2011 Macbook Air 13" or Pro 13" or 15" or get more computing with Windows?

Which would u buy for photography and light video encoding and misc use?


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slaam

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Aug 29, 2004
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Hi
I am torn between the SSD of 13" Air and the faster CPU of the 13" Pro and too poor to afford the 15" Pro with it's gfx card.
What do you use for ur photography? and what's ur pros and cons of each?
 

1. Discussed to death already. SEARCH before you post. You've been a member since 2004, you should know this by now.
2. Personally, I do not like the glossy Mac screen. It makes the pictures look more contrasty than what others would see. You need to calibrate it anyway.
3. Very few photoshop filters will utilize a GFX card.
4. SSD drives are small... I prefer more RAM for smoother performance.
5. Skip all and get a desktop PC. Cheaper and will be much much faster.
 

Might I add that Apple is mean to put a nicer 1440 display on the Air with an SSD
but the 13" Pro has a 1280 display but faster CPU ... almost paring the performance on both ..

I guess the DVD drive is nice to have on the go to burn photo discs on the fly ..
and the bigger HDD at least makes Pro more suitable for photo editing and temp storage

BUT the instant boot time with SSD makes Air attractive for instant preview of shots. and it's probably faster than using an iPad ..
 

I have both the 13"Macbook Pro and the 13" Macbook Air and here's what i can share based on my experience
MBP
Pros:
- I have 8GB ram and a 1TB HDD on my MBP, i can store alot of raw files and photos/videos on it. So you can edit and keep everything on the notebook as well as an external HDD for additional redundency
Cons:
- It really is very and i mean very heavy..last i weighed it it was 2.3kg. Very hard to bring around when travelling

MPA
Pros:
- Very thin and light at only 1.3kg
- It's actually faster than the MBP because of the SSD drive. The processor may be slower than the MBP and the RAM only 4GB but the SSD pretty much makes up for it.
- Perfect when travelling. Although only 128GB (after softwares, maybe only 100GB left), it's ok for a few days of photos and editing while on travels.
Cons:
- Only 128GB SSD so you can't keep much stuff on it. You will need to save to an external HDD after you return from travels or editing..
- Only 4GB or RAM so i don't think it works well for video editing. Besides video raw files are very huge and the 128GB SSD wont be enough anyways. I don't do video though

Summary: I use my MBA for all my travelling and if i have to bring a notebook out, it will be the Air..The pro is a workhorse but only at home
 

spinworkxroy said:
I have both the 13"Macbook Pro and the 13" Macbook Air and here's what i can share based on my experience
MBP
Pros:
- I have 8GB ram and a 1TB HDD on my MBP, i can store alot of raw files and photos/videos on it. So you can edit and keep everything on the notebook as well as an external HDD for additional redundency
Cons:
- It really is very and i mean very heavy..last i weighed it it was 2.3kg. Very hard to bring around when travelling

MPA
Pros:
- Very thin and light at only 1.3kg
- It's actually faster than the MBP because of the SSD drive. The processor may be slower than the MBP and the RAM only 4GB but the SSD pretty much makes up for it.
- Perfect when travelling. Although only 128GB (after softwares, maybe only 100GB left), it's ok for a few days of photos and editing while on travels.
Cons:
- Only 128GB SSD so you can't keep much stuff on it. You will need to save to an external HDD after you return from travels or editing..
- Only 4GB or RAM so i don't think it works well for video editing. Besides video raw files are very huge and the 128GB SSD wont be enough anyways. I don't do video though

Summary: I use my MBA for all my travelling and if i have to bring a notebook out, it will be the Air..The pro is a workhorse but only at home

It is not apple to apple comparison when u commented mba is faster than mbp because of the ssd. Mbp can have ssd too, isn't it? :)

Basically if one is a frequent multimedia user, mbp will be the way to go. Mba has all the while troubled by core shutdown due to heat issues. It is not noticeable if u r a light user, but video encoding is CPU intensive and more frequent when u r using ssd where there is a lot less latency from the secondary storage for the CPU to burst up faster.

For mobile workhorse, you can't ask for more at the moment looking at the battery life and CPU and gpu power demand that multimedia user are expecting from the machine. Want power? Bear with the weight. Should be grateful that you are not man packing a tower behind your back to get this kind of power on the road.

:)
 

Well, i'm comparing stock vs stock.Yes MBP can have SSD but the cost of it is really high and if ultimately you're still going to have the same HDD space as the MBA then i'd get the MBA. I don't do video editing so i can't comment on the heat issue…i've never had my MBA shut down, not even when i'm doing PP on photos. I only use the MBA on the go and on travels where i don't want to tug around my MBP.
 

spinworkxroy said:
Well, i'm comparing stock vs stock.Yes MBP can have SSD but the cost of it is really high and if ultimately you're still going to have the same HDD space as the MBA then i'd get the MBA. I don't do video editing so i can't comment on the heat issue…i've never had my MBA shut down, not even when i'm doing PP on photos. I only use the MBA on the go and on travels where i don't want to tug around my MBP.

Core shutdown is not whole processor shutdown. Core shutdown is very well reported on mba. Observe ur activity console to see that when u drive your CPU for prolong moments.

PP photos is not that intensive most of the time. If you never do video, then it is probably okay for u.
 

just desktop pc. For the same amount of money, you can get a near state of the art stuff. No need to care about SSD/faster CPU/gfx.
You can have it all.