Need some advice on the setup best for me

[Abaddon51]

First off thank you for reading this and giving me your input. Sorry for typing errors in a hurry and on an iPad. My problem is I have a list of things I need to do and enjoy doing but unable to decide on the right apple products that would help me the best.

I am an expedited truck driver for an occupation. I am away from home 10 days and home for 4. My computer setup now is a crappy windows laptop, an iPad, and a rooted verizon phone for wifi access. I leave the laptop at home and just cram as much tv shows as I can on my 64 gb iPad and stream hulu and netflix when I can. I want to upgrade the laptop to a Mac.

Option 1. I can get the MBA 13 ultimate and sell my iPad. Very cost effective. Added battery of MBP with ease of use. Can throw it anywhere and instant on is great when I have to wait a short duration many times like I do in my occupation. Would be my only computer, can do anything I require, and would need to dock it to a portable hdd for extra space. Also I can take advantage of red boxes and able to watch DVDs with added drive.

Option 2. Buy a MBP for bigger hdd and DVD drive built in. May be slightly heavier but less extras. Also costs more, no instant on and probably keep an iPad to make kindle reading easier so have to bring 2 devices instead of 1. Do have iPad games to play around with as well.

Keep in mind in a truck space and comfort is limited and keeping many things charged becomes a pain. Will hdd space and built in drive compensate for bringing more extras like drive and portable hdd with MBA be worth it?

Need some help deciding. Thank you btw. This is also my first Mac so I'm way out of my comfort zone.

 

[mloffa]

In you situation, I'd go with the MBP + iPad combo.
Since you watch DVD's a lot in your truck (from what I understand..), finding a place to put the external superdrive might become a pain. The cord on that thing is not very long.
Plus, because you said you like the iPad to read and use apps, you will probably miss it once it's gone.

Your choice, though.
Enjoy

 

[jbg232]

Just get a regular macbook or macbook pro. The extra thickness is barely worth the pain of dealing with an external CD drive if you will actually use it (which it seems you will). Plus, the extra HDD space is very very nice. You might miss the ipad, but see how it goes first, you can always sell the ipad for a pretty good return.

 

[Abaddon51]

Reason for watching DVDs is because I blow through all the watchable content on my iPad and unable to just flip in a red boxed DVD or hook up to my portable hdd and swap some tv shows. Also it takes a long time to convert shows and movies to iPad and that gets tiring.

Edit - Reading a kindle book without an iPad probably blows too, especially in bed, even with an MBA I bet.

 

[Poochi]

If you will end up with only 1 computer, MBP probably is the best (selling old windows laptop) - I'd wait for the next revision.

If you are keeping your windows laptop (with DVD drive), I would suggest MBA (don't need ultimate, just base 13" or 13" with 4 GB RAM is good enough - save yourself lots of cash as added CPU and SSD will not net you much resale value when next revision comes out, from personal experience.) with a small size external USB Drive (500GB or 1TB) for movies - convert everything to media file (use your windows machine) and play on your MBA.

Depends on what you do, iPad is handy - eg. 3G wireless, GPS unit (great with navigon), some light casual game while on break etc.

Just my 2 cents.