Pro vs Air?

Hi,

I am deciding between a 13" Macbook Pro with a 2.5 ghz i5, 128 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM vs a 13" Macbook Air with a 1.8 ghz i5, 128 GB flash memory and 4 GB RAM. I would imagine that the Pro is faster but how would they compare, speedwise?

that is exactly what i am thinking ...

Have you checked youtube for a comparison? The video reviews could be helpful. I went with the MBA because of it size, speed is important but not the deal breaker for me.

Why have less RAM in the Air than in the MBP? It is a given that the MBP has a faster processor but limiting the RAM in the Air will slow it down. You cannot upgrade the RAM or SSD in an Air later.

Speed questions are entirely dependent on speed processing what? Heavy duty games? Streaming HD video? Some tasks are far more labor intensive than others.

I have a 2012 MBA, 2 GHZ Dual Core i7, 8 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD that is about eight times faster than my 2010 MB Pro with 2.66 GHZCore i7, 8 GB RAM, and 500 GB 7200 RPM HDD. It is also four times faster than my 2011 MBA with 1.8 GHZ Dual Core i7, 4 GB RAM, and 256 GB SSD.

Faster as determined by BlackMagic Disk speed test, that is.

wolfpuppies3 said:

Why have less RAM in the Air than in the MBP? It is a given that the MBP has a faster processor but limiting the RAM in the Air will slow it down. You cannot upgrade the RAM or SSD in an Air later.

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This is not completely accurate. You can't upgrade the RAM, but you can replace / upgrade the SSD. See: SSD for MacBook Air 2012 - OWC Mercury Pro Aura Express Sandforce Driven


I definitely agree though don't get the minimum RAM on an Air as it is not upgradeable after the fact - better to have as much as you can afford on RAM for any current or future upgrades.

Other things to consider are if you require a Superdrive (DVD/DVDRW/CDRW) which would require you to buy something additional with the Air or if you had a need for Firewire (which would require purchasing a thunderbolt -> Firewire device)

Both machines have the HD4000 GPU so graphics capability are going to be about the same so all that's really left is the CPU and the overall weight/size of the device.

cbotulinum said:

Hi,

I am deciding between a 13" Macbook Pro with a 2.5 ghz i5, 128 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM vs a 13" Macbook Air with a 1.8 ghz i5, 128 GB flash memory and 4 GB RAM. I would imagine that the Pro is faster but how would they compare, speedwise?

Click to expand...

A recent article I read somewhere, don't have the link sorry, indicated the 13" Macbook Pro beats the Air overall in performance, and if that if you value performance over portability, it was the way to go.