[iMore Question]

I am an upcoming college student, and while still a little undecided, the current plan is to major in English and eventually make my way to law school. Being an English major, I plan to do a lot of essay writing and online reading. Aside from that, writing is one of my favorite hobbies, so I do a lot of it in my free time. I also watch a lot of movies online, read online, enjoy photography and upload a lot of my photos to my computer, and I have a large iTunes library. I am on the computer...a LOT. I am trying to decide between a MacBook Pro (possibly with Retina display) and a MacBook Air.

Would the MacBook Air accommodate all of this? If this price isn't an issue, is it better to just spend a little extra with a Macbook Pro (with Retina)? I currently have a very old model of the MacBook, and size and weight have never been an issue, but it does overheat a lot, only works with the charger plugged in 24/7, and every time I rest my wrists down on the keyboard, below they keys in the empty area around the mousepad, (while typing) it activates the mousepad, which in result highlights my entire body of text, which causes me to have a lot of errors in my writing. It's very irritating. I want to make sure the mac I get will last me a long time, and I am not really familiar with computers and I'm at a total loss!

[warcraftWidow]

The MacBook Air would handle your use cases just fine. If you have a lot of photos, just make sure you get one with a larger hard drive size. If you actually do a lot of photo editing, not just storing and viewing, then I'd recommend the Pro.

[jman0829]

MacBook Air is the right laptop for you. Nowadays you get good battery life and great performance with the MacBook Air. I agree if you want to edit videos or pictures then the MacBook Pro is your computer. My girlfriend got a MacBook Air to write and then she got into video editing and she is always running out of space and you can tell the laptop is working to the max. Remember if you need more space you can always buy and external hard drive or use the cloud as much as possible.
Good luck!

[NexusNick123]

I would go with a MacBook Pro I have the MacBook Pro early 2012 and I just like how it feels compared to the Air. Nothing with the Air just was not for me. You can get the Pro with an i5 or if want a little more go with the i7 with 8GB of RAM. but both laptops are good so at the end of the day since both computer are so close it comes down to what you want..

[anon(4698833)]

I would go with a MacBook Pro I have the MacBook Pro early 2012 and I just like how it feels compared to the Air. Nothing with the Air just was not for me. You can get the Pro with an i5 or if want a little more go with the i7 with 8GB of RAM. but both laptops are good so at the end of the day since both computer are so close it comes down to what you want..

If you suggest one over the other, it would be helpful if you'd list WHY vs. just saying it's because you have one or the other.

OP, reading your post, the Macbook Air would be perfectly capable of what you'd ask for it. The Macbook Pro offers quite a bit more under the hood, but might be a bit over kill, and looking at your career path, you're going to be someone on the go A LOT...the Air will be the more convenient machine for you.