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I'm comparing these two Apple laptops:

MacBook Pro (13", 2011 model):

  • 2.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache
  • 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
  • AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory on 2.4GHz configuration

MacBook Air (13", 2011 model):

  • 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache
  • 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 onboard memory
  • Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory

There's definitely a gap between them in terms of CPU speed and graphics, but what practical difference would this make on a day-to-day basis?

On the one hand, I love the sleek, thin appearance of the Air.

On the other hand, I don't want a machine that's going to be dog-slow when doing tasks such as running Virtual Machines, dual-booting to Windows and running multiple instances of Visual Studio, and maybe some light gaming.

Is there going to be a major difference that makes the MacBook Pro a more attractive purchase?

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Too localized - voting to close. – DragonLord Nov 18 '11 at 0:53
Voted to close as not constructive. If your question is > what practical difference would this make on a day-to-day basis?, that's hard to answer. We can't make that decision for you, but if you're going for virtual machines and multiple instances of Visual Studio, do yourself a favor and get the Pro. Questions like these are probably a better fit for our Super User Chat, I guess. Feel free to drop in! – slhck Nov 18 '11 at 9:23
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closed as too localized by DragonLord, Breakthrough, slhck, Sathya♦ Nov 18 '11 at 10:16

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1 Answer

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yes. the MacBook Pro has a CD slot which is universally useful, and like you said, the pro is dog-slow when running VMs, or Visual Studio, and is especially tedious with the Dual Boot with windows, which crawled when i used it to the point of uninstallation. as well as the technical problems, there is always the multitude of ports on the Pro that apple just didn't put onto the Air, like extra USBs and various other ports to use.

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