those issues, too. From what I had gathered, it was an issue with the first couple years of Macbook Airs, due to the hinge design. The new one has a significantly different hinge, and I've not seen it to be a prevalent issue as it was. The on site repair-ability is generally so, though, as is user repair. The key is to order the upgrades you even might need. Case in point, I did weeks of research before I bought mine, and determined I truly don't need the i7 over the i5 (that's a whole other unnecessary technical topic), though RAM is an important upgrade. For even the base i5, some of the more graphic-editing work would actually choke on the 4gb of RAM, not the processor, so I opted for 8gb.

My choice at the time was also based upon the SSD availability. Being the base option for the Air, not to mention being almost incomparably fast as a PCIE SSD, you'll see massive performance gains over an HDD.

The earlier Macbook Airs did have some lacking perfomance; they were built to be portable, not powerful. With the newer Ivy Bridge, and especially Haswell, though, the processing power, along with the modern SSD and RAM, serve to be a surprisingly capable machine.

If you think you'll need the extra power, the Pro is a good choice; I would suggest at least bumping up to an SSD, though. For the majority of daily usage, a Macbook Air is more than enough, though.
 
cigarsmoker said:
MacBook Pro w/Retina. As some have said here the CD/DVD drive has gone the way of the floppy in most portable computers (and even slowly in desktops). The only MacBook of any kind you can get with a DVD drive is the bottom of line 13" non-retina model. Everything else won't have one. Don't get me wrong on the Air though, they are very nice, very light and portable machines. I almost bought one when I replaced my older MacBook Pro in February. Went with the 13" Retina Pro instead. I'm an iOS and Mac developer and am on my iMac and MacBook Pro probably 16-18 hours a day.

If you are ok with slightly lower storage and slightly less ram, go for the Air. If when you say graphic design you mean vector stuff (like Illustrator) an Air will serve you well. If you mean raster graphics (like Photoshop) then you'll want to go Pro for sure.

Oh, and the comment about MacBook Airs having to be sent in and Pros being able to be repaired in-house. Nope..not the case. Former Mac Genius here and I can tell you pretty much ANY issue with an Apple Laptop is going to a service center to be fixed. (most likely the one in Tennessee or Texas for portable computers)
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Very good points here, and certainly great credibility. I will add for fun, though, if you really know how to optimize system resources, Photoshop can work on some pretty ill-equipped machines. I ran it rather well on some early netbooks (the whole 8.9" screen bit didn't make for a nice workspace, though :D)
 
When I got my Air, Apple was offering a 13" 2ghz (overclock to 3.3) which at the time made it the functional equivalent of the 15" macbook pro minus the optical drive.

and I gotta say, having a 3 pound computer that is less than a 1/2" thick, that I can still photoshop, 3D cad, and play Deus Ex: HR and Borderlands 2 on, is pretty awesome. I've had it for a year and a half and I've only wished for a CD drive 3 times. (and one of those times was because I needed it for a bullshit course assignment.)
 
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