Opinions on Macbook

[vroy71uk]

I am looking to replace my Mac Air (late 2010) model. The Air is probably the best machine I had so far (and I had quite a few), but it started showing its age. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (1.6 GHz) and 4Gbs of RAM.

I keep it with me all day and apart from some light word editing, and internet browsing I will also do some development when I am on the go. That means running netbeans, jboss and a postgres server on it (!). It is not my main development machine, but if I want to try an idea while I am traveling I will do it. I am not doing any video editing on it.

I was hoping for a new mac air this year but from what it seems it will not happen. I would opt for 16Gb of RAM and an i5 processor if I could. So, since this is not going to happen I am looking into alternatives and one of them is the Macbook (m5 processor), but all reviews say that it is seriously underpowered. (Read reports that it had problems with UI animations and had to alter the UI settings to make them less CPU hungry).

I would also like it to last for as long as my air did (i.e. around 6 years) before I renew it.

Anyone has any experience on using the Macbook for it? Any comments?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Well your best bet would be the 13 inch MacBook Pro it is only half a pound heavier than the air with better CPU, graphics, screen and port selection, if you can wait a few months for the new one then it'll probably be thinner and lighter as well.

The MacBook should do your work fine though if portability is your main criteria. However longevity on a machine without a fan and with a CPU that benches around the same as a 2012 air may be your issue here.