Switch to macbook

Hi,
right now i'm using lenovo z400 with core i3 2.5ghz ivy bridge, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd samsung evo840, and nvidia gt740m.
and i'm thinking to getting macbook pro or macbook air, maybe next year(still waiting windows10 to see how it turn out)

I'm gonna using it for web dev, unity3d game dev, photoshop (making banner,book cover,brochure and other printing stuf), indesign (magazine layout), illustrator, premiere, and maybe going to use parallel (i read that this software can run windows software right from the mac) for online game(tera online)

so here is something i still confused if i should go for 13inch (air or pro) or 15 inch
1. do i gonna see a big improvement if i go to 13inch macbook air or macbook pro?
2. 4gb (air)/8gb(pro) ram and 128gb ssd is enough for mac?
3. how big is 15inch macbook pro? since i ever saw someone using it but i think it's not bigger then my lenovo (well i'm not comparing it side by side)
4. how is intel hd6000, intel iris and intel iris pro againts nvidia gt740m i currently have?

i include macbook air since i love macbook air design, and also it cheaper....

Considering everything you will be doing the Pro with retina sounds like the best bet for you. The retina screen should help with seeing all the fine details in Photoshop and it has a more powerful processor then the Air. Plus the 13 inch model is still very portable. The 15 inch Mac Pro with retina is more powerful then the 13 inch model but costs significantly more. If price is a concern you may want to go for the 13 inch Mac Pro w/ retina and then buy an external monitor.

Your current Lenovo sounds like it is well configured and could do the job fine for the apps and uses that you listed. If you need Windows just for one online game, it sounds like more expense and effort to switch to a Mac, buy Parallels and a new Windows OS. Bootcamp instead of Parallels could help reduce some cost, but its an either/or situation if using Bootcamp.

On a related note, I recently installed Windows 10 on a four year old Core i5 laptop that was previously running Windows 7. Runs well so far in the limited time that I've had to try it.

If you want a MacBook, that's cool, but from reading your situation I'd stay with what you have.

Originally Posted by Dog5000

Your current Lenovo sounds like it is well configured and could do the job fine for the apps and uses that you listed. If you need Windows just for one online game, it sounds like more expense and effort to switch to a Mac, buy Parallels and a new Windows OS. Bootcamp instead of Parallels could help reduce some cost, but its an either/or situation if using Bootcamp.

On a related note, I recently installed Windows 10 on a four year old Core i5 laptop that was previously running Windows 7. Runs well so far in the limited time that I've had to try it.

If you want a MacBook, that's cool, but from reading your situation I'd stay with what you have.

Yes, that's why i considering to get macbook next year... and waiting for a new intel skylake(or whatever they gonna called), maybe a redesign macbook since it's getting old/bored, and maybe an infinity display like dell xps 13 or some big invention to battery tech... hahahahaa just a little imagination.

And what make me tired of my current lenovo are
1. battery life is terrible (2hours at maximum)
2. worse screen quality with inacurate RGB color (very important factor for my job/what i do) and super big bezel
3. heavy and big

Oh i can get parallels and windows os for free (not talking about pirating), so it's not a big problem to me
but how is the performance between parallels and bootcamp?

and i do read somewhere that mac is for designer(which is what i become) ahhaahha....

Originally Posted by PortCity79

Considering everything you will be doing the Pro with retina sounds like the best bet for you. The retina screen should help with seeing all the fine details in Photoshop and it has a more powerful processor then the Air. Plus the 13 inch model is still very portable. The 15 inch Mac Pro with retina is more powerful then the 13 inch model but costs significantly more. If price is a concern you may want to go for the 13 inch Mac Pro w/ retina and then buy an external monitor.

yes, macbook pro 15inch is far to expensive but is it worth it? my only doubt with 13inch is 8gb ram, even it say that can be configured to 16gb, i never see any store that sell 16gb version in my country indonesia oh and macbook pro is very expensive here, it's have the same price as motorcycle here....

Originally Posted by t0n1zz

Yes, that's why i considering to get macbook next year... and waiting for a new intel skylake(or whatever they gonna called), maybe a redesign macbook since it's getting old/bored, and maybe an infinity display like dell xps 13 or some big invention to battery tech... hahahahaa just a little imagination.

And what make me tired of my current lenovo are
1. battery life is terrible (2hours at maximum)
2. worse screen quality with inacurate RGB color (very important factor for my job/what i do) and super big bezel
3. heavy and big

Oh i can get parallels and windows os for free (not talking about pirating), so it's not a big problem to me
but how is the performance between parallels and bootcamp?

and i do read somewhere that mac is for designer(which is what i become) ahhaahha....

Cool, the additional details about your current system help to better understand your plan. I can see the need to start looking at a replacement at some point.

As for performance difference between Bootcamp and Parallels, I don't have any experience with Bootcamp. Parallels has been fine for my use over the years as I use my Windows 7 VM infrequently and not for any memory, CPU, or disk intensive work.

https://forum.parallels.com/threads/...rmance.324629/ is on discussion on the topic. I saw a few others with a search.

One thing to consider with Parallels is that you can have concurrent access to your OS X and Windows environments. I have a dual monitor setup, so if I need to run the Windows VM and plan on using it for a while, I just move it to the 2nd monitor and maximize the window. Looks/feels like running Windows 7 natively. Parallels has tons of other cool/useful features. So if having two OS's available at the same time with deep integration between the two is important and beneficial for your needs, then Parallels may be the way to go.

The other cool thing that using Parallels or Fusion will provide is the ability to run different development tools if you have apps or languages that require dev/test in a particular OS. While this is probably not a big obstacle for web development, it could matter if you want to develop for Windows or Linux. In the Windows case, I've found Visual Studio to be excellent tools. Even the free Express or Community versions are full featured and quite capable. Until those can be run natively on a Mac (could happen), you'll need either a dedicated Windows system or a VM.

Originally Posted by Dog5000

Cool, the additional details about your current system help to better understand your plan. I can see the need to start looking at a replacement at some point.

As for performance difference between Bootcamp and Parallels, I don't have any experience with Bootcamp. Parallels has been fine for my use over the years as I use my Windows 7 VM infrequently and not for any memory, CPU, or disk intensive work.

https://forum.parallels.com/threads/...rmance.324629/ is on discussion on the topic. I saw a few others with a search.

One thing to consider with Parallels is that you can have concurrent access to your OS X and Windows environments. I have a dual monitor setup, so if I need to run the Windows VM and plan on using it for a while, I just move it to the 2nd monitor and maximize the window. Looks/feels like running Windows 7 natively. Parallels has tons of other cool/useful features. So if having two OS's available at the same time with deep integration between the two is important and beneficial for your needs, then Parallels may be the way to go.

The other cool thing that using Parallels or Fusion will provide is the ability to run different development tools if you have apps or languages that require dev/test in a particular OS. While this is probably not a big obstacle for web development, it could matter if you want to develop for Windows or Linux. In the Windows case, I've found Visual Studio to be excellent tools. Even the free Express or Community versions are full featured and quite capable. Until those can be run natively on a Mac (could happen), you'll need either a dedicated Windows system or a VM.

Oh, yes, that's what i'm thinking with using parallels, i can run different development tools since at free time i develop mobile games for unity3D so at some point i maybe need to use visual studio and other windows software to emulate windows phone or windows 8/10 in the future

but overall thank you for detailed information, i still not know much about mac, since i never use one hahahahhaa