MacBoor Air or Pro? Please help me decide, I am clueless and an Apple virgin

[PacificDogwood]

Well, almost.
I have an iPhone 4S which is clearly cleverer than me and sometimes frustrates me.

I am currently on a Dell Inspiron 6400 which is about 7 years old, used to be DH and is as slow as treacle, frequently crashes, requiring restarts etc.

We are slowly changing from a PC family to an Apply one I think although the desktop and main computer is still a PC which runs our network.

I use the laptop mainly for MNing playing in the internet, occasional work related stuff ie emails etc, and would like to have my photos on whatever new lap-device I get, rather than the desktop that is often monopolised by darling offspring

So, any advice? Air or Pro? What size screen and memory/processing speed? Currently I am thinking I'd rather compromise on size and have shedloads of memory and speed - any thoughts?

I am not a gamer, so anything that would support htat is of no interest to me.

[PacificDogwood]

Does this sound like a good deal?

What other software would I need?

I use computers at work and am not a Luddite, but am not that interested in the Inner Workings of my machine. Now that I have to choose, I find I am clueless as to what's essential and what isn't. Gah!

Should I make an appointment at an Apple store?

[PacificDogwood]

Come on, ye geeks!

Someone has got to have an opinion on this??

[Amrapaali]

Aaah MacBoor! The ruder cousin that Apple is keeping under wraps. Sorry no techy ideas... Someone knowledgeable will rock up soon.

[bonzo77]

I recently had the same dilemma. DH bought me (!) the air for my birthday. The pro has a DVD drive. But the DVD drive in both his mac desk top and my ancient mac laptop died very fast, so we thought if I really needed the drive I'd get an external one. I don't know care about the exact spec of the MacBook Air he got me, but we did discuss that really the most basic would do for MN, FB and internet shopping, the odd bit of word processing and my photos. Sorry, that's possibly not as technical as you were hoping for, but that was our rationale.

[PacificDogwood]

Amrapaali, ah yes, the Curse of the Thread Title Typo strikes again . I think I would get on just fine with the ruder cousin of the MacBook .

bonzo, every single word you've posted is relevant to me, so thanks. It sounds like you are using yours for similar things that I do.

I specced a MacBook Air on line with everything that sounded vaguely interesting and then stopped when I had breached the 2K mark... .

[Lomaamina]

I've a MacBook Air 11" and it's fine for all you list. It's also super light so a diddle to carry around. I got mine with an educational discount a few years ago for around 800 so I've no idea how you got to 2000!

[Lomaamina]

Doddle. Autocorrect fail.

[Lomaamina]

11-inch is quite small if you're doing any prolonged work or complicated swapping between documents.

128GB should be plenty storage

[PacificDogwood]

Thanks, Loma.

I understand the Air does not have spinning harddrive, memory is all Flash? Is that an issue??
I am not bothered about it not having a DVD/CD-ROM player - should I ever feel I need it, I'd get the external one.

[Lomaamina]

I've no idea what the significance of a lack of spinning hard drive is, other than that may be how the get it so thin. I can vouch for its working memory (not up on the jargon - I mean, as opposed to storage) and I've created quite large, 30MB graphics heavy powerpoints without any pause in operation. Really an excellent buy, so long as, as I mentioned, you're not bothered by the small screen.

[southeastdweller]

I've been about thinking a lot about this too. General advice seems to be if you've got the money to get the Pro then get it as it's much more powerful than the Air...but the lightness and portability of the Air is really attractive .

[BetsyBell]

Macbook air is lovely. I've got the little one (11") and it's really quiet, light, portable, looks great and I'm glued to it for everything including netflix as well as work and interwebbing. The hard drive is solid state which is a GOOD THING (can't remember why though )

[PacificDogwood]

"Solid state" - that's the phrase!
I think I need a visit to the Apple store, don't I? Speak to a Genius
Nobody with 13'' around to convince me of its relative merits then?

I could stretch to a Pro, but would rather not spend the money on functionality they I won't use

[PacificDogwood]

that I won't use

Sorry

[southeastdweller]

So what's your thinking about the retina screen models? The chap at the Apple store told me don't bother if you don't edit lots of photos, for work or your hobby.

[PiratePanda]

The new macbook pros have solid state hard drives too, so no difference there. They also don't have DVD drives any more so you'll need an external one.

All things being equal, get a pro. I've had both, and the memory in the air is tiny. In fact the only advantage of the air is its weight.

[southeastdweller]

Oh and the new Pro's are out within the next two months, which means the current ones may get reduced then, as they were last year.

[PacificDogwood]

So what makes the Pros that much heavier??

When I specced my 2k 13'' Air on-line it got really expensive because I added lots of memory. I don't understand the difference between, say, 2GB of 'storage' and 512k 'Flash'

[nancerama]

I had a 13" MacBook Pro and loved it until it was taken in a burglary. For whatever reason, my insurers replaced it with an Air, and I have no complaints at all.

It's fast and so very light. DM has a pro, as does DH, and I find them heavy and unwieldy.

[trashcansinatra]

If you want to take it with you, go for an Air. If you need more disk space or want more grunt go for a pro.

We've just bought a 13" 256GB and it is fab, but disk isn't big enough for all our music and photos so they stay on the Pro (and a backup disk of course!)

[ParkerTheThief]

If you're not going to be lugging it around on a regular basis I'd get a pro

[PiratePanda]

I lug my 15" pro everywhere and I have chronic back trouble. It's got lighter and lighter over the years (my first was one of the original titanium ones....beautiful machine!)

[southeastdweller]

What size laptop are you used to then, OP?

[ThePuffyShirt]

I have a newish pro and love it very much.

[PacificDogwood]

What size am I used to? No idea...