Macbook Pro or Air?

Anyone know why the 13” Air has a native display of 1440×900 and the 13” Pro is only 1280×800?

I am thinking about buying a Mac Book, not sure which to go with. I really dont need a 15” as it will spend most of its time docked to a much larger monitor. Weighing the fully upgraded Air vs the upgraded 13” pro.

I’d personally go with a pro…I have one and it’s amazing.

I don’t think you can compare the two. I guess the reason why the resolution is slightly better on the Air is that its a new device (just upgraded). What is sweet about the Air is of course the overall weight and that it has Flash storage.

I guess its fine for programming, but I wouldn’t go with the Air if you do heavy graphics with illustrator and photoshop.

I have the 15” MacBook Pro my self. Unfortunately I didn’t go with Flash storage, but my plan is to replace the harddrive with 512GB Flash. When I’m in the office I connect it to the 27” Apple Thunderbolt display. It is a great setup!

RightHere said

I guess its fine for programming, but I wouldn’t go with the Air if you do heavy graphics with illustrator and photoshop.

if those are heavy graphics… haha

I just picked up the 2012 13” air and love it. I upgraded from a 2009 pro and while the display quality isn’t as good, the higher resolution is like working on a 15” screen.

I was going back and forth between air and pro with retina and decided I didn’t need retina yet and wanted something super portable.

I just purchased the top-of-the-line Air a few weeks ago, and I have got to say that I will never go back to a Pro again, at least not until the have the same form factor as the Air.

The size, weight (or lack thereof), and the shape of the Air make it exponentially more comfortable to use.

mordauk said
I just purchased the top-of-the-line Air a few weeks ago, and I have got to say that I will never go back to a Pro again, at least not until the have the same form factor as the Air. The size, weight (or lack thereof), and the shape of the Air make it exponentially more comfortable to use.

This is what I was thinking, the CPU might be a bit slower but I think the flash storage, 8gb memory upgrade, and the bumped up screen resolution is worth it. How does photoshop run on it? Other than PS and xcode I wont be using it for anything super intensive. For that I still have my desktop.

Photoshop runs 10x faster than my previous relatively-new Pro.

I’m also getting the 13” Macbook Air. Retina just isn’t broke in enough for me, and while I have an SSD ready to go in a Macbook Pro, I want the portability the Air offers. I have a desktop for larger tasks such as gaming and the Air will be for everything else.

I’ve done a LOT of research and for a web developer the Air is the best choice.

I’m currently working on the 13” air (and typing this reply ) and I have to say that it’s pretty damn fast! The SSD makes a real big difference: boot time is only a few seconds and I can easily run all of my programs for web development simultaneously. Yeah, if you ask me it doesn’t make much sense why the display in the Pro is of lower resolution, it’s a “Pro”, but I’ve got my macbook hooked up to an external 1080p display when I’m working anyhow. That difference in resolution is noticeable, but not such a big deal for most people.

If you decide to go with the Pro because you need the quad-core, put an SSD inside. But if you aren’t doing video editing or using Photoshop 24/7 (although Photoshop runs very smoothly on my machine), go with the Air. Besides, the Air is amazingly thin and light.