Thoughts... buying a 13in ultimate, what to do with MBP?

[groovyone789]

So I'm about to get a 13 inch ultimate MBA for use as my primary laptop (as a gift). I'm a college student and really like the portability and battery life of the air. I currently have a late 2008 unibody 15" MBP. At that time this computer was spec'd really well (2.8ghz Core 2 duo, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and like $3,000+). The computer still works great but the battery life and size aren't great for days walking around campus and going from class to class (i have to carry the power cord with me too). I mostly use my computer for music/notes/word/excel/powerpoint/browsing. I used to do more photo/video stuff but all of the college work kind of consumes that time.

Anyways, should I keep my 15" MBP as a sort of 'desktop' for me? I want to be able to go back to imovie stuff or photoshop when I need to. Sure its faster and the display is larger, but it also has less storage and worse resolution. Also I don't have much of a permanent desk for it.

Or do I sell it (I've been offered $850 and seen sales of similar laptops for $1200)? I would probably wait and get the next gen iPad with the $$$. However I dont really like the idea of losing almost $2,000 over 2 years by selling my current laptop. Are there any other options I'm missing? I don't want to invest much more $$$ into my set up than its already worth. Thoughts? Is it worth keeping my 15" MBP or will the 13" 'ultimate' be close enough in performance/capability (the air will have double the storage).

And before anyone says I should have kept the 15" and gone with the 11"... I really dont want to have to squint and I like the ability to write an essay comfortably while having another document or website side-by-side. Even more so, the extra 2 hours of battery life are really important so I don't have to carry around a charger all day. And I wanted the 256GB of storage.

Thanks

 

[teski]

Personally, I'd probably sell the 15". I know you don't want to lose the money, but it's only going to drop more in value, and I doubt you're going to use it all that much. I have an early 2009 15" MBP that's almost the same specs as yours...2.8 C2D, 4GB RAM, but a 320GB 7200 RPM drive, and I bought a maxed out 13" MBA.

I've run PS CS5 on it, and it runs very quickly and smoothly. Unfortunately, mine had a screen issue, so my replacement should be here tomorrow or Tuesday. Anyway, that will be my main machine. I'll still have my MBPro though as that's a work machine, but if it were mine, I'd most likely be selling it.

 

[Jaro65]

^^^^^
I would probably do the same. For what you're describing the MBA 13 is fully capable of being your primary machine, while offering a really great mobility. The MBP 15 is only going to keep dropping in value. Sell it and save the money for an iPad.

 

[BENJMNS]

after having used my 13 mba for a couple of days now... i don't even really like using my desktop machine which is nice and comfy with full keyboard, nice mouse, and a bigger display. it's that nice.

i just dumped my 3 day old MBP 13 for $1K to a local coed. she's happy. i'm happy.

0 regrets. zilch. nada. none.

 

[FuNGi]

I'm similar to you in that I have the same two computers.

I just bought the 13" AIR with upgraded RAM but not more storage. The reason is that I also have the same late 2008 unibody 15" MBP with a large HD. I like having the security of two machines. If one needs repair or gets stolen then I can keep working. Also, I have too much data for storage on even the maxed out AIR. I use my 15" at the office hooked up to my external monitor. It lives there. I don't want to carry it. Period. The Air lives at home and goes places with me. I sync with dropbox and a 32GB thumbdrive as my Air's timemachine.

It sounds as if you could simply upgrade your MBP's storage to a slower but much larger HD that can accomodate mass media files and have a great "desktop" performer and backup computer.

I say keep the good ol' workhorse unless you really need the money, your friend really needs a computer, or you are a minimalist trying to parse down your worldly possessions.

You will need to work out a good syncing and backup scheme for the two computers, however, and to some this can be daunting.

 

[teski]

I just bought the 13" AIR with upgraded RAM but not more storage. The reason is that I also have the same late 2008 unibody 15" MBP with a large HD. I like having the security of two machines. If one needs repair or gets stolen then I can keep working. Also, I have too much data for storage on even the maxed out AIR. I use my 15" at the office hooked up to my external monitor. It lives there. I don't want to carry it. Period. The Air lives at home and goes places with me. I sync with dropbox and a 32GB thumbdrive as my Air's timemachine.

It sounds as if you could simply upgrade your MBP's storage to a slower but much larger HD that can accomodate mass media files and have a great "desktop" performer and backup computer.

I say keep the good ol' workhorse unless you really need the money, your friend really needs a computer, or you are a minimalist trying to parse down your worldly possessions.

You will need to work out a good syncing and backup scheme for the two computers, however, and to some this can be daunting.

To each their own, but personally I'd rather get a 1TB external drive for just over $100 and get rid of the 15". Other than storage, it sounds like you'd keep the machine around for things that rarely happen, if ever. How often have your laptops been stolen or out for repair?

 

[neteng101]

Sell your old 15" MBP. A bunch of us who had 15" MBPs did just that, switched to the 13" ulti and sold off the MBP.

 

[n0de]

I might hold off on selling it for a bit. The market is flooded by everyone in the same position. If you do not need the money right now I would wait a month or two. A 15" with those spec's will not loose much if any more value between now and then.

I have never had a MB sell for less than $850, even my old 12" & 15" PPC Pros well after the migration to Intel.

 

[bamf]

I'm also accepting donations of MBPs if you want to just shoot it my way...

 

[chiamac]

I'd sell it if I were in the same situation. I had cash in had to get a maxed out 15" MBP with SSD but waited until Back to the Mac. I'm so glad I did. Got the maxed 13" MBA, have had it for over a week and it has far exceeded my expectations as a primary computer (Photoshop, Illustrator, Office, Parallels with 64-bit Win7, etc). I don't game but benchmarks look great for it.

Don't let stuff own and tie you down, lighten your load a bit and experience the exquisite physical and mental freedom of some minimalism, sense the feeling of owning less stuff but what you do own is of top quality and that which you love.

 

[cambookpro]

I'd sell and maybe get a cheap external monitor if you have space?
But I'd only want +$1000 for a machine with 2.8GHz and SSD.

 

[BeachChair]

I think you should be able to get more than $1200 for it, the specs and 15 inch monitor are quite abit better than the current $1200 13" MBP.

Don't worry too much about the loss of value. When you paid $3000 back in 2008 you must have realized that you were were overpaying to get the best possible specs.
It's the same if you pay $300 for the big SSD today, you know it will drop immensely in price the next years.

 

[Tomple]

I was thinking of what to do with my MBP when all of a sudden

:SPLASH:

i spill orange juice all over it...


problem solved...i guess

 

[groovyone789]

thanks for the replies. It looks like I should be able to do enough on the MBA and should try to sell the MBP when I can get the chance to. Hopefully I'll be able to get a decent amount of $$ to either save up or buy a new ipad whenever they show up. I'll probably give it a couple weeks with both computers just to be sure.