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Mac BOOK PRO 13 inc vs Mac BOOK AIR 13 inch

post #1 of 18
1/14/11 at 4:41am
Thread Starter 
If you had a choice to get the mbp 13 inch 2010 model or the mac book air 13 inch model which would you select? Both models are coming out with the i processors in April.
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post #2 of 18
1/14/11 at 5:51am
No, the MacBook Air won't be updated to Sandy Bridge in April. What would make you think that?

It's impossible to make this decision if you're taking future models into consideration because we know absolutely nothing about them.

Either wait to see what the Sandy Bridge MacBook Pro line brings or buy now and actually be happy for once.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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post #3 of 18
1/14/11 at 8:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

If you had a choice to get the mbp 13 inch 2010 model or the mac book air 13 inch model which would you select? Both models are coming out with the i processors in April.

It will depend upon what parameters you want in your computer. I use a 17uMBP and like the extra screen space. Best to go to the specs of each and do a comparison. See what you want to do with your computer and see which one best matches your criteria. As a second computer, I could live with a MBA, but would max it out.

I would prefer that the MBA have larger capacity SSD's or allow you the option of going to a third party SSD. I have a 256GB SSD in my MBP but would like to have had more storage space.
無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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無心 The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey
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post #4 of 18
1/15/11 at 4:49am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

No, the MacBook Air won't be updated to Sandy Bridge in April. What would make you think that?

It's impossible to make this decision if you're taking future models into consideration because we know absolutely nothing about them.

Either wait to see what the Sandy Bridge MacBook Pro line brings or buy now and actually be happy for once.

The MBA in April will be having the new 3i processor and a different video card.
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post #5 of 18
1/15/11 at 6:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

The MBA in April will be having the new 3i processor and a different video card.

And what in the world makes you think this? No 10W Sandy Bridge chips exist.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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post #6 of 18
1/16/11 at 4:56am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

And what in the world makes you think this? No 10W Sandy Bridge chips exist.

This was told to me that the core 2 duo processor will be replaced by the new i3 processor in April and a new video card also.
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post #7 of 18
1/16/11 at 6:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

And what in the world makes you think this? No 10W Sandy Bridge chips exist.

That's true but the Sandy Bridge chip TDPs include the GPU. There are i5 and i7 chips that have 17W TDPs:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1073814

Here is an at-the-wall power measure of the 11" MBA while gaming:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhLsuLoYiUM

It hovers round 28W. That's including the screen and other parts but I've read the 320M has a 14W draw. The combined draw of both GPU and CPU should be at least 20W in which case the Intel one will improve on it or at worst match it and it's easier to control the overall power consumption as it's just a single chip.

Samsung is using the i5 in a 9" ultra-portable in February:

http://www.samsung.com/us/news/newsR...=19774&gltype=

At least that should give a guide spec/price for what to expect from Apple if they choose to go this route. I think it's early for a MBA update. I'd expect a MBP update first and eventually they'll dry up inventory of the plastic MB, then drop it and replace it with the MBA.
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post #8 of 18
1/19/11 at 4:45am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

That's true but the Sandy Bridge chip TDPs include the GPU. There are i5 and i7 chips that have 17W TDPs:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1073814

Here is an at-the-wall power measure of the 11" MBA while gaming:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhLsuLoYiUM

It hovers round 28W. That's including the screen and other parts but I've read the 320M has a 14W draw. The combined draw of both GPU and CPU should be at least 20W in which case the Intel one will improve on it or at worst match it and it's easier to control the overall power consumption as it's just a single chip.

Samsung is using the i5 in a 9" ultra-portable in February:

http://www.samsung.com/us/news/newsR...=19774&gltype=

At least that should give a guide spec/price for what to expect from Apple if they choose to go this route. I think it's early for a MBA update. I'd expect a MBP update first and eventually they'll dry up inventory of the plastic MB, then drop it and replace it with the MBA.

I am really not a gamer a retired man 66 years old who surfs the web,watches political shows on MSNBC,CNN, You Tube, does some creative writing for myself,downloads music,uploads some photos and that is it.Listens to i tunes.How about the 11inch MBA with 128hd? Thanks ga
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post #9 of 18
1/19/11 at 3:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

I am really not a gamer a retired man 66 years old who surfs the web,watches political shows on MSNBC,CNN, You Tube, does some creative writing for myself,downloads music,uploads some photos and that is it.Listens to i tunes.How about the 11inch MBA with 128hd? Thanks ga

The 11" one would suffice for that, the only thing is you won't have much room for typing as the screen isn't very tall. The resolution is high but it looks like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattgemmell/5312086937/

I'd personally wait to see what they do with the 13" MBP.
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post #10 of 18
1/20/11 at 4:31am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

The 11" one would suffice for that, the only thing is you won't have much room for typing as the screen isn't very tall. The resolution is high but it looks like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattgemmell/5312086937/

I'd personally wait to see what they do with the 13" MBP.

I have to know asap as apple wants to give me a brand new either MBA 11inch or MBP 13 inch the one I have where I had a lemon from day on. Logic Board failed in one month,Power Adopter defective,Battery draining to fast, and the hard drive not good. This after 6 1/2 months of ownership.truthfully what would you do in this case? thanks ga
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post #11 of 18
1/20/11 at 11:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

I have to know asap as apple wants to give me a brand new either MBA 11inch or MBP 13 inch the one I have where I had a lemon from day on. Logic Board failed in one month,Power Adopter defective,Battery draining to fast, and the hard drive not good. This after 6 1/2 months of ownership.truthfully what would you do in this case? thanks ga

Well in that scenario, they probably wouldn't give you a new MBP even if there was an update soon. It has happened to people before but I'd doubt it. This means you either get one of the MBA machines or the soon-to-be-updated MBP.

For myself, I'd go for the MBP simply because I use Firewire 800 and would rather have a machine that go take 8GB RAM, user-replaceble HDDs etc.

For you though, I'd suggest the MBA with SSD would be the better choice here. You will really notice the difference launching the apps you use and it will seem like a very smooth experience. You never have to turn the machine off and it's very light.

If you have to choose between the 11" and the 13", I'd say for the creative writing and photos, the 13" will be better for you.

To put it concisely:

the 13" MBP is heavier and offers you little to no performance increase you will notice while having a slower drive in it
the 11" MBA processors are quite slow in the base model and the screen is quite short so it will be harder to use for portrait photos and writing
the 13" MBA gives you the SSD speed, is light and has the same screen size you are used to

Just make sure they give you the current generation MBA and not last generation.
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post #12 of 18
1/22/11 at 5:03am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

Well in that scenario, they probably wouldn't give you a new MBP even if there was an update soon. It has happened to people before but I'd doubt it. This means you either get one of the MBA machines or the soon-to-be-updated MBP.

For myself, I'd go for the MBP simply because I use Firewire 800 and would rather have a machine that go take 8GB RAM, user-replaceble HDDs etc.

For you though, I'd suggest the MBA with SSD would be the better choice here. You will really notice the difference launching the apps you use and it will seem like a very smooth experience. You never have to turn the machine off and it's very light.

If you have to choose between the 11" and the 13", I'd say for the creative writing and photos, the 13" will be better for you.

To put it concisely:

the 13" MBP is heavier and offers you little to no performance increase you will notice while having a slower drive in it
the 11" MBA processors are quite slow in the base model and the screen is quite short so it will be harder to use for portrait photos and writing
the 13" MBA gives you the SSD speed, is light and has the same screen size you are used to

Just make sure they give you the current generation MBA and not last generation.

Thanks for your cooperation in helping me out. I saw the 11 inch MBA today and it is a joke.Small screen and keyboard to. I will wait for the 13 inch MBA next week hopefully.Apple will give me the newest MBA they told me with the full one year warranty behind the product.The MBP 13 inch I have is soon to be outdated I heard.
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post #13 of 18
1/29/11 at 5:02am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

Well in that scenario, they probably wouldn't give you a new MBP even if there was an update soon. It has happened to people before but I'd doubt it. This means you either get one of the MBA machines or the soon-to-be-updated MBP.

For myself, I'd go for the MBP simply because I use Firewire 800 and would rather have a machine that go take 8GB RAM, user-replaceble HDDs etc.

For you though, I'd suggest the MBA with SSD would be the better choice here. You will really notice the difference launching the apps you use and it will seem like a very smooth experience. You never have to turn the machine off and it's very light.

If you have to choose between the 11" and the 13", I'd say for the creative writing and photos, the 13" will be better for you.

To put it concisely:

the 13" MBP is heavier and offers you little to no performance increase you will notice while having a slower drive in it
the 11" MBA processors are quite slow in the base model and the screen is quite short so it will be harder to use for portrait photos and writing
the 13" MBA gives you the SSD speed, is light and has the same screen size you are used to

Just make sure they give you the current generation MBA and not last generation.

Why in the world would the MBA 13 inch not have an Ethernet connection so you can connect to the internet like the MBP does?
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post #14 of 18
1/29/11 at 5:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

Why in the world would the MBA 13 inch not have an Ethernet connection so you can connect to the internet like the MBP does?

Because it doesn't. The MacBook Air has never had Ethernet. You can get the USB-Ethernet adapter, but the idea is to use Wi-Fi.
PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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PhilBoogie
That's Google alright. For a stupid company they sure do dumb things.
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post #15 of 18
1/29/11 at 5:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

Why in the world would the MBA 13 inch not have an Ethernet connection so you can connect to the internet like the MBP does?

You can get a USB-ethernet adaptor if you prefer ethernet, there will be cheaper ones too:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00486070K/...SIN=B00486070K

I prefer ethernet on my desktop as I find wifi routers have a longer delay loading pages but I wouldn't even consider it with a laptop these days. If you have say a gigabit ethernet network, it can be a problem but the USB adaptor will give you plenty of speed if you get the right one.

Someone on the Macrumors forum tested out the gigabit ethernet adaptor here:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

and got 28MB/s vs 72MB/s with native Gigabit-ethernet. That speed will be able to backup the 128GB SSD to a NAS in about an hour and a half if it's completely full. Incremental backups will generally take very little time and most could be done over wifi.

The reason they can't have the ethernet on the device is that it's too thin for the port.
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post #16 of 18
1/30/11 at 3:52am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin View Post

You can get a USB-ethernet adaptor if you prefer ethernet, there will be cheaper ones too:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00486070K/...SIN=B00486070K

I prefer ethernet on my desktop as I find wifi routers have a longer delay loading pages but I wouldn't even consider it with a laptop these days. If you have say a gigabit ethernet network, it can be a problem but the USB adaptor will give you plenty of speed if you get the right one.

Someone on the Macrumors forum tested out the gigabit ethernet adaptor here:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

and got 28MB/s vs 72MB/s with native Gigabit-ethernet. That speed will be able to backup the 128GB SSD to a NAS in about an hour and a half if it's completely full. Incremental backups will generally take very little time and most could be done over wifi.

The reason they can't have the ethernet on the device is that it's too thin for the port.

I live here in the Philippines where the speed is not the greatest.I get 2.04Meg a bites connected to a modem from PLDT which is wired through the telephone lines.This is called DSL.With this Ethernet adopter is this connected to the MBA ?
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post #17 of 18
1/30/11 at 8:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gerald apple View Post

I live here in the Philippines where the speed is not the greatest.I get 2.04Meg a bites connected to a modem from PLDT which is wired through the telephone lines.This is called DSL.With this Ethernet adopter is this connected to the MBA ?

Yes, you'd plug the adaptor into the MBA, then just connect an ethernet cable as you normally would. If it's just for internet, a wireless router will work ok too. Your internet will be 2MBits, which is way less than a 54MBits wifi router provides so you don't get much benefit with ethernet. You can get one of these here:

http://pcrxcomputing.com/Networking/...product_id=444

You'd plug an ethernet cable into that from the modem and then your MBA would connect wirelessly to the above router.

You may still need the ethernet adaptor to configure it but usually you don't as they provide the factory connection details. If you get locked out of it, you hit the factory reset switch and reconfigure.
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post #18 of 18
2/22/11 at 4:26am
If money is less of an object go for the base MacBook Pro 13" with a 128GB SSD bto.

It's $250 more than the MBA but for that you'll get an Optical Drive, longer battery, Firewire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, 2GB extra RAM, backlit keyboard, optical out/audio in, and Kensington lock slot. Personally aesthetically I prefer the MBP bezel too.

If money is tighter the MB should also be on your shortlist as features wise it's in the middle between the MBP and MBA but at a lower cost.
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