New to Mac. Wondering what laptop is best for me?

[iMore Question]

I am a college student who is looking to make the move from HP to Apple. I am leaning toward either the 13 inch Macbook Air or the 13 inch Macbook Pro. I need my new laptop to be fast and reliable, with the ability to watch movies and listen to a lot of music. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[the_tech_eater]

Hello and welcome! Both the pro and the air are fast and reliable, but for movies the pro would be better choice because it has a 2560/1440 display. The airs strength is in it's 13+ hour battery life, and that it's one of the thinnest ultra book on the market.

 

[Algus]

Hi,

The Air is a lower power unit but is significantly lighter and has a much better battery life.
The Pro has a vastly superior screen resolution and is a much more powerful laptop overall.

At their entry level configurations performance is very similar though high CPU tasks will cause the Air's battery to drain rapidly.

Both of these laptops excel at media playback but if you want to watch true HD (1080p) video on the laptop's built-in display, you will want to go with the retina Macbook Pro. If your budget allows, I also recommend considering upgrading to 8 GB of RAM. This provides a significant speed boost for OS X.