Posted 12 years ago

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MacBook Air: yes or no?

Cannot decide if I should pick up a MacBook Air while I’m here in the US or not. Here’s my wondering aloud. Feel free to offer advice.

What I have now: an ageing MacBook Pro (mid ‘08); which is mostly tethered to a 26" Samsung monitor on my desk. One of the two GPUs is busted and the battery is shot. I rarely use it off the desk, although I might if it wasn’t so hot, heavy, and had such poor battery life.

Why upgrade: apart from the brokenness, I find my old laptop a bit slow now, particularly for Aperture (I have about 175 GB of RAW format photos and I spend quite a lot of time post-processing pictures).

Why a MacBook Air: because it’s the darling of the tech world, obviously. It’s light with great battery life and “good-enough” performance (it’s about 2x faster than my existing MBP). If I’m honest, I suspect nothing I do regularly except Aperture work will give the MBA much of a problem.

Why not a MacBook Air: even the top-dog 13"/256 GB model isn’t anywhere near as fast as a 3.1 GHz iMac, which is the other option I am considering. It doesn’t have enough hard drive room for my photos and other stuff (my existing 500 GB disk is full). I could move most of my RAWs to an external disk, but the Air’s lack of eSATA, FireWire or even gigabit Ethernet become a problem – and there’s still no affordable Thunderbolt accessories to address this. Also, if I got an iMac, I’d effectively be getting a 27" monitor for “free”. (I can’t really afford both a MBA and a Thunderbolt Display. Perhaps saving for one is the right answer though.)

Why get one from the US: it’s about $400/£260 cheaper, which is less than even a refurb UK model. Not that refurb MBAs seem to show up much. However, they have a slightly different key layout – the Return key is a different shape. This might drive me mad, although it seemed alright when I used one at the Apple store earlier. I could buy two US-layout desktop keyboards, so at least I’d always be using the same keyboards on all my computers.

So… What do I do?

Update: I’d be fitting an aftermarket SSD to the iMac (one much faster than the Air’s). And I own an iPad and carry it everywhere, and expect to purchase an iPad 3 next year.

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  1. tj said: Do you need a portable computer more capable than an iPad? If yes, get a MBA. If not, get an iMac. Are your computer needs beyond what a MBA can do? If yes, get an iMac. Do you know any Apple employees who would share their Friends & Family discount?
  2. redcloud answered: I love the MBA. I’m on my 2nd. (Had a 1st gen. Now I have the latest.) That said, if your ‘08 MBP is good enough for mobile, get the iMac.
  3. lindstifa said: Nerd.
  4. steelopus said: At no point did you talk about mobility, and that leads me to believe you don’t actually need it or consider it a priority. You’ll get far more bang-for-buck out of an iMac at home with an iPad for mobile (with a good VNC app). I really love my iMac.
  5. penllawen posted this

 

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