Questions about the Mac? Get them answered here.

Hey Ben, to answer your question about the debate between the Ipad and the Macbook air it is quite simple. If you are primarily going to be doing school work on the device i would suggest the macbook air. The ipad is great for doing quick emails, playing games, and browsing the internet. But if you want to do a lot of typing, the small screen can be a disadvantage. Also there is no way to hook up a pointing device to the Ipad, so you cannot use a mouse or touchpad. The macbook air will have support for Microsoft office, a physical keyboard, and a pointing device so it will be much easier to accomplish work on it. Now what you can do if you really want to get the ipad as it is better for gaming and a lot cheaper, is grab an external keyboard and an apple tv allowing you to wirelessly hook up your ipad to your TV or HD monitor to type up your homework. This is great for gaming and work alike and it provides a bunch of extra features too. On the printer aspect you will need to purchase a wireless printer that support airprint or you can do it the old fashioned way and email it to yourself and print from a computer. Both are great ways to accomplish what you want. Best of luck.


Frank

• Answered by Frank S from Pittsburgh
• Mar 27, 2012
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It depends on how you intend to use it.

Generally speaking, if you need something on the go for office, school or travel and will use it for word processing and internet connectivity with minimal technical work such such as video, audio and graphics editing, the macbook air is best for you especially the upgraded 11". Its small enough to fit anywhere and powerful enough to run most applications.

If you intend to use your computer for video, audio and graphics editing or if you require engineering and medical applications, or in any case requires you to handle large memory space, then perhaps the 13" retina is for you. It doesn't have the DVD slot though but when was the last time you popped a cd into your computer? you can always use a USB dongle as alternative or you can get the slim DVD USB device.

The good thing about the 13" retina is that its slim enough to be on the go and powerful enough to handle most technical applications. The classic 13" with dvd is quite heavy and monstrous when it comes to being mobile. However, its a lot cheaper.

• Answered by Sherwin S from Quezon City
• Dec 10, 2012
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mac book pro is a little fatter but the air is thinner but the pro has a disk drive and air does not

• Answered by Leonid B from Staten Island
• May 18, 2012
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I just got my macbook air 13 inch... I was wondering about the pro as well, money wasn't a issue for me, but the matter of how convenient and its functionality for me. I'm so glad I got the air over the pro simply because it's so freaking light and the battery life is so awesome. Solid state drive is definitely a must... you would think it's not much and storage space is more important, but trust me..booting up OS in less than 30 seconds is absolutely fascinating... and going to sleep-wake takes less than 1 second. transferring files back and forth is effortless.. I upgraded mine to a 8 gb ram so i can run multiple programs without lag. I bought the air to do daily tasks like blogging, reading news, writing up stuff, surf the web, and casually play light flash based games. I even tried diablo 3 last night and it worked pretty well with medium settings... but i uninstalled it soon after because i have low storage. I intend to buy SDXC card online 64gb SDXC for 70$ or so, or another SSD to attach to my external casing on the go.

choice is yours... performance vs convenience...

IMHO, a college student = convenience.

I also did music editing a few days ago with my Air without problems ;)

• Answered by Youseok K from 해운대구
• Jul 5, 2012
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I would go for the 13" MacBook Air. Both computers weigh nearly the same, 2.96 vs. 3.57 pounds. However, the performance of the base 13" Air and the base 13" Retina Pro is nearly identical even with their difference in hardware (slightly faster processor, two more ports, more RAM, and better integrated graphics standard for the Retina). It's up to you to decide if the epic Retina display is worth the $500 price difference, but I would recommend custom building a base 13" Air with 8GB of RAM and leave it that, unless that Retina display really jumps out at you.

• Answered by Victor L from Portland
• Feb 10, 2013
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No. You have to purchase the Apple SuperDrive USB disc drive seperately if you wish to operate anything involving CD's or DVD's.

• Answered by Benjamin C from Jackson
• Mar 14, 2013
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My two bits ... the 13 inch Air might be physically lighter, but in reality takes up more real estate with its larger footprint and has a greater apparent heft because of leverage effect. The larger footprint of the Air was seen as a potential inconvenience when traveling by plane.

Processor performance were seemed similar with 8 GB memory, and when running sample renderings via OpenGL assistance. As for the display .... that was no contest; the Air has a great display, but the Retina proved best for viewing high density images and computed renderings. The one noted caveat with the Retina was a noted momentary lag when displaying very large image files.

With identical prices for my elected configurations, I returned the Air and went for the more compact and capable Retina display equipped model. Good luck in choosing ... I know it isn't an easy call.

• Answered by Karel N from Escondido
• May 4, 2013
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Do you want a toy or a computer? I suggest that you go to an Apple store, and try out both. You may find that the ipad is too limited for what you want to do.

• Answered by Daryl T from Junction City
• Dec 9, 2012
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