Pro or Air? help me decide

Well, this is quite difficult to figure out for me so I ask you for some advice

Situation is as follows:

I have 1,400 more or less to buy a new laptop (never had one of my own actually) which is the price for the entry model 2012 Macbook pro & air 13' down here. I want the laptop to last as much as possible (let's say 4-5 years) I don't use my machines for anything resource heavy other than some light photo editing, light gaming and music production (Recording - mastering, Cubase or similar 99% of the time) I'm pretty comfortable with OSX therefore I have decided on getting a mac, but my problem is if the MBA will last that much since I can't get the 8GB RAM upgrade - or if the MBP's 800p screen is really too short of real estate.

What do you say? which one would you pick?

 

the BMP non-retina version would be the better choice in my opinion. Since you do have the option to upgrade stuff like HDD & memory yourself later. The CPU on the Pro version is also beefier, so you can do some heavier lifting than the Air. Both would be reason for lasting longer. Too bad BMP 15 inch isn't in your budget, but otherwise that's probably a much better suite because of the GPU & little more screen real estate compared to 13 inch.

 

I agree with freeman. future proof wise the MBP 13 - 15 inch is a safer future proof purchase for u since gaming ( light as well) and photo editing is involved. you might
never know what sort of games/demanding software will come out to the market in 4 years.
with the current CPU on the MB air u can do everything including gaming. The HD 4000 graphic card which is built in on the MB air CPU can run any game on low to mid graphic settings. Though as I said earlier the MB pro will be a much better choice like freeman said , memory / HDD upgrade wise.
However, when planing on buying a laptop for 4+ years , it is not recommended making a purchase with the X amount of money you have available at this very moment.
To be honest , performance wise , u wont see a HUGE difference between the macbook pro 13 inch and the macbook air for your kind of uses since the macbook pro 13 inch does not have an external NVIDIA GPU ( as far as i remember). So, as someone who bought and sold 7 gaming laptops in the past year and a half , I would suggest on waiting and saving a tad more money and buying the 15 inch macbook pro with non retina that has the NVIDIA GT650m graphic card.
since you are going to be stuck with ur next machine for the next 4 years , waiting 1-3 months and saving an extra 300$ would be the best and most satisfying purchase you can make, also the smartest and you wont regret it.
I had Asus g53jw gaming laptop , the razer blade portable gaming laptop and 3 alienware machines , and the one thing I learned is , dont rush into it...
save 300$ and get the macbook pro 15 inch , it wont be as portable as the macbook air, but it be just enough to enjoy its performance and still be able to take it anywhere in ur backpack...
whatever you chose on buying , hope you enjoy it.
got my first new macbook book pro retina display machine 1 week ago, and it is the best purchase I did in my past 12 years of dealing with PC's and laptops.

cheers

 

I think the better resolution on the MBA makes it more future proof than the possibility of adding some additional memory in the future. The 13" macbook pro is not priced very competitively. The 13" MBA is still priced competitively. I think it's a better buy.

In the end, it's going to be dramatically faster because of the SSD (which you can technically upgrade), the resolution is higher, and it's a thinner, lighter machine.

Light gaming might be an issue depending on what you mean by light gaming.

 

If you want something to last as long as possible, I would see if you can either stretch your budget to new or look for a refurbished 15-inch Pro. Refurbs bought from Apple carry the same warranty as new machines, and even last year's base 15 with the 512 MB Radeon 6750M will be more than adequate for what you're looking to do, not to mention be more capable at gaming than either current-generation 13-inch system.

 

I agree. I'd buy the MBA because of the weight difference, the extra screen real estate and the SSD.

What kind of peripherals will you use for your audio production? The MBA's got 2x USB3 and one Thunderbolt port and that's about it (the lack of ports can be mitigated with adapters, but I think that's a mess).

Solitaire or chess hopefully.

 

The MBA is definitely more of the "future proof" system mainly due to its thin design and higher resolution display. The 13" MBA and MBP are going to provide very similar performance CPU and graphics wise but the MBA is going to be generally faster out of the box due to its SSD. Both rely on Intel integrated graphics that will yield similar performance in both systems. So any game that causes problems on a 13" MBP is going to be an issue on the MBA (and vice versa). As previously pointed out, the 13" MBP is way too overpriced. Macs have generally been more expensive than their Windows counterparts but the 13" MBP is pretty damn bad. Similarly equipped units with aluminum bodies can be purchased for $500-$600 less than the baseline 13" MBP configuration. Go up to a flat $1000 and you can buy a 15" notebook with a solid chassis, dedicated GPU, and quad-core processor.

The 13" MBA is competitively priced with other ultrabooks while still being able to generally outperform them. Newer ultrabooks might be a little thinner and lighter but the MBA is still a good value. Definitely go with the baseline 2012 13" MBA even if it doesn't come with 8GB of RAM. Really, the vast majority of people don't require 8GB of RAM and that includes the many people that think they actually do. I have been doing just fine with 4GB of RAM for the last 6 months (that includes running MATLAB in a Windows 7 virtual machine along with a series of programs in OS X) and that should be fine for the next few years. You only need 8GB if you plan on doing some serious gaming (which you wouldn't be doing since you are looking to buy a Mac) or running multiple virtual machines at once.

 

light gaming means max. 2004 titles (Legacy of Kain: Defiance and similar)


Regarding if I can save more money for a 15" that is impossible for me right now, the cheapest 15" MBP is around US$2300 down here (Welcome to the third world - Even though I live in Chile, regarded as the jaguars of economic growth) therefore I'm stuck with either the base MBA or the base MBP 13" :/

2 Interfaces for instruments & microphone, a power amplifier and a mixer. With 2 USB 3.0 I think it should be no problem.

 

and remember, USB 3.0 is fast. If you need to get a hub, it's not the end of the world, especially if it's just to connect up a large amount of audio equipment. In fact, a hub can be a cleaner solution in this case. You can keep things connected to the hub, and then plug in once to your laptop when you place it on your desk. The alternative is having multiple plugs directly into the laptop and wires everywhere.

Gaming performance is going to be tolerable for 2004 and earlier. There shouldn't be any significant difference between the MBA 13" and the MBP 13", even though the MBP technically has a somewhat better processor. The reality is that they are both fast. The SSD is going to make a much bigger impact overall. You could certainly get an SSD in the MBP, but the MBA comes with it standard, the build is better, and the screen is higher resolution. It's basically a non-choice imo.

 

complaining about chile? have you checked the prices in brazil?

 

Some newer titles should also be fine so long as they are using an older game engine. Portal runs pretty solid on my MBA at almost the native resolution of its display. It uses the Half-Life 2 engine, which is pretty dated, but it still looks good.

Almost anything more modern (and using a more modern engine) is going to cause problems. I've heard Call of Duty 4 can be played on a 2011+ MBA but I haven't experienced it first hand. Games can be a little tricky as it all depends on their engine and what their code takes advantage of. Some games take advantage of Nvidia hardware while others work fine with AMD and even Intel.

 

if battlefield 3 can be played on the HD4000 which is built in the MBA CPU then pretty much most of the new titles out there are also playable

 

Everything on low, 800x600, 15-30 fps

 

I haven't, but Chile is supposed to have signed a TLC (Free Commerce Treaty) with the USA, which should have cut the impot taxes but truth is taxes have raised let's say since 2010 more or less. If the relationship between USA and Chile is so good in almost every topic why would imports be so expensive? In addition, the minimal legal salary here is around US$400 a month, pretty low isn't it? ._.

And please do not lose the focus of the topic, I don't care about new titles, I am not that kind of OMG-60FPS-CRYSIS2 kind of person. I don't even like CoD, MoH, LoL, WoW and that sort of things. As far as it runs Portal smoothly I'm happy

 

Where you lived and what/how you wanted to play were not made clear in your initial post. Now that we have this information, you would do just fine with an Air. Again, I would point you to a refurbished machine, if they're available in your country. A 2011 model will be just fine and hopefully fall within your budget.

 

Neither one...MBA has lots of problems and the MBP you get last year technology ...I mean the base model have 5400rpm HD..Get a Thinkpad or Asus..I have the MBP and is substandard at best.

 

The MBA doesn't have any serious issues, unless you are trying to run windows. If that is the case, you should consider an alternative.

 

I didn't have any overheating issues when I had an Air earlier this year. I'd vote for the Air. The MBP is too heavy for a 13" notebook. With the Air you get a WXGA+ LCD and the ULV CPU is more than enough for most uses.