13" air or pro? Help me out here

I

Ipwn 4

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As per the title, the wife wants to get me a MacBook. Dont really have a use for it other then some IOS dev from time to time. I played with both at the iStore today and they both seems epic :

The air has the cool factor when it comes to size
The pro has the retina display(the ppi is the same as my note 2 which is something special)

So whivh one would you have and why?

Thanks!!
 
Well, I have the air and it suits me fine. I bought a iPad 3 with the retina display and thought that it was not all that stunning
 
Space_Chief said:
It's still heavy though. Air if you need the lightweight aspect.
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13" Retina only about 300g heavier and almost as thin as the Air at its thickest. Doesn't have the Air's wedge profile which feels quite nice in the hand when carrying.

Essentially comes down to whether the 2560x1600 res is worth the extra R5K over the Air's 1440x900 (for 256 SSD models).
 
Pro it is then, thanks guys.

Now the next question, how many of you are running windows? I see drivers for win 8 is still a bit of an issue but win 7 runs fine. Does win 7 handle the retina well?
 
Ipwn 4 said:
Now the next question, how many of you are running windows? I see drivers for win 8 is still a bit of an issue but win 7 runs fine. Does win 7 handle the retina well?
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Win 7 Ent 64 runs great on my 13" Air, but I suspect you'll need to do some rescaling in Win on the Retina, otherwise things (icons/text) will be a bit small.
 
Roman4604 said:
Win 7 Ent 64 runs great on my 13" Air, but I suspect you'll need to do some rescaling in Win on the Retina, otherwise things (icons/text) will be a bit small.
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You using bootcamp? I think I might go with a vm rather as I want to migrate to osx or even use a terminal services workspace.
 
Ipwn 4 said:
Pro it is then, thanks guys.

Now the next question, how many of you are running windows? I see drivers for win 8 is still a bit of an issue but win 7 runs fine. Does win 7 handle the retina well?
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I run Windows through Parallels on my MBP for the odd bit of business software here and there that doesn't have mac support. Runs perfectly. I wouldn't run windows as the main OS though. Like buying a Ferrari, pulling the engine out and sticking a beetle engine in there! :p
 
Ipwn 4 said:
You using bootcamp? I think I might go with a vm rather as I want to migrate to osx or even use a terminal services workspace.
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Ya, have a 2011 Air 13" so RAM maxes out at 4GB. Not an issue for me as switching between the OSs is very fast with the SSD.

Modus operandi is basically Win at work for full Office 2010 suite, ML at home for surfing, videos etc.
 
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the only issue I can see at this stage might be file access due to the domain controller, might require some effort to get the mac on the network but I'm sure there is a work around available.

I think this will be fun....
 
No no! Get the Air. More specifically my second-hand mint-condition 13'' mid-2011 256GB Air. ;)

Ok, no seriously, the retina is awesome and I think you're probably making the right decision - I was bought the 15'' recently and had every intention on cashing in by selling it. I can't. It's too lovely and so am selling my Air at half the price. Those screens are spectacular. Go with the retina. I loved the super-portability of the Air, but I'd recommend the 15'' retina pro - if the screen is that important, then the extra screen space is that important too. :)

And you won't have a problem doing a little iOS dev on ANY of them. I got my game to market using just an 2010 MacBook White, no problem. (Was runnning Windows 7 with Parallels on it too. I've ditched Parallels and now just have Windows 8 in a dual boot partition. But I only ever boot into it to show off Windows with 2880x1800 resolution.)
 
I would say go for the Macbook Pro as it's simply much better value for money and less form over function nonsense.

Much stronger CPU, double the memory with lots more hard drive space for only a little bit more weight and the same size with only a R100 difference in price.

A year from now take out the HDD and replace it with an SSD and it will feel like a brand new machine, simply pop the current HDD in an external bay and off you go.


Also if you mean to use a VM solution rather than Bootcamp (which is really what you'll want once you embrace OSX) then you'll want the extra horsepower and memory. 4GB just isn't enough for that kind of work.
 
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Ipwn 4 said:
the only issue I can see at this stage might be file access due to the domain controller, might require some effort to get the mac on the network but I'm sure there is a work around available.

I think this will be fun....
Click to expand...

If they don't have a Mac-compatible domain controller it will simply mean you lose single sign-on.

You should be able to connect to all shares and services manually by entering your username in the "DOMAIN\username" fashion.
 
From what i've read on Apple.com, there is no option to custom order a 13" MacBook Pro Retina display version with 16GB RAM. Probably Apple's way of forcing you to buy the 15" Retina display MacBook which does have the 16GB RAM option.

The non-retina display version doesn't officially support 16GB RAM but it works anyway.
 
I'd love a retina screened Macbook pro but I still need that pesky DVD/CD writer. :o I've also got a number of legacy FW800 CF card readers that would be expensive to replace.
 
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