To go Pro or the air.

[anon(4698833)]

lol...we're having this discussion about the merits of these high end macbooks and i completely forgot this is going to a student who is just getting into college. Get yourself a used macbook you can beat up, one that has cheap internals to replace, and use your schools resources for your photography work. To be honest, there's no reason for you to have one of these top end machines when any legitimate school that offers photography courses will have machines that will function perfectly for what you'll need.

 

[Richard Nieves]

I think the Air is the best bang for buck laptop at the moment followed by the 13" Pro (non retina).

I find it really hard to recommend the current 13" Pro Retina due to the relatively poor performance of the integrated HD 4000 graphics but that may well change when the Pro's are upgraded to Haswell.

Depending on the MBP they get, there is one with a built in graphics card.

 

[Lych]

Actually thinking about picking up a laptop for myself, and figured I might as well go Apple if it's as good as it's reputed to be (I never had one before so most of my hands-on experience is what I got at retail stores).
Thing is, I can't make up my mind between the 13" rMBP and the 13" Air.
Battery life and portability-wise the Air is certainly more alluring with that 12 hours it can (reputedly) churn out, but I'm concerned whether it's going to run more resource-intensive tasks.

What I plan to use it for:
- email
- document editing
- web browsing
- videos
- some graphic editing (mostly editing color schemes and palettes, custom program)
(- probably some web design and coding as well)

What I also want to use it for:
- photoshop
- ZBrush

Optional, if possible:
- Maya
- Gaming.(Blizzard games and Borderlands 2 mostly)

My questions are:
- is the Air capable of handling the first two categories, or am I better off getting the rMBP?
- Can the rMBP deliver on the advertised 9 hours?
- how is the rMBP with games? Is it capable or should I give up on Maya and Gaming with the Iris graphics models? (from the Autodesk website it seems that for Maya I'd need a dedicated graphics card so I might have to live without that, and just leaving it for my desktop, as I'm not interested in the 15" models)

Am I better off just get a regular laptop or tablet and leaving the latter two categories to the desktop and saving the money?

 

[eastbayrae]

Actually thinking about picking up a laptop for myself, and figured I might as well go Apple if it's as good as it's reputed to be (I never had one before so most of my hands-on experience is what I got at retail stores).
Thing is, I can't make up my mind between the 13" rMBP and the 13" Air.
Battery life and portability-wise the Air is certainly more alluring with that 12 hours it can (reputedly) churn out, but I'm concerned whether it's going to run more resource-intensive tasks.

What I plan to use it for:
- email
- document editing
- web browsing
- videos
- some graphic editing (mostly editing color schemes and palettes, custom program)
(- probably some web design and coding as well)

What I also want to use it for:
- photoshop
- ZBrush

Optional, if possible:
- Maya
- Gaming.(Blizzard games and Borderlands 2 mostly)

My questions are:
- is the Air capable of handling the first two categories, or am I better off getting the rMBP?
- Can the rMBP deliver on the advertised 9 hours?
- how is the rMBP with games? Is it capable or should I give up on Maya and Gaming with the Iris graphics models? (from the Autodesk website it seems that for Maya I'd need a dedicated graphics card so I might have to live without that, and just leaving it for my desktop, as I'm not interested in the 15" models)

Am I better off just get a regular laptop or tablet and leaving the latter two categories to the desktop and saving the money?

I wouldn't recommend the MBA for what you are doing. I got one when the new Haswell refresh was done and the performance for LR5 wasn't stellar and gaming was worse, I got the i7 proc with it. I now have an rMBP with an i7 and like it better. The weight difference is barely noticeably. I run to much stuff (Win8.1, Steam, FF, etc.) at the same time to tell you if the battery will make it 9 hours. I CAN get through most of my 12 hour shift on a charge IF I don't stay on the net the whole time.

 

[eastbayrae]

One thing to add is BOTH my MBA and rMBP have horrid wifi issues. If either goes to sleep it is a pain in the *** to get the wifi to connect again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2 while driving in reverse

 

[snookasnoo]

One thing to add is BOTH my MBA and rMBP have horrid wifi issues. If either goes to sleep it is a pain in the *** to get the wifi to connect again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2 while driving in reverse

With just your wifi at home or any wifi?
I strongly recommend getting a retina because of the much better screen with 8 Gb of ram. Also has a better gpu for games.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[eastbayrae]

At work or home. I have tried several ISPs, routers, and times of day.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2 while driving in reverse