Debating between MBA and rMbp

I've decided that i wanted to get a macbook for the upcoming school year but im having trouble deciding which one to get. I like the air's portabiliity but the added superdrive makes it only $40 under a standard rmbp (13" 128gb i5 with education discounts) Im wondering if i should go ahead and spend the extra $40 to get the rmbp or stick with the 128gb i7 8g ram mba that i have picked out and ill just have to get the superdrive

What do you guys think?

Thanks

 

you can buy cheaper external DVD drives elsewhere if you need them... but do you really need one?

I actually like the Air somewhat more than the 13" rMBP right now, but that may change after the next rMBP update, when it gets haswell and better battery life too. Its a tough call.

 

You don't have to buy Apple's branded external DVD drive; any USB-based external DVD drive will work just fine with whatever you end up buying. So I saved you some money right off the bat.

Apple advertises up to 12 hours of battery life with the 13" MBA, while the 13" looks to have about 7 hours under light load (according to this: 13-Inch Retina Display MacBook Pro Battery Life @ EveryMac.com).

Judging by your WNBSIB thread, you wants/needs aren't very demanding, so I don't see the point in getting the rMBP, let alone the i7 ULV MBA. The i5 version should be powerful enough as it is, with the only upgrade that will really affect your "daily computing performance" being the SSD, which iirc is standard in the MBA anyway.

 

I would suggest the MBA also, but spend the $100 to get the 8 GB RAM upgrade. Since you can't change it on your own, it would be a good idea to max it out from the outset.

 

speaking of external drives... you could also get a USB Blu-ray drive to do blu-ray as well, since Apple's drive doesn't support that.

 

Thank you for all your responses! Can anyone recommend any dvd drives that will do their job and or blue ray drives? Tbh i dont think the mbp refresh is going to come out in time for school, so i think the mba should suffice!
Edit: Also do you guys think the 128 should be enough room for college? I mean im not going to be putting tons of movies on their just documents, music some pictures and a few light games most likely. The 256gb does seem like a little too much and if i can save the money that sounds good to me!

 

only you can know how much space is good for you... how much space are you using right now?

Any decent brand drive will work for you. If you want to watch blu-ray movies, you'll probably have to buy some 3rd party blu-ray playing OS X software. I'd probably just look for some decent drive at newegg.com

 

Alright cool, honestly i think the 128 will work for me. my old desktop which im on right now has 363gb shared between 5 of us in our family hahaha (And theres still room) Thank you im going to go with the MBA!

 

I really feel like the MBA is the better value at this point. It's light, will perform everyday tasks the same as the 13" rMBP, currently has better battery life, the screen resolution isn't all that bad, and it is competitively priced with other ultrabooks. To me, the high price of the 13" and 15" rMBP models just isn't worth it with current hardware. Not only that but retina ready programs and websites still aren't readily available. Facebook is a prime example of a bad website. It doesn't scale properly so, when vertically or horizontally scrolling, the 13" rMBP will struggle and not scroll smoothly as it is stressing the Intel HD 4000 graphics. The 15" rMBP just fires up its more powerful Nvidia graphics when this happens but the 13" model can't do that. Additionally, the starting price of $1500 doesn't get much in terms of hardware whereas your dollar will go a lot further with the MBA.