MBA vs MBP....purchasing new mac and need decision help

[michaelpat87]

Hello All,

New to the forum, and quite new to MAC and IOS. Use to be an Android fan. I will be upgrading out of my Windows machine and hopping on to Mac. I am having a rough time deciding what will be best for my needs. I am on a tight budget and don't have tons of money to throw at this. I have played with both MBA and MBP, I love the light weight of the MBA but I know the MBP has more performance. I mainly do just browsing, video messaging, word and excel. I do light audio editing for podcasts, which I think I would use Garageband, and eventually upgrade to Logic (I use Sonar X2 now), and some light photoshop. (I have an external for storage)

My heart is on the MBA, but want to make sure I make the right choice. Like I said it will mainly be word and excel, web surfing, and video messaging, light recording and photo editing in photoshop. With the new Haswell processors, do you think the MBA can compete pretty well with the MBP. I will be upgrading to 8GB RAM.

Thanks

 

[Jaguarr40]

First of all Welcome to the forum. I like you are wrestling which MB to get as well. It seems to me from what I know about the MB line and what you mentioned you are going to to be doing with it, You would be a candidate for the MBPr because of the graphics you are going to be using as well as other things you are going to be doing that would call for the retina display.

Having said that you can't go wrong with either but this is my opinion. I am sure you will get more qualified people to assist in your question and good luck to you and once again welcome to the forums.

Also lastly let me address the fact that is money as you said is a budget and you are going to upgrade memory you could be spending as much money on an Air as a regular MBP.

 

[impaler]

I'd go with the Haswell MBA, with max RAM.

 

[michaelpat87]

Thanks for the help. Do we know how much usuable storage is available on the MBA 128GB SSD out of the box?

 

[Alli]

I started with the MBA and upgraded to the MBP because of the space. If you're editing podcasts, you will need more space than you can get on the Air.

 

[anon(4698833)]

Thanks for the help. Do we know how much usuable storage is available on the MBA 128GB SSD out of the box?

OSX takes about 10GB of space on the drive, so usavle storage will be right at 118-120GB.

As far as your question in your initial post, both the MBA and MBP would be sufficient for what you're going to ask of them...and with pricing being the big factor to you, I'd say the Macbook Air would be a great fit, especially with 8GB of RAM (which i highly recommend on any system you get as a minimum to get some longevity out of it). Storage space shouldn't be a high concern for you, as external drives are becoming very portable and offer you tons of storage space at minimal costs these days, I was telling another poster that i saw a tiny little Toshiba drive for $60 that gave 1TB of storage, that thing would go perfectly with a Macbook Air, and only requires USB connection for power.

The Macbook Pro's will have more performance, and more features (inputs, storage, RAM, processor, etc)...but the real debate will come down to the pricing, the Retina models are going to run you A LOT more than a Macbook Air, and the non-Retina models might turn you off because of the lesser battery life and higher weight. I had a retina MBP for a few months but decided I liked the open ability to build the non-retina model better, so i sold it and went back to a mid 2012 model and couldn't be happier. Is it as convenient or portable as the Macbook Air? Not at all...but i also ask a lot more of my machine than you do (based on your initial post).

 

[rjkgr]

MBA is if your going to bring it with u everywhere it is better but doesnt have CD drive and its 10X lighter faster , and the MBP is also good but a little heavier and holds more storage but u can always get an external hard drive