blessingx Posted July 10, 2012 Report Share Posted July 10, 2012 I was wrong about the color gamut, but you may find the below useful. They've come to different conclusions than us, but mostly because of hardware upgrades. http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/faceoff-13-macbook-pro-vs-13-macbook-air/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voltron Posted July 10, 2012 Report Share Posted July 10, 2012 thanks Ric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadphoneAddict Posted July 11, 2012 Report Share Posted July 11, 2012 Smart yet frugal Mac heads, I need a realistic take on the difference between the two 13" MBP options for my niece who will be a college freshman this Fall. My siblings and I are buying her a computer and she apparently does not want a 15" MBP so we do not have to worry about the retina vs. no retina issue. Here are the only differences (other than $300 in price): 13-inch: 2.5 GHz2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz4GB 1600MHz memory500GB 5400-rpm hard drive1 13-inch: 2.9 GHz2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz8GB 1600MHz memory750GB 5400-rpm hard drive1 Discuss. In the end it may be better to ask her what features are more important, although that spoils any surprise you may want to watch develop. I spent a few months getting a good feeling for what was important to my kids, so when the time came I didn't spoil any surprises or make the wrong choice. Both of my daughters preferred the 13" Macbook Pro over the Air, due to (1) the built-in DVD that they use a lot, and (2) the 750GB storage so they could have a huge iTunes library without an external drive. (One of them has a 400 GB library) The large iTunes library makes it easier to use their Macbook to sync with their iPhones, without any delays to import missing content that they don't have, and without having to make room for the new stuff by deleting other items. They both have less than 20 GB of music, but have 250-300 GB of movies and TV shows that they like to move on and off of the iPhone. Being able to re-download all TV shows and most movies eases the problem, but it's very time consuming and uses a lot of bandwidth to do that, They didn't care about the faster boot times on the Air because they just wake and sleep the Mac without ever shutting it down (but maybe once a month). Likewise, they leave most of their favorite apps running all the time so they activate faster, and the 8GB allows them to do that without too much slowdown. 8 GB makes the Macbook Pro more future-proof, although 4 GB is enough for now for most people. At least you can get the less costly Macbook Pro now and add more RAM and storage later, but the Air demands that you pick a size now and forever hold your peace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MexicanDragon Posted July 11, 2012 Report Share Posted July 11, 2012 (edited) I believe the Air is upgradeable to 8GB of RAM now, no? Yep, even the base model (now starting with 4GB of RAM) is upgradeable to 8GB for a 100$ charge. Well worth it for sorta-future-proofing. **BRENT** Edited July 11, 2012 by MexicanDragon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadphoneAddict Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 I believe the Air is upgradeable to 8GB of RAM now, no? Yep, even the base model (now starting with 4GB of RAM) is upgradeable to 8GB for a 100$ charge. Well worth it for sorta-future-proofing. **BRENT** I'm pretty sure you can't upgrade the Air later, after the fact - that's what I'm talking about. If you buy the 4 GB now, then that's what you have forever. Correct me if I'm wrong. Now, back in the days of the Atari ST computer you could piggyback new RAM chips on top of the soldered in chips, and you'd double the accessible memory. I don't think that technique works in this case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Monkey Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 Atari PCs were the best. You want to know how I know? Because I know: http://youtu.be/yYxB0e3usyw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grawk Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 yay dinny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blessingx Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 (edited) x2 Dinny. Also bonus points for (coming soon) E.T. reference. Edited July 12, 2012 by blessingx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voltron Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 Dinny rules! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeymad Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 I'm pretty sure you can't upgrade the Air later, after the fact - that's what I'm talking about. If you buy the 4 GB now, then that's what you have forever. Correct me if I'm wrong. You are correct.. apples new approach is to mount the memory directly to the motherboard. So there is no upgrade path (you have to buy it that way).. Well I guess a full motherboard replacement is possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grahame Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 You are correct.. apples new approach is to mount the memory directly to the motherboard. So there is no upgrade path (you have to buy it that way).. Well I guess a full motherboard replacement is possible. Which given that it is "difficult to disassemble for upgrades, repairs, and recycling - and could force the green-minded to rethink Apple loyalties" could be one of the reasons Apple kit is no longer EPEAT Gold Certified. http://www.epeat.net...ing-less-green/ http://ifixit.org/28...ucts/#more-2884 Leading to it no longer being an approved purchase for the uber-green City of San Francisco departments. http://www.theregist...tter_apple_ban/ http://blogs.wsj.com...le-procurement/ http://www.theregist...k_epeat_rating/ Won't somebody think of the Children Planet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grawk Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 because having it harder to recycle is certainly worse than being more efficient about the assembly in the first place Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morphsci Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 Nice. I guess they forgot it is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in that order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grahame Posted July 12, 2012 Report Share Posted July 12, 2012 Indeed, whats the Delta in total lifetime carbon footprint of having to manufacture a new device, vs keep on using an existing device thats fit for purpose? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Currawong Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Very likely the lack of upgradability is intended to keep people out of the machine, because they tend to screw it up then screw Apple for the result. No dodgy 3rd-party RAM, dodgy 3rd party batteries any more. Anyhow, my OWC SSD died today. Machine wouldn't boot this morning and threw up a grey circle with a line through it. The drive doesn't show up at all in Disk Utlity. Not 100% sure if it is the drive as the machine wont boot off either internal drive (the original 700GB drive is in the optical drive bay). Huge fucking pain this is. I temporarily booted up my old MBP from 2006 to do some printing and a moderately hard press on the keyboard caused the graphics to crap itself. Looks like that one is due for the un-burnable garbage bag and I have an excuse to blow money on an Air. But which one? 11" or 13"? Hard to decide... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Monkey Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 13" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morphsci Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 I'll vote for the 11". If you want to go 13" then the MBP becomes a serious choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grawk Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 I'd either go retina book or 11" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Monkey Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 I SAID 13" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grawk Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 The 13" air is for wishy washy people who buy too many dacs. Oh, that fits amos too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blessingx Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 (edited) I'd say 13" MBA or rMBP because... A ) 11" battery life B ) Monkey wrath . Edited July 13, 2012 by blessingx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Chalk Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 A ) 11" battery life(makes a 'Kessel Run' reference) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadphoneAddict Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Very likely the lack of upgradability is intended to keep people out of the machine, because they tend to screw it up then screw Apple for the result. No dodgy 3rd-party RAM, dodgy 3rd party batteries any more. Anyhow, my OWC SSD died today. Machine wouldn't boot this morning and threw up a grey circle with a line through it. The drive doesn't show up at all in Disk Utlity. Not 100% sure if it is the drive as the machine wont boot off either internal drive (the original 700GB drive is in the optical drive bay). Huge fucking pain this is. I temporarily booted up my old MBP from 2006 to do some printing and a moderately hard press on the keyboard caused the graphics to crap itself. Looks like that one is due for the un-burnable garbage bag and I have an excuse to blow money on an Air. But which one? 11" or 13"? Hard to decide... Sorry to hear that. I keep a bootable external drive for circumstances like that (a hybrid SSD clone actually, which runs decent speed), and I also have a 16GB USB thumbdrive set up with OSX that I can boot from as well (very slow). You may want to consider that for the future, although if you can't boot from either internal drive maybe your internal SATA is dead and the motherboard is toast. Try resetting the PRAM and SMC on the machine and see if that helps. First try booting with CMD-OPT-P-R till it starts to boot>chimes>starts to boot again and keep holding the keys until it runs through that again (more fail safe than going through a single cycle). The SMC is reset by removing the battery and power, and then pressing and holding the power button for 5 seconds. Not sure what to do with models with internal batteries. I like upgradability. I just upgraded the early 2009 White Macbook to 6GB a few minutes ago, as iCleanMemory was showing we were using 100% of the 4GB (I'm it won't take 8GB, but my older late 2008 MBP does). It was so simple and fast, and Apple is screwing things up with this soldered in RAM crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voltron Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 I SAID 13" OK, OK, I'm getting my niece a 13" MBA / 8GB RAM / 256GB / AppleCare. Don't bite me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augsburger Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 Good! Now go mix yourself a cocktail to celebrate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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