MB vs MBA

Hello, i am going to get a MB 13" or MBA (with GF9400 and 160gb hdd).. but i havent quite decided yet. So far i came to conclusions that:
-lack of dvd-drive is not bad at all...not using it on my laptop anyway
-the GPU's are same
-the lack of some ports dont matter, cuz i can hubs at home

The only two things that are different - 1.6 vs 2.00 C2D proc.'s and 2 v 4 gb of RAM
Is it going to make big difference? IS it really not possible to upgrade MBA to 4 gb? Is there sense to wait till WWDC and maybe see some small upgrades?

 

The MBA also has a better-looking display.

I still lean toward the MB in this comparison. If run windows virtualized, and I like my RAM. As they say - your mileage may vary.

 

Apple upgraded the panels used on new Macbooks in the past few weeks.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=375079

 

The RAM is not upgradeable. The chips are soldered to the board to save weight and space. The only upgradeable part, short of replacing the entire logic board, is the hard drive. Then again, apple uses the highest capacity 1.8" drive at that thickness, so you cant really upgrade that either.

 

It would be great if those panels are as good as the MBA screens. But considering the lower price tag of the MB, I doubt it.

And sofar I have not seen any measurements of the new panels, just individual posts on forums. In the past I saw numerous posts on Macrumors where people say stuff like "I got the 9C89 and it looks amazing, black is totally black and viewing angles are the bomb." So I tend to take individual reports with a grain of salt.

Depends on what you are going to do with it. What are you going to do with it?

For normal/light usage 4GB is not going to make much difference.

But if you're running heavier applications like video editing or Photoshop, 4GB comes in handy. The faster hard drive of the MB too.

 

The drive difference would be a big deal for me. The MB uses a regular 2.5" hard drive... the MBA uses a 1.8" hard drive that's considerably slower (and with lower available capacities... although 160gb isn't too bad a capacity). You can fix the disk slowness by shelling out extra cash for the SSD... but that's limited in capacity too.

And price is another difference to think about.

And with the MBA... I'd get an extended warranty... AppleCare or something... because the RAM is soldered on, so I'd think if some of the RAM goes bad and you have no warranty then your computer's toast.

 

Mostly internet, office, sometime playing Warcraft (rpg not WOW), watching movies, convert videos for iphone, sometimes i might open Photoshor or whatever but rarely, really rare. Also i want to develop some little apps for Iphone, but i thing it's power is enough. I am just not sure enough about wanting the power or th portability..

 

I agree, the MBA will have enough power.

Like Swarmer said, the 120GB 1.8" in the MBA is significantly slower than the 2.5" drives in the Macbook. You'll notice that when opening applications or booting the system. MBA with SSD is a lot faster.

The difference in portability is huge, 1.3kg vs. 2.0kg matters a lot.

The screen is also a big difference. But like said before, maybe the difference has become smaller.

Edit: Apple care is cheap on ebay.

 

So far i think:
I will get MBA, i have 2 external WD drives (7200 and passport 5400rpm - so this speed is going to be OK, later on i will change the HDD to SSD and IF i will need something more powerfull - i might get MBP or Imac as desktop and family pc).. Thank Y'All for advices! MBA it is! Now just need to order it to Ukraine from US (here they are f*****g expensive (FYI ~3000+$ the cheapest)


UPD: When i will buy external SSD will it be faster than 5400rpm HDD in all ways? (ofc. ill get something good like intel's ssd)

 

External HDD/SSD is always slower than the internal HDD of the MBA, because the external HDD/SSD is capped by the USB speed.

Ps. why $3000?

 

O welll ... will get MBA and switch its hdd to ssd after i get it.

About the price - o well You can find it here for 2.6k the lowest..The reason is probably same as the reason for Ford Mustang's price starting with 40-45 or so grant...and so on.. Our country and it's goverment!)) That's why it's much easier to buy such stuff on ebay, other US online stores and get it cheaper with taxes.. (later its sometime possible to sell it without loosing a penny)))

 

Macbook Air is useless, get the macbook. Cheaper, faster. Not to mention has an optical drive (when you do need it, it will help) and two usb ports. Then you'll have $800 to max it out with warranty/add-ons. If you don't have another computer don't buy the air. Its really only for users that need a mobile computer, have tons of money, and care about having a notebook that's 3/4inch thick.

 

Sorry, but macbook's screen is useless. It is sad but true

 

they are better now.And air is not useless!

 

If you want a Crapbook Air that you can use for things other than posing, I suggest you wait and see if they actually get it right this time.

Runtime is shorter than the Crapbook, it's less stable in operation especially as we're now coming up to summer, and the single USB port can be a real pain in the butt if you're travelling with it as your only machine - this stands even if you have a hub.

I went through three Crapbook Airs A & B - before I decided to call it a day and go with the regular 'unibody' Crapbook.

Yes - the display is worse and the thing weighs 700g more, which is a fairly hefty percentage - but at least runtime is extendable to an actually useful level and isn't shaken (that much) by summer.

 

i would not be able to live without a dvd burner drive on a laptop. so, the mba is not for me.

 

I was thinking about either a macbook or a MBA myself and ended up with the macbook. It is honestly not that much of a size difference, but it's much cheaper with better internals. If the screen is a dealbreaker then that's that, but I think the macbook screen is still just fine, and I like the extra power of the system (+ ports and optical drive - I've already run into a situation where I'd go crazy without an ethernet port!)

 

I was at a used computer place here in Beijing, and was playing with a MBA, Alu MB, and Older Generation MBP 15 and 17"...
I can honestly say, that while I was playing with the MB Alu, that I didn't notice anything wrong with the screen.. Everything seemed absolutely fine. And No the computer wasn't a new one, it was beat up somehow, and scratched.

My friend who was doing something there with his Blackbook made a good point. Most of the people who are complaining about the Alu MBs screen, probably don't own one anyways. They just read a review, which used numbers to compare the screens and not 'what you see' and are just talking out of their asses..

It's a laptop, a 13" one at that, if you really need to do something other than basic/regular computing, get a more powerful one with a better GCard, and a good external high res display..

My purchasing plan is:
2.4 Alu MB
120 GB OCZ Vertex SSD
put a 500GB 5400 RPM HDD in the Opti Bay and remove the DVD drive
Ram
a good external Battery (hypermac)

and even then it's still cheaper, and faster than a MBA..
I could just buy the MBP, but the screen isn't high res (I want that thing to be like 1080p just for kicks) and the price isn't worth a 'brighter bigger' screen.

I can get the above, and have enough money to buy a Dell Mini 12 for screwing around on..

 

Actually I did own a Alu MB and I also did not notice anything wrong with the screen when I checked it in store. I took a a couple of hours of working at it back home before I started noticing the problems. I returned it for a MBA.

If you search Macrumors and NBR you'll find quite a few owners who complain about the MB screen.
Here's one striking example: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=321151

Thing is, not everyone is bothered by the average screen quality. Compared to the run of the mill Acer or HP screen it's actually quite good. Compared to Sony SZ/Z, MBP or MBP it falls short. In color, black levels, contrast and viewing angles.

 

As a current MBP owner whose previous laptop was a VAIO, I agree with Phil.

I've seen MacBooks on display at 3 retail locations. At each place, I compare them to previous screens I've owned. Not to the myriad other laptops for sale at the store. For someone like me who purchases a laptop at most only once every 2-3 years, it's hard to "go backwards."

 

I suppose if you do nothing on your machine or somehow use a lightweight / ultraportable as a DTR then I guess in the choice between the MB and the Air given each machine's faults, the screen might be more important than the rest of the machine, and you might choose the Crapbook Air. The name was never more appropriate BTW.

However if you're actually mobile the Air's issues become readily apparent in terms of runtime above all. But on the flipside as far as the MB is concerned, in addition to the screen problem we are talking about something which costs only a couple of hundred less than an entry Z, and where 100% of the advantages are cosmetic.

Either choice is a dud if you bring in Windows models, except if you're the "Prada Moron" type. To me though, if you basically forced me to choose as in my case, I had to choose the MB - screen aside, they're considerably more useful machines... especially with the Vertexes now inside.

 

It's true the Z is a much more capable machine than the Air.

For my use (browsing, playing videos, downloading etc.) the performance of the Air was more than enough. I owned both the HDD and SSD rev. A and they never gave me any problems.

I do rate the MBA screen higher than the Z. Also in objective measurement, the MBA display has higher contrast and brightness than the Z screen.

 

Given my relative experience, I think that really indicates the gulf in our mode of use in that the way I use my machines could be considered a far more stringent test, while at the same time not as always impactful in terms of CPU duties (Word, Excel, Omnigraffle, Entourage, etc for the most part, even my OS X specific duties not being that heavy-duty in terms of CPU/GPU use).

I do agree that the screen was probably the most pleasant aspect of the Macbook Air. Well, apart from (In Feb/March 08 - now not so much) cute girls coming up to you and saying "ohmygodisthatalaptop? the new apple?" I gotta hand it to Jobs - they certainly know their target market inside out.

 

I was in this same position a month or so back. Really wanted the MBA since it looks so nice and is lighter (I had the Rev. A MBA and it was a pleasure taking it to/from work daily as I barely noticed it in my bag). In the end though the uMB @4.5lbs isn't that bad and I ended up getting a pretty decked out uMB 2.4 so the performance should be much better than a MBA Rev.B 1.6 (with the 120GB, 4200RPM hard drive, the 1.86GHz/128GB SSD model just seems to expensive to me). Very happy with my uMB. and the fact that it uses regular 2.5" Laptop hard drives and DDR3 SODIMM RAM is great in that I can upgrade those parts anytime. The MBA as others have said is pretty much as "maxed out" as you can get it to be straight from Apple (1.8" hard drive using LIF-connector and soldered on RAM makes it very difficult to upgrade).

 

I would choose he macbook if you really need that extra performance, but the air definitely has bling. It's also a piece of computer that will look great around the house for the next 10-15 years. Nice super light portable internet machine for around the house.

 

lol... Now i thing i need to get MBA and Imac/MBP for home... because really even if i meet some kind of performance oriented task once a month.. that still will go MUCH easier with better machine.
BTW: What's the best way to synch 2 laptops to have some needed info updated at the same level?

 

the lenovo x300/x301 is also a direct competitor to it if your considering windows on your machine.