With benchmarks for the new Macbook Air quickly making the rounds, it’s becoming quickly apparent that for alot of people, it can be their goto machine( At least in the case of the 13 inch MBA).
If your shopping for a entry level mac notebook right now, your choices are:
1. 11” Entry model Macbook Air: $999
2. 13” Entry model Macbook: $999
3. 13” Entry model Macbook Pro: $1199
4. 13” Entry model Macbook Air: $1299
With performance being relatively equal across the whole bunch (Save perhaps the 11” if you need to do anything more than browsing/writing), how are you supposed to pick? If you don’t care for expandability, firewire or storage, then really, how are you supposed to choose? Sure, you might need a DVD drive, but probably not. About the only software people still buy on a DVD are anti-virus softwares and Office. Either model of the Air offers so much advantage in size and battery life with so little compromise on power and price that unless you have a real specific need that only the Macbook/Macbook Pro can solve, there’s never any reason to pick anything but the new Airs everytime.
As a photographer, I need the firewire port my 13”inch Macbook Pro has, and I’ll appreciate the ability to max out at 8 gigs of ram or have dual SSDs (removing the DVD drive). And even still, if I was purchasing a laptop today, I’d have to seriously consider getting an Air, and adapting to it.
The Macbook lineup, for all intents and purposes, should be either:
a. 11”/13? Macbook Air
b. 15”/17” Macbook Pro
It begs the questions: how long before they just drop the Air moniker? Why even keep the white Macbook or the 13” Pro?
I’d be curious to find out just who specifically Apple thinks these four Macbook models cater to that justifies keeping all four SKUs.