Should I buy a Macbook Air or a Macbook Pro with retina display

I am trying to decided whether to buy a 13in MBA with 128 ssd and 8gb ram or the 13 in MBPr with 128 ssd and 8gb ram. They are very similar computers and that is why I am having a lot of trouble choosing. I really like the long battery life and size of the MBA, but the retina display is really nice on the MBP. I will be using it for college. So it will mostly be typing papers, social media and internet surfing, netflix, and itunes and photos. I am not a big gamer besides the sims and I don't do any photo editing. I would probably choose the MBA, but I am hesitant because I don't want to buy something that will be obsolete soon if the everything will be moving in the retina direction. So I guess my question is, is the MBP worth the retina? Also is it faster?


Also, a side question, do you think 128gb ssd is good for the average college student? And is it smart to get 8gb of ram? To get 8gb of ram and 256 ssd is a little pricey on the pro, so I would rather choose between the other. It is a lot cheaper on the air and I could probably afford both.

Assuming you are not looking at a CPU upgrade, these two computers are roughly equivalent. The Macbook Air uses a low voltage CPU that has an ability called "turbo clock" which causes it to ramp up and work about the same as the rMBP's CPU. This can drain battery life considerably so if you run any complex programs that need the extra CPU power, you'll have to recharge the laptop sooner.

The 13'' MBA uses a 16:10 1440x900 resolution. This is an older resolution but it is by no means unattractive and has a fairly high pixel density, just not high enough to be considered "retina" There is speculation that there will be a retina MBA by the end of the year but IMO the only major advantage here will be a resolution higher than 1080p so you can watch all the 1080p videos you want. The MBA as it is can't do that. You can still watch 1080p videos and they'll still look great, it just won't be in its native resolution which is a big deal to some people.

8 GB of RAM is a VERY SMART buy. OS X runs well enough on 4 GB of RAM but going to 8 GB gives a very good performance boost and you will be able to open many programs at once. It's great for multitasking (working on homework, having the web open, playing music, all at once, no slowdown!)

128 GB is a lot of space if you are just putting music, videos, and some school work on the machine. It'll get eaten up fast if you are installing a lot of programs but you said you don't game much so that is a nonissue IMO. The Sims will potentially take up a lot of space if you have a lot of expansion packs though so you might appreciate 256 GB there. There are lots of good external storage solutions (external hard drives, flash drives, etc.) that you can use as additional storage.

If you don't mind the extra weight, I'd get the rMBP for the Sims. The MBA can run it well enough but the rMBP has a better graphics chip and the CPU will give you less trouble.