macbook air or macbook pro

Go with the Air, the MBP will soon be obsolete. The Air is super fast even in the basic configuration.

What's wrong with your MacBook? I think you'll find that the performance of the Air is slower than the MacBook you already have, other than disk speed.

GO with the PRO. The new air is buggy. The Pro works flawlessly.

Hi, am also thinking of getting the new MB Air. Would appreciate any help on the following:

a) the 11-inch only has one USB port. Would it have enough power to support a USB hub? The reason is I would probably need the USB port to plug in Apple's ethernet adaptor to obtain broadband internet access while staying in hotels abroad (as they may not have wireless internet services).

If the USB port can't support a hub, then I wouldn't have another USB point for my flash drive if I choose the 11-inch.

b) I would also need a Windows environment to work on some applications which can't be Mac-based. In this case, should I go for at least a flash storage of at least 128G to accommodate the loading of Windows?

Would be glad for any pointers. Thanks!

The new macbook air is shipping with two usb ports and an sd card slot.

For what your needs are you would be better off with a macbook pro.

With an mbpro, you will immediately get a faster computer, with more memory, and a huge hard drive and an ethernet port installed in it.

The new macbook airs are having issues, and you can run into a problem with support in other countries.

My advice would strongly be to go with any macbook pro rather than an air.

BTW, there are some fabulous deals on the intel core 2 duo processor macbook pro's out there if you shop around.

Thanks for the insights Jamiana. Will bear them in mind. The MB Air is very handy though, but yes, computing requirements should take precedence over weight.

Well, I got a 13" MBA yesterday and am returning it today.

First of all, I actually love everything about the MBA, except a couple of things:
1. No ethernet port. Not everywhere there is WiFi and not everywhere there is ethernet, so they should both be present.

2. The keyboard is not backliy, and the labels on the keys are not white, makes the whole keyboard dim and dark beyond help.

So at this point I will either get a 13" MBP or wait for another revision of the MBA. Only thing is with the PRO is that it comes with a mechanical HDD which runs hot and slower than SSDs. Its only 700g heavier than the MBA 13" though, and has a lot more to offer.

Hi apple4444,

It's important to keep several things in mind.

1.) The MacBook Air (mid-2010) is a Rev. A product. Bugs, issues or other idiosyncrasies are to be expected. Most Rev. A products have these issues, Apple is no different and not immune to these problems.

2.) The MacBook Pro (13) and MacBook (13) are "proven" designs that have been out for over a year with most (if not all) of the "kinks" worked out.

3.) What are your needs for the computer? How important is FireWire, Ethernet or a CD/DVD drive? Are any of those things important?

One of the advantages to the MacBook/MacBook Pro is you have expandability with RAM and HDDs, something you don't have access to with the MacBook Air.

apple4444 wrote:
When lion comes out will 2gb of ram and 1.86 ghz be enough?

At this time, Apple has not released the minimum system requirements for OS X Lion. Taking into account what Apple did with Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard, you could easily run the latest and greatest OS with a 3+ year old machine. I suspect that Apple will follow suit, if anything the only potential cut off I could see would be a C2D CPU or newer/later. Even then that's pure speculation on my behalf.

$30 will buy you an ethernet dongle that works with a USB port, directly from Apple. Sure, one more thing to lug around (or worse, forget when you need it).

Thanks to all for your advice and pointers. I decided to get a 13-ich MacBook Pro in the end given my requirements. Cheers.