Category: Geeks r Us
So, there's a nice little Macbook Air in my amazon wishlist just waiting for my tax return. It has a solid state hard drive which has 128 gb of space on the harddrive. I'm used to running windows machines withh standard harddrives so 128 gb doesn't seem like enough. I'm assuming that I'll use flashdrives and sd cards for storage. Since I have a desktop with a TB of space, that isn't a problem. If I want to do something in Garageband or all the other programs, will this be sufficient? If not, will using SD cards and/or flashdrives pose a problem with performance?
Please excuse my ignorance here but that's why I come to yall. lol
There was an option to go with the standard spinning harddrive but I really like the idea of a solid state because of the quick bootup, etc.
Thoughts?
If I post a link to it here, would anyone be willing to take a look at it and tell me your opinions. It'll be my first Mac so I don't want to make a mistake.
My opinion is your Mac is a laptop, so you'll not be keeping everything on it. You'll have plenty space with the solid state drive, and performance for what you need on a portable device.
If you must store lots of Mac items you can get an external drive that is both Mac and Windows compatible, and store your stuff on it for later use.
Flash, or SD cards do not harm performance.
As someone who owns both an MBA and MBP I personally think for real productivity IE music and mixing mastering type projects the macbook pro is faster, and I'm less worried about hard drive space. On My air, if I have to use it to work in garageband or any other mixing programs I usually drop it off to dropbox once I'm done. I had a 2TB hard drive but for some reason the 2012 MBA was not recognizing the large WD drives without using a USB HUB, not sure if this was resolved by apple, as I gave up on the idea and moved on.
My only other complaint is I've killed the SSD drive on this air twice now since june, and I have a client whose done like wise on his air. This could be my experience completely, so please realize I'm not stating this is a draw back, I'm simply indicating these are the issues I've had. Over all, if you don't need extreme portability, I'd by the MBP with the large drive space. A last side note, I personally think typing on the pro is a better experience as well. If you don't have to purchase from Amazon, and can buy from apple direct, you can often score a PRO for under $1000 refurbished which gives you the same warranty as if buying brand spanking new. Often these machines are simpley just returned for one reason or another. I've purchased two of these machines being my PRO and iMac with my air being the only system I've purchased brand new, and the air is the only one that I've sent in for repair.
Just a suggestion, hope it helps.
Ok, good things to consider. I'll check out apple's refirbished stuff. I hadn't really considered that option because I just assumed that new would be best. If it has the same warranty though and I'd get more bang for my buck, I might justdo that.
thanks as always.
Depends on what sort of audio stuff that you going to do. If you working on simple task on Garageband, 128GB is suffician enough. However, by saying that, might not be a bad idea to get a 1tb hard drive for storage purposes.
MBA is great for instent productivity task, e.g. word processer, web browser, and simple edditing task using ILive and its applications.
MBP is better for post production task, e.g. Graphic Design work, video edditing, and large amount of audio eddition, e.g. mixing multi track, etc.
Beside the obvious of both machine, the weight and that, another thing you might want to consider before making your choice is either, are you looking for something that can open instently, or looking for something that is more powerful.
If you compare MBA and MBP, all of the above features are the same, if you really consider serious eddition task, you need to go for the top of the range 15inch MBP, if not, you won't able to tell the different.
thanks, that's helpful too.
I looked at refirbed MBP's on apple's site but didn't see anything under $1000.
Like someone else said, it won't be my main machine for storage. Besides, that Time Capsule thingy looks pretty bad ass for that. I've already got a desktop that can hold tons of stuff. I want this for my portable machine as well as the one I use when I'm sitting in my comfy chair downstairs. lol
The desktop is upstairs in my office.
also, we're going to start doing some recording and production type stuff with garage band and I'd love to check out Imovie as well. I think this one should do the trick as far as meeting my email, web surfing, light word processing, and learning the Mac environment. Once I fall hopelessly in love with it, and convince the hubs to do the same, we may look at upgrading in a year or two. This poor little netbook is dying a painful death as you have probably noticed by half my stuff not being capitalized. lol My shift key on the right, as well as several other keys only work about how the time. The screen only shows vertical lines now; the sd reader no longer works, the audio jack was replaced by a USB adapter a few months ago, and it only holds a charge for 20 minutes or so once unplugged. I had hoped to get another year out of it but I guess over 3 and a half years of daily use is a bit much to ask of a netbook. lol
anyway, all that to say, I think the air will be a good place to start since I won't be doing quote unquote top-of-the-line high end work on it for now.
Now if we could get the forms we need to do our friggin taxes and then Uncle Sam could get his ass in gear and process our refund, I could order it. lol
You live in America. If you want new check out Best Buy right now. They've got the best price on a new air at the minute.
Refurb is great I'd agree.
I agree with the best by option as well, I got my mac book pro 13 inch for 975 with a 2.5 gig processor under load 3.1 gb. its got a 500 gb HD and 8 gigs of ram. Well :), I paid extra for the ram and 3 year service from best buy.
that's awesome. I was so tempted to do this but I just shelled out $800 for a new dishwasher on Saturday. Ah, the joys of home ownership. lol
Yeah, but she wants the sexy Mac Book Air.
Yes homes. Love them, but you've got to fix em too. Lol