Configuring new Apple laptop purchase

[Too Tall]

New to Apple PCs. Go easy on the flag waving ;)
Windows PCs no longer exist at my house. The last OS died last week. All I've got left is one Vista laptop and some all my data on external hard drive...I'm good to go.

Goal: Setup long term home network that includes automatic backup, wireless storage (Time Capsule?) consisting of one desktop and a laptop. My needs are fairly basic: web browsing, website maintenance, some light video editing, word processing, photoshop.

I've got a 4 year old imac inbound from a pal to act as the new workstation.

Planning to purchase either airbook or macbook pro and need help deciding what will handle my needs. Both the laptop and the imac will do the same tasks.

Soooo, help spec. the laptop and network storage. Also, I've got a real nice widescreen HD monitor. Does anyone make a dock where I can make use of that monitor with a wired full size keyboard and wireless mouse?

FWIIW the airbook is pretty slick but heck the macbook pro is only 1/2 lb heavier and specs better for the price.

[lukasz]

Go try them at the store? I had been using a ~4 year old Macbook Pro and the refurb 11" Macbook Air I got this summer has more than enough power for me.*

*more than enough power means I can watch an HD video file on a big monitor while using the laptop screen to post on vsalon... er work in MS Word/Excel ;)

I got the 11" Air because my laptop goes with me a lot. If it were staying home I might have just gotten a Pro. This thing gets lost among all the 8 1/2x11 paper I sometimes carry around.

As someone that's been using Mac laptops since the ibook g4 in some bygone era like 2003-4, I think Apple needs to get their crap together in terms of reliability. Each one has been progressively worse but better looking. Same goes for the OS. Get the longest warranty they offer.

[Gordon]

New to Apple PCs. Go easy on the flag waving ;)
Windows PCs no longer exist at my house. The last OS died last week. All I've got left is one Vista laptop and some all my data on external hard drive...I'm good to go.

Goal: Setup long term home network that includes automatic backup, wireless storage (Time Capsule?) consisting of one desktop and a laptop. My needs are fairly basic: web browsing, website maintenance, some light video editing, word processing, photoshop.

I've got a 4 year old imac inbound from a pal to act as the new workstation.

Planning to purchase either airbook or macbook pro and need help deciding what will handle my needs. Both the laptop and the imac will do the same tasks.

Soooo, help spec. the laptop and network storage. Also, I've got a real nice widescreen HD monitor. Does anyone make a dock where I can make use of that monitor with a wired full size keyboard and wireless mouse?

FWIIW the airbook is pretty slick but heck the macbook pro is only 1/2 lb heavier and specs better for the price.

I have a MacBook Pro 15 with retina display. It's fantastic. Only go with air if you will be using it exclusively for travel ... Otherwise there is to much of a performance /comfort compromise.

That's my two cents.

[nick k]

Too Tall,

I have last year's MBP and it's noticeably heavier than my wife's Air. Think about what you really need to do and what connectivity that requires.

The Air:
Is light, so light you'll hardly notice it in a briefcase or backpack
Has 1 Thunderbolt port for display or other peripherals
The i5 processor and flash storage are fine, I'd up the RAM to 8GB, but don't stress about this

The MBP:
Has a larger, better screen
Has 2 Thunderbolt ports for display or other peripherals
Has 1 HDMI port for display
Has several USB3 ports for peripherals
Stock i5 and i7 chips on the MBP are faster than the Air

Time Capsule is a no-brainer. It's a stellar wireless access point and Apple's Time Machine software works very well. You can hang extra drives off the Capsule via USB, and that's cheaper than buying the highest capacity Apple sells. But with just a MPB an iMac, even 1TB will be fine for backup.

Apple laptops support "clamshell" mode where you can use an Apple Keyboard and Mouse, connect an external display and close the lid. When you wake via the keyboard, your desktop is on the screen. Your incoming iMac may also act as a display, depending on specific model, etc... That said, the Apple Thunderbolt displays are excellent, and are a 1 cable connection via thunderbolt for everything - display, keyboard, mouse, and any USB gak. I have 2 Apple 24" LED displays in my drafting/editing office and I'd be more than happy with a smaller laptop if that suite was my regular workspace.

My 2012 15" MBP gets sluggish only when I have 2 browsers with 25 tabs each, Word, Excel, iCal, Mail, High-end 3D CAD apps like Vectorworks, ProTools, and Windows XP with a few apps all open at once.

PM me if you need/want more info...

[jscott]

I recently traded my 7lb Dell for an Air. My home setup is the Air driving an external 1900x1200 monitor with Bluetooth keyboard and Apple touchpad. I really less than three this rig. The Air is an amazing piece of engineering. The battery life really is that good when you're just surfing the web or editing text. The 13" rMBP is no slouch, though. If you have good eyes and are going to use the laptop screen a lot, 400gr is not much of a weight penalty to pay, and you might notice the difference in CPU performance when encoding video. As for specs, get as much disk as you can if you're editing video. External drives work, but it's nice to have your projects with you wherever you go. If you do external storage for video editing, go Thunderbolt, not wireless. The new 802.11ac might get you close to gigabit Ethernet performance, but I bet a TB drive will be noticeably faster. Wireless is fine for backup.

If you're going to drive 2 external monitors, definitely go Pro. On a Mac with a single Thunderbolt port, you're limited to the Apple display if you want 2 monitors ($$$), or you have to use a USB display adapter (clunky). That's my main gripe with the Air. You can use a TB dock (Belkin and Matrox make them) to plug in your monitor and USB keyboard/mouse, but for that money, I'd just buy a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and then the monitor is the only physical plug you'd have to worry about.

Go Time Machine for backup. It's possible to use an AirPort Extreme with a 3rd-party external USB drive for backup. I have the previous-generation Extreme with a Western Digital USB drive and it works fine to back up the 3 Mac laptops in the house. If you're truly paranoid, you're going to want an offsite backup solution, too.

[jmgorman]

I spend more time with my 2011 15" MBP (lotsa pixels) than any other thing on earth. It rattles around my pannier every day, survives my six year old son and hardly ever skips a beat with all the web/excel/50 word documents/remote connections I can throw at it. As they are now lighter and have the retinas, I'd get the 13" for portability, but otherwise cannot recommend the computer enough.

I use mine with a second screen, full size keyboard and mouse at work. You can use the clamshell mode as mentioned above, but I prefer to just keep it open and have 75% more screen real estate. No dock needed, just a single cable management device (i.e., a binder clip).

[suzyj]

I've got an 11" i7 air with 27" thunderthighs display at home - it's a pretty good setup because it gives you both extreme portability with the air (which isn't much heavier than an ipad) and really amazingly awesome display with the 27" display. As a bonus the thunderthighs display has a pile of inbuilt USB ports, plus wired ethernet and firewire, plus a power supply for the air, so I just plug in two cables and I'm connected. My time machine is also my house network switch, and does a wonderful job of backups and storing movies and whatnot.

I've also got a work 15" MBP retina, which I'm typing this on at the mo, which is astonishingly awesomely fast and has a wonderful display, but is quite a bit heavier than the air. There's very little my air won't do (and that includes some scary CAD stuff).

The new airs are Haswell, so you get even more bang. Whatever you do though, def spring the $1200 extra for the thunderthighs display. It's bloody amazing.

[Gordon]

Too Tall,

My 2012 15" MBP gets sluggish only when I have 2 browsers with 25 tabs each, Word, Excel, iCal, Mail, High-end 3D CAD apps like Vectorworks, ProTools, and Windows XP with a few apps all open at once.

PM me if you need/want more info...

Off topic ... My apologies. No laptop is going to be a workstation, nor are they designed to function like one. For heavy computation (this is what I do for a living) or three dimensional graphics cough up the 5-7k for a Mac Pro. Otherwise, for most pedestrian users, a MacBook Pro has more than enough processing power to surf the web and fire off emails....

It's about The right tool for the job ... The mac air is designed for portability. If you are not traveling/transporting it A LOT it's the wrong tool

[Noteddy]

I support about 50 airs at work and they are as trouble free as anything we have and are used for travel more than some others.

At home I recently installed an AirPort Extreme and couldn't be happier. Simple, fast, and reliable with great range. Haven't tried time capsule as I'm thrilled with Crashplan.

[justinf]

I just got the late 2013 13" Macbook Pro and gave my 2011 15" to my daughter. . . to be honest, I don't think it was much of an upgrade. They are both i5, the new one is 2.6 quad core and the older model not far off. It's bigger and heavier but has the internal DVD and non-ss drives. 800 Firewire, etc. My heaviest processing comes via running Cubase 7, Reason, and a bunch of other soft synths (all pro audio) and honestly there's negligible difference. I probably do need to add RAM to the new machine but this is all to say that the Macbooks from recent years have not been substantially improved upon imo.

[mgm777]

I have a 27 in iMac in my home office that I use for daily work activities + photos + music. I travel frequently for work and have for the past several years owned a Thinkpad with Windows XP for when I'm on the road. When the time arrived to replace the Thinkpad, I knew I was going to get a mac laptop. I am finished with Windows, forever. After a bunch of research, I decided to purchase a 13 in MacBook Air. For a travel computer, I felt the MacBook Pro was overkill for my purpose. Although similar in price, I didn't need the extra functionality and didn't want the excess weight. Additionally, I really love the SSHD of my MacBook Air. The startup process is nearly instantaneous. For my purposes, as my travel laptop, the biggest advantages of the MacBook Air are: 1. SSHD - super quick startup and connect to wifi, 2. weight - portability. If the laptop was my primary computer, I would probably opt for the MacBook Pro for the increased functionality and storage options. That said, I love having an all Mac house, with my primary home/work computer being the 27 inch iMac and my MacBook Air for my travel laptop. Everything in my house is synched...wife's iPhone, my iPhone, Kid's iPhones + my Air and wife's work MacBook Pro. Integration is a beautiful thing.

[nick k]

For heavy computation (this is what I do for a living) or three dimensional graphics cough up the 5-7k for a Mac Pro.

Yep. I have two of those. But I have to travel enough and work from the road/hotel/airport/theater that, for me, the portable solution needs to at least keep up. That's why I proposed that Josh look at his needs and consider the Air if it's truly the casual/portable machine v. the iMac. But if it's not, or if he needs to do something intensive, a new MBP will blow the doors off a 4 year old iMac.

[lukasz]

I support about 50 airs at work and they are as trouble free as anything we have and are used for travel more than some others.

At home I recently installed an AirPort Extreme and couldn't be happier. Simple, fast, and reliable with great range. Haven't tried time capsule as I'm thrilled with Crashplan.

I have a key that one plastic tab broke off of on the underside, and my SSD died after four months (like, the controller. bye bye data!). Good thing I back things up. Come to think of it, I've had HDs go in every mac laptop I've owned. Maybe it is just me.

My biggest peeve is the Windows 95-like software issues I'm seeing pop up. The App store has been asking me to install a Thunderbolt firmware update for weeks, no matter how many times I do it. Maybe I need to clean up my registry... HAHA. The screen on my girlfriend's brand new Air goes black sometimes (I think the thing just falls asleep like a narcoleptic). Mine was doing the same thing before the SSD crapped out. Yeah no really, it used to be better than this!

[dashDustin]

The HD in my 3yr old MBP died a couple weeks. No signs. Just shit the bed. Bye bye resume, cover letter, music, photos.

I now have a backup drive.

Seagate Central. It's more of a personal cloud. Comes in quite handy given that I now work 4hrs from home. Access via desktop, laptop, or any ios mobile device.

[SpeedyChix]

While you have noted no more PC, should you find yourself running VMWare Fusion on your Mac, you'll want get the MBP and load up the RAM. I'm using a MBA and an external monitor, Bluetooth keyboard/mouse in clamshell mode for large screen work. USB drive for CD/DVD use. The MBA in maxed on ram/SSD and it is nice, light and easy to travel with. There are times I miss the horsepower of the MBP that I used prior. But if you travel with it much I found the added weight (and larger size at a 15" vs the 13") to be a tradeoff I was willing to go for (most days). With Photoshop, a browser with a pile of tabs open, a couple other apps, etc and the MBA is working pretty hard. Video editing running same time as Photoshop would give the nod to the MBP rather than the Air.

Backup: I really like Carbon Copy Cloner for backups and when using USB 3 and a portable external drive it's very fast. I've just never come to love TimeMachine and prefer to keep the wireless base station separate from the backup rather than all in one. Another backup option would be to hang a NAS off the Airport and back up there.

Welcome to OSX (hopefully not with Maverick)

[suzyj]

I have a key that one plastic tab broke off of on the underside, and my SSD died after four months (like, the controller. bye bye data!). Good thing I back things up. Come to think of it, I've had HDs go in every mac laptop I've owned. Maybe it is just me.

My biggest peeve is the Windows 95-like software issues I'm seeing pop up. The App store has been asking me to install a Thunderbolt firmware update for weeks, no matter how many times I do it. Maybe I need to clean up my registry... HAHA. The screen on my girlfriend's brand new Air goes black sometimes (I think the thing just falls asleep like a narcoleptic). Mine was doing the same thing before the SSD crapped out. Yeah no really, it used to be better than this!

My daughter's 13" air was doing the same, after she dropped it with headphones plugged in. There's a little sensor on a daughterboard right next to the headphone socket that senses when the lid is down. Hers had a damaged solder joint, so the computer kept thinking she'd closed the lid. I fixed it by removing it entirely from the board. Easy five minute fix.

[Too Tall]

No surprise, I've come to expect VSalon has some well informed minds. I'll go to the AppleStore today and hold both the MBA and MBP in my hands and move on from there. It's 14F this morning, good day to spend $$ ;)

[dutchess]

Going to reiterate the fact you should buy the most extensive and long reaching coverage plan for your new Apple laptop.

Have you considered a dual boot machine/hackintosh that doesn't come with the hardware concerns associated with Apple products. You can easily run one of a few programs on and apple that allows use of Windows as well. What I'm getting at is the world, and more so the business world, is structured towards Windows and you are going to run into the need to use it to deal with some file or communication need. It has gotten better but be prepared for a cross platform issue at some point.

[Too Tall]

I've already planned to install Parallels to deal with that, is that what you mean?

Going to reiterate the fact you should buy the most extensive and long reaching coverage plan for your new Apple laptop.

Have you considered a dual boot machine/hackintosh that doesn't come with the hardware concerns associated with Apple products. You can easily run one of a few programs on and apple that allows use of Windows as well. What I'm getting at is the world, and more so the business world, is structured towards Windows and you are going to run into the need to use it to deal with some file or communication need. It has gotten better but be prepared for a cross platform issue at some point.

[Bobonli]

Going to reiterate the fact you should buy the most extensive and long reaching coverage plan for your new Apple laptop.

Yes and buy your hardware (and Apple Care) with confidence that it will be pretty damn hearty. All the suggestions to buy the warranty make it sound like these devices break a lot. In my experience (Apple exclusive for home/personal use since '86), they are well made. My last macbook,, the case was literally peeling off due to repeated drops and crashes and the computer still worked fine. I've had my current Mac Pro tower for 7 years and just now experienced a hard drive issue. If you take care of it as well as your bikes, you'll not be dissatisfied. But having the Apple Care is cheap insurance if something does go kablooey.

The Apple Store team is there to help you with the choices. They've never screwed me! and often talk me out of spending money I don't have to.

RAID for backup, RAID (and probably cloud too). I'm told you're lucky if you get 3 years out of a hard drive nowadays, so backup to more than one drive/array. If it doesn't exist in three different places on two different types of media, it's not backed-up.