When Apple introduced the MacBook Air late last year, they called it The Next Generation of MacBooks. I was really hoping the new MacBook Pro would inherit many of its attributes, such as the thin profile, light weight, and standard SSD. Although the new models are a nice improvement over the old MacBook Pro, with faster processors & improved graphics, they’re still just as big and heavy.
After using the 3 pound 13″ MacBook Air, I will never go back to a big laptop that weighs 5 pounds or more. I would have preferred to see much thinner MacBook Pros with no optical drive and a standard SSD drive. Despite the slower processor, I find my MacBook Air to be almost as fast as my old 15″ MacBook Pro thanks to the much faster SSD. I would still love to see a “super MacBook Air”, with the fastest CPU & graphics from the MacBook Pro and 8GB RAM, but without too much extra size & weight by keeping the SSD and eliminating the optical drive.
Hi. I'm also feeling a bit disappointed for the same reasons. I've had a regular white MB for 4 years (which I outgrew after 6 months) and was ready for this new and amazing 15" with at least some of what the rumors were predicting. Now, I don't know. It seems only slightly better. Why not have that SSD standard for the OS?
Meanwhile, I like the Air a lot, but the processor is the core duo. Is the Air really that amazing because of the SSD? Does the core duo matter that much?
Given the choice between a souped up MB Pro 13" (with 8 gigs of RAM) and one of the "i' processors OR a MB Air with extra hard disk space, what would you choose?
Perhaps I'll wait for the next MB Pro (and suffer with my white MB until then)…. 🙁
Lisa,
It really depends on how you use your macbook. If you are doing process intensive activities like gaming and programming then you'll want to go with the 15" macbook pro. However if you do web surfing email and normal work functions a macbook air will be amazing.
I own a 17" MacBook Pro with 2 SSD's and 8GB of Ram. This is for Virtual Environments and is very memory and hard disk intensive. It's almost 2 years old and still works great!
My wife owns a MacBook Air 11" 2010 and she loves it. It boots in 14 seconds and it comes on instantly from sleep mode.
You could max out the 13" Air for around $1700 and unless you need something crazy fast you will be very happy (probably much happier than with the new MacBook Pro 15").
Bottom Line: Even with the slower processor, if you are doing everyday normal task the Air will seem faster than the pro because the ssd is between 7 and 10 times faster than as standard hard drive. 🙂
I use my maxed-out 13" MacBook Air for development and it's actually a very pleasant machine. Of course when I'm home I use distributed compilation to my Core i7 iMac 🙂 Even without distcc, it isn't that much slower than my old top of the line 15" MBP.
Heavy, bulky, no blu-ray, 13" with 1280×800… seriously??? Do they still make them? The anti-glare display feels cheap… the 15" and 17" models are totally overpriced… I am seriously considering switching to ubuntu… 🙁
The 13" MacBook Air is 1440×900. It's ridiculous that the 13" MBP has a lower resolution.