Comments on: New Year’s Resolution: Get a Mac, but Which One?

By: netwiz

netwiz — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 05:33:50 +0000

I’m hopefully going to be buying a mac mini in a few months. Given that the Mac now has Steam, and that the Mac App Store is imminent, now seems like a better time than ever to invest in a mac.

It’ll be my first Mac, and I intend to keep it up to date, so I plan on getting Lion as well. An upcoming OS has never deterred me from buying a new gadget And it won’t this time either.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:12:49 +0000

I agree with the multi-buyers. We got one of each! The advantage of the 13 inch air over the 11 is the SD card reader. Nice to have and I use it all the time. Including now as I download some holiday video at Starbucks while my companion watches the iPad. I love the 2010 updates!
If you only want one machine for everything: 15″ Macbook Pro.

By: Geoffrey Goetz

Geoffrey Goetz — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:55:07 +0000

I too like new MacBook Pro 15″ configured with the 1680-by-1050 Hi-Res display.

By: Geoffrey Goetz

Geoffrey Goetz — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:40:46 +0000

Owning a 13″ MBP myself, I cannot help but feel that it is now the oddball in the Apple lineup. A little bigger than the MBA to be a great travel companion and secondary device, and a little under powered compared to the 15″ MBP to be a great all around stand alone device. As @rollen points out below, the MBA’s have stepped up with the latest release.

By: Geoffrey Goetz

Geoffrey Goetz — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:35:06 +0000

That sounds to be a perfectly ideal setup. One shared main computer at home, and two satellite “computers” to take with you when you are out and about.

By: Eideard

Eideard — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 14:43:32 +0000

In our household of two, we have an iMac, an 11″ MacBook Air and a wifi iPad.

That’s one fewer CPU than we felt necessary a few years back.

By: Rollen

Rollen — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 06:41:50 +0000

I have a 3yr old MBP 17″ that I use for everything – email, information, development, etc. Though I love this machine, it is a bit heavy to travel with and it is getting a bit slow. Recently I went to Best Buy and started playing with a base 11″ MBA — I was astonished at how lightening fast it was! I managed to download a beefy distro of Eclipse for Java dev and install it. Again, I was absolutely blown-away at the speed of this base 11″ MBA when it came to opening Eclipse and doing things within it, when compared to my older MBP. The screen was beautiful – crisp, clear and I thought very useable. My take-away … I want the new 13″ MBA! I’m sure it will be everything the 11″ inch is and more – with more screen real-estate, faster bus, more cache, etc. I’m excited to get one and “retire” the 17″ MBP.

By: Claude Betancourt

Claude Betancourt — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 04:44:11 +0000

Why settle for one? Get both! A 27″ iMac and a 13″ MBP travel buddy.

By: Shadi Mirza

Shadi Mirza — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:03:08 +0000

For me, the choice was easy. I compared tech specs with prices when looking at new portable Macs to replace my five-year old, first-generation MacBook. The base model MacBookPro was barely $100 more than the base MacBook with my educator discount. That extra $100 got me more RAM and a better video card.

In my mind, the extra money I’d have to pay to buy a comparable MacBook Air buys too many diminishing returns. Yes, I understand that the Air has a target audience – minimalists, light users, and people who hit the road often – but the Air is not for me.