MacBook Air :: Can't Choose Between MB MBP And Air?
Oct 15, 2008
Well I have some money from a research grant to buy a new laptop as my trusty old Dell Latitude D610 is really starting to give up the ghost. I decided after I bought my Pro that I really didn't want to go back to crappy PC laptops, and I'm really psyched after the notebook update to get one of the new models, but I really don't know which.
Anyway, I went down to the Apple Store today to play with new the new MBs/MBPs. Everything was going pretty well really - until I realised how bloody heavy and wide the damn thing is! It feels quite a bit heavier than my Dell even though it's only 250g more. I virtually always have my laptop with me, and the more I think about it, the more the weight factor might become a deal-breaker for me. Actually, not having my laptop in the bag for the first time in a while has really made me realise how heavy the damn thing is - I'm not sure I want to put up with that for the next couple of years.
If I'm honest, the Air is really what I want. But I'm not sure how well it will cope with my daily routine, which generally has some of the following:
Running scientific programming applications - post-processing data, Fourier transforming it, etc. I've been really encouraged by the two-page thread on these forums saying that MBA is capable of doing this sort of thing. The 6MB L2 cache sounds really good.Casual gaming is something I've not been able to do with my D610, and it'd be nice if it were capable of running some lower end games (for example CS:S, HL2) even at reduced resolution. I've heard the 9400M should be good enough for this, but maybe I'll wait on that. Clearly the MBP is more cut out for this.
As you can see from my sig, I like photography quite a bit. Most of my photo work is done on the Mac Pro, but often I'll find myself out and about and would like to download the photos; it would be nice to be able to run Lightroom.
I listen to a heck of a lot of music, but I don't think there will be a problem here.
I'm virtually always online, web browsing and e-mail etc but again I don't think this will be a problem.
I think I can live with only the single USB port, and the lack of a DVD drive doesn't bother me greatly. Ethernet is a bit of a pain - ideally I'd like gigabit ethernet, so I'd need to give this some thought. Nothing I have has a Firewire port on it. Generally the only thing that gets plugged into my laptop is the iPhone and my headphones, so I think I'm good on that front.
The MB is also a sensible option, with most of the pros of the Air without the drawbacks. Weight is slightly less than my existing laptop, and I guess it's probably just as portable. It also has the option of a higher 2.4GHz processor, and more in terms of expandability. Not sure whether I really want this or not, though.
I just got a refurbished MacBook Air from apple. What they didn't tell me when I ordered was that it was Rev C. I got the 13 with the 2.13 processor. It was $200 less than the Rev D. Question is should I send it back and get Rev D with 1.86 processor for $200 or keep Rev C. Biggest difference I see is SD card slot.
Have narrowed it down to two. G Tech G Drive Mini or Seagate Free agent Go , both have great reviews and are Mac and Time Machine ready. The G tech is a little pricier, but cost is not a factor.
i want to buy a Mac book.. but i am not able to understand which one i should buy.. the purpose is just gaming, doing my office work and other recreational activities like.. watching movies.. editing phots.. etc.. so can you let me know which Mac book should i buy...
I like mac book white... so the performance of Mac book pro.. higher or too much higher than Mac book White ??? If i run application like Aperture.. can Mac book white be able to run smoothly without being slow ???
Over the past few months of perusing my way through the forums I have noticed a lot of people prefer matte over glossy.....Of course, we all have personal preference - but it just seems a LOT of people always say get a matte screen.
Why is this? I personally prefer the glossy. I'm on a 24" Alu iMac now with the glossy display, checked out the MBP in store and prefer the glossy...
I like the glossy for the high picture quality, I did do a test side by side of matte and glossy, and glossy just looked a lot better. Reflections can be a pain at times, but its not too hard to just move your display a few inches
apple updated its website to include a new page why choose mac. on the notebook page there seems to be a closed mba. i was thinking the mba was eol but the fact it is used in marketing may indicate it has life left
so ive just started TAFE/college doing sound production and i can't decide if i should get the high end 13" 2.7GHz i7 MBP or the low end 15" 2.0GHz i7. both refurbished. or if i need one at all? my current pc is abit old and i would like a new computer to run either logic or cubase depending what i end up with (pc/mac) so i can do music edits and mixing (maybe with visuals) for TAFE and possibly for my future career, i also plan to do home recordings when i can get the equipment. Nothing too fancy just basic home recordings. I can afford the 15" but wuld i be better off getting ther 13" and saving the money to buy the recording equipment i.e interface, cond mic.
I just did the whole SSD/optibay upgrade, and now i have a question about booting from the SSD.I used CCC to clone my HD to the new SSD. After it was cloned, I installed the drives into my macbook pro, placing the SSD in the original HD bay, and the old HD into the optibay. When i turned on my computer, i think my laptop was still booting from the old HD. How do i set things so that i boot from the new SSD? I plan to use the old HD for music/movies/documents. I tried a search but didn't come across anything.
So I have a Solid State Drive with a OSX Partition and a Windows 7 Partition and a 320 gb hard drive formatted into journaled. I went into the "System Preferences" and "Startup Disk" and the only thing I see is "network startup". What does this mean?It takes ages to boot into OSX unless I start the computer and manually pick a partition and I'm assuming it's because I don't have a startup disk selected yet. I tried switching the position of the hard drive (SSD in hard drive bay and HDD in optical base and vice versa)
I am trading in my 2009 macbook pro so now I am trying to pick the one I want. I stream a lot of movies and tv shows off of netflix but otherwise I'm just an average computer user.
Info: MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7)
I'm relatively new to Mac, only had mine for 6 months. Everything's going well and it's working fine, however, on 3 occasions in the last 2 months, when I've turned it on, before it goes to the white screen with the circling loading icon, it's made me click on the 'untitled' icon of my hard drive (at least I think that's what it is). The computer doesn't seem to run slower or encounter any other problems following this, I'm just a bit concerned as there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. I don't have Windows as an optional operating system etc.
Hi. I'm a composer using Logic Studio. I'm planning on buying the new Imac but i m still hesitating between the 2.93 and 3.06 GHz. Is there a major difference between both? Is it worth 160 euros to upgrade to 3.06 or is the 2.93 enough? Is there a big difference?
I am receiving my new Mac Pro this week. In PC world I typically used a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. Presently I am on an original keyboard of the sort that accompanied this G4 tower. I really don't like these new keyboards that come with the current Macs. Too thin, white buttons, wrong feel. I have spent some hours researching keyboards. I would like to have a correct Mac keyset, if possible.
What are you using, the original keyboard, or have you replaced it? If you have replaced it, what did you buy, do you like it, and why? I would try one of the Tactile Pro keyboards found here, but hate the fact that it is white. It is hard enough to keep keyboards clean without them being white. I also wonder about wireless. It seems another thing to go wrong, though I may try a wireless mouse. What are you doing for a mouse?
I'm about to install Windows Vista Ultimate (boot camp), but I don't know if I should choose the 32 or 64 bit version.
I'm talking about my unibody MBP 2,8ghz 4GB RAM.
I know only the 64bit can use all 4gigs of RAM installed, but maybe there are some other things I should know about too?
A while ago, a list was posted here with all software compatible with Vista x64 (but I can't find it again unfortunately) Can anyone post a link to that list too?
Yesterday, when I tried connecting my unibody MBP to my LCD TV, I could not choose the right resolution which has always been 1366 x 768. I ran some updates before this issue occured.
I have mail Version 3.6 (936) on my macbook. I have created 8 different signatures. However when I write a new mail and go to the drop down window to choose a sig. I am only given 3 to choose from. How do I get all 8 in the drop down window?
I have just upgraded to 10.1.3 and Final Cut Pro still cannot update ALL my projects and events that are in the Old Final Cut Projects and Events on my 2T My Passport external HD.
I get a message that this location - My Passport - is not a valid and that I should choose another SAN location or folder.
I'm at a loss here. I have always been able to use the external HD when using Final Cut Pro.
I have watched Final Cut Pro how-to-update videos, have searched these discussions but to no avail.
I am trying to repair my disk so I can install bootcamp, but when I reboot my machine and run disk utility and choose repair disk, it hangs. Does anyone have any ideas ?
im about to install xp, i tried before and got a few errors.. tried again with another option (NTFS i believe) and it worked untill i installed a GFX driver and it messed up
not sure if it had to do with the NTFS or FAT options i chose.. - i plan to make a 50gb partition this time round, what option shall i choose?
Currently with Mac Pro Harpertown 2600xt with 20" ACD, and i want a new 24"LED ACD, Gaming is not main topic for this system (Where i have PS3 , 360 , Wii and a i7+9800GX2 rig)but i want a decent graphic card for my master degree thesis (Working in GPGPU field), GTX285 in june seem good choice for me . it seem GTX285 mac edition doesn't have mini DP so that make me hard to decide.
if I choose 24"LED, I can't use GTX285 or other card in future from Nvidia
if I choose GTX285 I can't use *Apple* display (when i think apple will release only MDP port display)
i am trying to install Windows on my Mac. i created the partition (+/- 20gigs) and ive inserted the Windows disc. the installation works fine although i noticed that i don't get the page that gives me the option to choose between ntfs or fat32... yet it continues, and says windows is installed... but when it reboots, it goes directly to my mac-osx
im not too good with computers but i've managed to find a lot of threads that were talking about my problem but none of them could really correct the problem.
some people said that it might be the version of windows that could be the source of the problem. i have Windows Xp Corporate version. might that be the problem?
I'm an interactive designer and have a pretty sweet deal lined up. My client is going to be purchasing me one of the three computer setups. I need your help in determining which would be best. I work primarily in motion graphics (after effects, c4d, etc.) graphic design (photoshop, illustrator, etc.) and other technical aspects.
Here's the choices:
OPTION 1 Souped-up Mac Mini 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM 120GB Solid State HD 8x double-layer SuperDrive NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
or
OPTION 2 Stock Quad-Core Mac Pro One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processor 3GB (three 1GB) memory 640GB hard drive 18x double-layer SuperDrive NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB
or
OPTION 3 iMac 27-inch 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4x2GB 1TB Serial ATA Drive 8x double-layer SuperDrive ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB
I know weird question, but a lot of software are compiled for both 32-bit and 64-bit, e.g.
Code: $ file /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture x86_64):Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64 /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture i386):Mach-O executable i386 And so Safari runs as 64-bit by default on my Mac.
If I want to run it as 32-bit (for whatever reason) is there a way to do it? Snow Leopard can run both 32-bit and 64-bit code but is there a way to choose one when they are both available?
My iPhone has finally hit capacity, mostly with music.I don't want to delete things from my library, because my comptuer has plenty of space, but I want to limit what gets sync'd to my iphone. I.E. There is old music that I don't listen to regularly anymore that I don't want on my iPhone, but I would still like to keep.I know one option would be to create a playlist and just sync that playlist, but I don't want to have to drag new stuff into a playlist every time (Because I know I will forget.)