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General discussion

macbook pro 13" 2011 or macbook air 13" 2011?

Aug 11, 2011 4:49AM PDT

i'm a high school student and im thinking of buying a macbook, but i dont know which mac:
MACBOOK AIR 13"2011
128 SSD
4 GB RAM
INTEL CORE I5 1.7 GHZ
OR
MACBOOK PRO 13" 2011
320 GB HARD DRIVE
4 GB RAM
INTEL CORE I5 2.3 GHZ

Discussion is locked

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Using my son and what they would go for.
Aug 11, 2011 4:51AM PDT

The MacBook Pro because they would overflow the 128 SSD too quickly.
Bob

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(NT) Concur
Aug 11, 2011 8:41AM PDT
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I'd also say Pro
Aug 11, 2011 10:53AM PDT

I'd also say Pro, since it's considerably more expandable than the Air. You can put in a new HDD or more RAM fairly inexpensively, extending the life of the unit a little longer. The Air has the RAM soldered direct to the logic board, and the SSD is a specialty design that will cost you dearly for an upgrade, and that's after you find one of the special screwdrivers needed to take the bottom case off.

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macbook
Aug 11, 2011 4:53PM PDT

is there a big difference on the weight ?
the macbook air costs 240 euros more

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Weight
Aug 11, 2011 9:55PM PDT

MBA = 2.38 pounds
MBP = 5.6 pounds

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Yes
Aug 11, 2011 11:29PM PDT

Yes, the Pros are noticeably heavier, but it's not as bad as it seems. They are very evenly weighted, so it's not like some laptops where the side with the battery is about 3X heavier than the rest of the thing combined. So if you get yourself a backpack with a padded compartment, you will almost certainly be more annoyed by your books shifting around.

And since you talk about Euros... 2.4 pounds is approximately 1 kilogram, and 5.6 pounds is approximately 2.5 kilograms. That's just a quick and dirty conversion, but should be within 0.1kg in both cases.

Oh, and the MBP has the addition of a FW800 port, which may come in handy some day, you never know.

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FW800
Aug 12, 2011 1:17AM PDT

I can get an adapter for that

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Another viewpoint
Aug 12, 2011 11:14PM PDT

I made this decision last Spring, before the recent MacBook Air upgrade. I chose the Air because it boots and wakes from sleep faster, it has a higher resolution screen, lighter weight and smaller size. I like to travel and take a lot of photos, so the size, weight and better screen were critical issues for me. I upgraded to the 256 GB SSD so that I would have room for plenty of photo files.