I am at a loss...

[pigroaster9901]

Hi everyone,

I am at a complete loss right now as to which MacBook to buy. If you guys could give me any piece of advice/insight that you can think of it would be greatly appreciated.

I am a Grade 12 student and I'm in my last four months of high school before I go off to university. My current "laptop", an Asus transformer book, has simply not been reliable enough to take to university. I came to the conclusion that I should get a MacBook. This is where I ran into an issue. I am completely torn on whether to get the 12-inch MacBook or the 13-inch MacBook Pro. For both, I am looking at the base models and, in Canada at least, they are the exact same price ($1550). Right off the bat, here are the different aspects of the comparison which is making my decision a hard one:

Power: The Pro has the edge with 1.6ghz more power than the 12-inch
Battery Life: Both pretty much the exact same at 10hrs
Screen Res: Negligible, both have an outstanding retina display
Portability: Edge to the 12-inch by far as it's probably one the most portable/compact notebooks of all-time
Build: I prefer the full-metal build of the 12-inch over the non full-metal build of the Pro
Connectivity: The Pro by far... dongles are a pain to carry around all of the time ad USB-C isn't popular enough yet
Trackpad: Both have the exact same trackpad
Keyboard: I, unlike most, actually like the keyboard on the 12-inch. Both are good keyboards in my mind

Room for change (*Other than new Intel processors): The are many different things that could change in the Pro. This would include a new keyboard and the possibility of a touch-screen display in the future. Also the addition of a USB-C port is a distinct possibility on the future. As for the 12-inch, there is not a whole lot of room for improvement. The addition of a normal USB port would severely compromise the thinness of the notebook.The only other real change I can think of is a change to the dongles or the overall connectivity of the notebook.

Here are a couple of things to give you some more insight on myself: I would not be doing any heavy duty things with the laptop I get. I would not be editing videos or pictures and I would not be gaming. My activity on the laptop would consist, for the most part, or simple browsing, watching netflix, occasionally listening to apple music, using Microsoft office, and watching the odd youtube video here and there.

As you can see, the information above is pretty overwhelming (especially for me!), and it has been a really tough task to choose which laptop would be better. I am well aware that Apple is holding an event tomorrow and I am anticipating that they will not make any changes to the laptops. I feel like they will make any changes some time in may or june and I am looking to buy this laptop as soon as possible. At the time of writing this, I am leaning towards the 12-inch MacBook. As a student, it does everything I need it to do and the form factor is a large plus for me as I'm going to be carrying it daily across a massive campus. Again, If you have any insight or piece of advice at all, I would love to hear it and it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

 

[Rod]

Wow! You have really done your homework.
I have just bought a new MacBook Pro 2.9gHz 512Gb Retina. This was to replace a 5 year old MBP. So you can see I was very happy with my old MBP.
Given this is a long term investment I think the key word is flexibility. The MacBook 12" is very portable but does not have the flexibility of the MBP as far as connection ports or the processing power to accomodate software improvements into the future.
My old yardsticks still apply, if money is not an issue, get the fastest and the largest storage you can afford.
Believe me in 5 years you will need it.
You will still need an external HD for backup (please backup, this is an essential) but needing an external for storage is a real pain because then you need two EHD"s and a backup of both.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac Forums

 

[harryb2448]

As Rod suggests, I agree go for the Pro. There never will be a laptop that will meet 100% of one's needs, so compromise and go with the best option available.

 

[pm-r]

I didn't read what courses you would be taking at university, but I'd sure do some checking with them and I'm sure they'd give you some good advice. Especially if it's a Canadian University you'll be attending, and most have computer stores with often quite decent prices.

 

[TattooedMac]

For me I would as well go for the MBP.

When it comes to portability, having the larger MBP is negligible. You get all the connections needed to do what ever you need for now. USB-C is still in its infancy, although, because of the influence from Apple, it won't be too long for it to become the 'norm'. . . .
Going into Universtiy, I believe you will actually benefit from the extra 1.6GHz of power over the MacBook, although you do get Turbo Boost in the 12" to 2.4GHz.
The MBP has better faster RAM as well over the 12". The only downfall I see with the MBP is the lack of storage of 128GB to the MB 12" of 256GB . . . .

All that weighed up, I would still go for the MacBook Pro, with bigger screen, Faster, better RAM and all the ports you will need without having to buy adapters.

Good luck and let us know how you go.

 

[Rod]

Again, I'm not sure if price is a concern if it's not you can have 512Gb and a 2.9gHz processor with turbo boost up to 3.1. That's what I just got and Very happy with it I am.