MacBook Pro or MacBook Air?

[s/v Jedi]

Get the new MBA, it is much more energy efficient than anything of any brand that came before it. Revolutionary. Of-course others have started using the new Intel chips too but never in a package as nice as the MBA.
Remember that temperature is directly related to energy efficiency. Only the last generation of MBA has those new chips.

For us we use MBP because of the raw power needed for our photo editing. Okay we also play games that require the more powerful video hardware

[DotDun]

You might want to read Macrumors....they are suggesting a new Air model due in about a month. But one never knows as Apple never pre-announces.

Mac Buyer's Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac, iPod or iPhone

FWIW, my next laptop will be the Air.

[Cuttyhunk]

I recently got my spouse a new Air, converting him from a PC. I have a pro from 2009, and a newer Mac mini. He loves the air. I was hoping he would find the keyboard too cramped, and I would then have swapped the Pro with him. Nope. I want one, too! But not for a long time; the pro will have to die first. My sister has a PowerBook that still boots up...

[Kenomac]

My wife is pretty fed up with her MacBook (5yr old white one). Except for the ipads 1 & 4, we're back with PC and android phones. Very tired of the short term planned obsolescence built into the Apple products. Would have made the switch to android based tablets too except the marine navigation we need didn't exist in the format.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

....Very tired of the short term planned obsolescence built into the Apple products.

I must be one of the lucky ones. My Imac is 7 years old, My Macbook (an old white one) about 6 - still going strong. None of my previous Win boxes lasted that long.

[colemj]

Do you have any evidence of short term planned obsolescence beyond a single failure? We have a 7yr old Macbook pro running just fine for the past 6 yrs on a boat in the tropics. My previous 6yr old one recently died with a bad motherboard. It could have been fixed with a new motherboard for $350, but I decided to buy a new MBP.

Interesting that you think common brand PC's and Android gear are tougher and do not have "planned obsolescence". Heaps of people we meet have dead 1-2yr old PC's - in fact, dead newer PC's seem to be the most common electronics problem we see.

I wish now that I had bought the MB Air, but at the time the largest disk capacity offered was 256gb and that was at a very high premium.

Mark

[Factor]

I should mention that I have a seriously ancient Ipod on the boat, it predates recorded history, still going strong and its spent its entire life on a boat plugged into the stereo.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by colemj

Do you have any evidence of short term planned obsolescence beyond a single failure? We have a 7yr old Macbook pro running just fine for the past 6 yrs on a boat in the tropics. My previous 6yr old one recently died with a bad motherboard. It could have been fixed with a new motherboard for $350, but I decided to buy a new MBP.

Mark

Yes I do. Our ipad 1 has been useless for the past year. Now, it can only read emails and runs Inavx purchased 3 years ago. Can't download any new apps or even look at newspapers or run video. Told by the apple store, the operating system is out of date. So, I barely go 2.5 years out of it before it was useless. My wife's MacBook is only 4 1/2 years old, and can't even connect to a new printer we just bought, extremely slow, can't view security system and has difficulty running video. Again, the apple store says the operating system is out of date, updated to Snow leopard, which didn't help much.

We have several PCs which are still running strong after 6-7 years.

We switched to the apple products intending to make things easier... instead they've been a PITA except for the Navigation software on the ipad. We just want something that works, what we don't want is to form lasting relationships with Apple employees down at the Apple store. We don't have the time to fuss around with Apple stuff all day.

[colemj]

OK, I see you do not understand the concept of evidence to support a statement, so I will not push this further.

Mark

[Stu Jackson]

My son's 3 year old MBA's ribbon cable died. Before he was able to trace it down to that, the Apple Store gave him run arounds, told him to buy the wrong new hard drive, twice, never diagnosed the issue properly. He finally got a new correct replacement hard drive, then when that didn't work he finally got a new ribbon cable from a third party Mac repair guy. He's pretty fed up with Mac products.

[RainDog]

As a Macbook Pro user, I can recommend against it. It is heavy, gets extremely hot (to hot to put in my lap), and is an energy hog. Mine is about 18 months old, so maybe they have fixed some of these issues, but it is not one of the batter laptops I have owned over the years.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by colemj

OK, I see you do not understand the concept of evidence to support a statement, so I will not push this further.

Mark

You're right.... I'm just a friggin' idiot.

[tartansail]

I had an early generation MBA which I liked, but wanted a bigger screen. I have had a 15" retina display MBP for the past 18 months which works well. However, if I were not looking at work stuff -- spreadsheets, etc. -- I would go back to the MBA for weight. I didn't notice much difference in heat with the Air and the Pro, but that was an earlier generation Air without the solid state drive.

[DotDun]

I would suggest to buy Applecare for the MBP/Air. I don't buy it for the iPads/iPhones.

We have 4 MacBook Pros, 2 of which have had the motherboard replaced under AC. First one, an early 2008 (pre-unibody) simply died and an early 2011 model when the SD card reader stopped working (probably wouldn't have paid to fix it, but had AC). I've also gotten 2 batteries replaced under AC.

FWIW, all 4 are still in use, all running Mavericks (on occasion, VMs for Windose).

Yes, the (2) from the 2008 era won't do AirPlay, no big deal.

Have (2) iPads, a 2 and 3, neither will do AirDrop, no big deal.

Have (2) iPhone 4S, neither will do AirDrop, no big deal.

Otherwise all are fully functional. I don't consider the lack of features above as planned obsolescence.

One feature that makes Apple worth the price is TimeMachine. If you value your data, TM is the best backup application, IMO. It's a set it and forget app that just simply works. A new feature in Mavericks TM is the ability to maintain multiple backups for those paranoid types. Want 3 backups?, all your data will be replicated 3 times, none more than 3 hours old. It's a background task, you won't even know it's running.

The ability to have all email, contacts, notes, calendar, reminders, bookmarks, passwords, pictures, documents/spreadsheets/presentations, etc. appear and work on all devices via iCloud (for free), plus access your Mac when your away and locate your Mac, isn't available on any other platform (AFAIK). Obviously, having an Internet connection is required.

[DDabs]

Just bought a new 13" MBA for the boat and it works great. If you do serious photo/video editing, I would go with the Pro, but if you're just in need of standard computing tasks, the Air works great and the battery life is insane.