mac book air or pro?

By wyatt rose, 14 May, 2016

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

Hi all,
I'm looking for a laptop, and I'm thinking about switching to a Mac.
I plan on using it to browse the web, send email, and do word processing. I also plan on running windows from time to time in a vm.
A friend of mine is insisting that I should go with the mac book pro, but I don't see why I would need a quad core machine for what I plan to do.
What are your thoughts on this?

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Comments

By Dave Nason on Saturday, May 14, 2016 - 17:52

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hi,
From what you've said I don't see why you would need a MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air is a capable machine. Just be sure to get a minimum of 8GB RAM if you want to run a virtual machine, 16GB if you can afford it.

By MarkSarch on Saturday, May 14, 2016 - 18:54

Hi wyatt rose
The MacBook Air doesn't matter the year release the top configurations is only 8Gb of RAM not 16Gb as Dave82 mention on the post above.
the biggest difference between MacBook Air 11.6 and 13.3 inches are
some extras:
micro Sd port
Microphone
bigger/louder speaker
and probably the most important longer battery life about 2/3 hours between each other.
just if you are not familiar with the MacBook Air 11.6 inches this item is not including a micro Sd port.
both MacBooks sizes bring with the same keyboard.
on The MacBook Pro you can upgrade from 4 to 16Gb of RAM

By Dave Nason on Saturday, May 14, 2016 - 19:39

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Oh I stand corrected on the RAM. Still say MacBook Air is probably plenty for your needs. I love the 13 inch size personally.

By Chris on Sunday, May 15, 2016 - 21:26

Hello,

I would go with the default configuration of the 2016 13 inch Air. It's got 128 gigs of solid state storage, 8 gigs of ram, a full SD slot, better battery life, and speakers, and a 1.6 GHZ Core I5 processor. The 8 GB ram change was made just recently if I'm not mistaken. I think that's a good machine for your needs and it's $999. If you don't think the default storage option is enough, bump it up to 256 gigs of storage. I'm a bit annoyed that the ram upgrade was so recent. I would have loved to have an additional 4 gigs of ram in my Air. Still, my 2013 Air does just fine for what I do with it.

By Pa. Joe on Monday, May 16, 2016 - 02:32

I acquired a MaC book pro in February. It's my first apple device. After my short experience, there is no way I would want to trade down. If you do not want the retna display the difference is not a great deal if the cost is spread out over a period of years. Good luck.

By Ekaj on Monday, May 16, 2016 - 02:44

Hi. I have a mid-2013 MBA and love it. It has a Solid-State Drive, which is very nice. At first I thought I'd need an external drive for backup and storage purposes as I have a lot of music on here. But then my father reminded me that I could just use the cloud. Not to stray too off topic here, but to start with iCloud only gives you 5 gb and I've been told this isn't much when you really think about it. As far as web browsing, I use Google Chrome with Chromevox and Safari and like them both. I have a 13-inch machine, and a sister of mine has an 11-inch MBA. The keys in the top row on hers are a bit smaller, and if memory serves there is a slight difference in the order of them.