Help! Can't choose between MB, MBP and Air

[macfreak12]

Differences....

As far as differences.....depends on what your going to be using your mac for.

If you want to be able to edit some badass movies, develop webpages, code, use photoshop, indesign, or anything major like that.

You dont want the macbook air....why...capability. Just wont cut it.

The minimum you could go with is the Macbook...if you pimp it out with the mos t memory and HD Gigs you possibly can.

I'f you'd rather have a mac that waws designed for designing some badass graphics...then the Mac pro is your answer.

fyi....pixar developed Finding Nemo, A Bugs Life, Shrek, etc. All using the Mac Pros.

Industrial Light and Magic....wich produced Jurasic Park, Transformers, Iron Man...etc. All graphics developed on Mac pros.

hope that help.

 

[tigres]

As far as differences.....depends on what your going to be using your mac for.

If you want to be able to edit some badass movies, develop webpages, code, use photoshop, indesign, or anything major like that.

You dont want the macbook air....why...capability. Just wont cut it.

The minimum you could go with is the Macbook...if you pimp it out with the mos t memory and HD Gigs you possibly can.

I'f you'd rather have a mac that waws designed for designing some badass graphics...then the Mac pro is your answer.

fyi....pixar developed Finding Nemo, A Bugs Life, Shrek, etc. All using the Mac Pros.

Industrial Light and Magic....wich produced Jurasic Park, Transformers, Iron Man...etc. All graphics developed on Mac pros.

hope that help.

Yes, I am aware that doing the upscale graphics editing is not what the machine is built for. I am not intending on joining Pixar with it (yet my sis works for Weta digital in NZ)

But my point is, for what you get spec for spec, it is damn close to the other machines. I am aware of obvious screen size and the other obvious differences. My question is this, using the MBA for fusion, office 08 and limited use of FCxpress, will this hold up to the MB in terms of functionality?

Side by side again, I do not see a "world of difference" all in all.

 

[zer0tails]

@ dann Get the macbook. You seem to be preoccupied with value for money and specs. And since so many factors scare you, the MBA is not for you in that case.

@ Tigres: There are HUGE differences between the Macbook air in contrast to the MB and MBP. Processors and Ram. I think you're comparing different things here.

good side by side comparison? In what? Surfing the web and writing an email? Yes. Editing a video or working in maya? NO.

the Macbook Air is a unique product. People buy it for its portability first and foremost. If you're buying it hoping that its performance will be similar to a MBP, or buying it for the specs, you will be disappointed. Best not to waste your time and money then.

 

[davem7]

Well, I believe I might have come to a decision - I'm going to go with the Air. I did an extensive amount of research; probably more than any other purchase I've made. What really pushed me over the edge is realising that the most important thing I'll be doing over the next couple of years is writing my thesis. Aside from that, I mostly read papers, surf the web and write e-mail. I don't believe that the other stuff (mainly running a variety of Python scripts and programming) is beyond the Air's capabilities at all.

They seem to be quite a bit more beefy than you'd imagine. I went to the Apple store and strained the processor a bit (opened a terminal and piped yes > /dev/null), and it still seemed very responsive. I think the improved graphics card will help with the smoothness of visual effects and will definitely help when Snow Leopard comes out and OpenCL becomes more popular.

My main beef against the MBP was the size and weight. It has an excellent screen, nice keyboard, touchpad and all the processing capabilities that you're likely to need. But for me, it was too big. What put me off the MacBook in the end was the screen. I spend time watching movies, and the viewing angles are really, really bad. In terms of cost, I wanted the backlit keyboard (which isn't available on the base model) and there isn't a substantial price difference between the Air and the 2.4 MB. The weight increase is also noticable.

Industrial Light and Magic....wich produced Jurasic Park, Transformers, Iron Man...etc. All graphics developed on Mac pros.

Well... I already have a Mac Pro I'm not planning on doing super major work on it. The Pro is good enough for any of my processing needs by a long way and is an excellent computer.

hope that helped

This was one of the most useful replies, thanks a lot!

ill still wait however and see what this new update is like in november. who knows...maybe apple will throw in a glasstrack pad last minute.....................

I very much doubt they'd do this - Apple really stick to what they've announced 90% of the time and I don't really remember them making a change quite this big. To be honest, I can't really tell a lot of difference between the glass touchpad on the MBP/MB and the one on the Air. The button is neither here not there for me as I usually tap anyway.

Correct me if I am wrong but I see very little difference between the MB/MBA/MBP except for the processing speed and Ram.

All appear to share the same processor/video card, and the air shares the higher end front side bus as the mbp.

So am I concluding correctly that the MBA will have some pretty good side by side comparison to the MB/MBP? Obviously with a 2g side by side look. With the air having the ssd drive.

Thoughts?

I know that technically, there is quite a difference in terms of the processing power - on paper, the MBP > MB > MBA in terms of specs. But using them in the shop, I didn't really get a feel for that in terms of general usage. The (obviously old) MBA's graphical transitions (minimising in dock, bringing up dashboard etc) were somewhat slower, but I experienced the same thing with the old MB, and I expect this will improve with the new graphics update.

However there's no doubt that you couldn't really edit video or do major work in CS3 with a MB/MBA. You'd definitely need the MBP to do that.

 

[zer0tails]

congrats davem7. Welcome to the club of mac pro owners with macbook airs. It's the perfect set up really.

Will you be getting the SSD version? That's the one i'll be getting hopefully.

 

[tigres]

I cannot wait for my Air to arrive.

 

[davem7]

congrats davem7. Welcome to the club of mac pro owners with macbook airs. It's the perfect set up really.

Will you be getting the SSD version? That's the one i'll be getting hopefully.

Thanks - can't wait to actually order the damn thing now

I'm going with the 1.83 HDD option. For me, the SSD is too expensive at the moment, but eventually I do want one. My plan is to wait for about 6-8 months for prices to drop/larger drives to appear, then buy and install it myself as disassembly really doesn't look hard at all.

 

[rittchard]

The new MBA is NOT worth the money IMO. I don't care for the Nvidia GPU & the new xxx port. The new Air will be $1700+ 8.5% tax. That's a $619 difference for those two things.

You're also getting the (supposedly) improved 45nm processor, faster RAM and mainboard (1066MHz), SATA connection to hard drive, and a 50% larger hard drive space. While you may not notice the new processor or RAM speed, you WILL notice 50% more hard drive space lol (and hopefully the faster drive interface). In addition, the nVidia GPU should theoretically transform the new MBA from casual/lite gaming to a true portable gaming machine. Five times the graphics power (which from my research looks to be fairly accurate) is nothing to sneeze at; a game that was unplayable at 10fps could be be played fluidly at 50fps, and/or improving the graphics quality on top of that.

Of course whether or not it's worth the money is always a relative thing to the individual and the individual's needs, just make sure you've done all your research so you don't regret it later.