Macbook Pro to Macbook Air: A designer’s perspective

I’ve seen a lot of benchmarks and reviews of the Macbook Air, but that’s not what I’m going to write about.

I’ve read a number of writers’ opinions on how they were able to replace their larger laptops with the Air. As a designer, my work’s a bit more intensive than just word processing, so I never felt their reviews accurately applied to me.

No, I hope to address the lack of reviews by designers on using the Macbook Air as a replacement to the Macbook Pro.

I’ve been using a 15” Mac laptop since the Titanium Powerbook and just replaced my circa 2008 15″ MBP with a 13″ Air (i7 processor, 256GB HD). I work primarily in Microsoft Office, the Adobe Web Premium Suite, and do some dabbling in Xcode. The most processing-intensive stuff I do is the occasional Photoshop filter or H.264 encoding.

Monitor.

The Air’s 1440×990 monitor resolution matches my last Macbook Pro’s screen. Granted, it’s physically smaller, but I was surprised that the smaller screen didn’t bother me that much. I’ll confess that, had there been a 15” option, I’d have gotten it instead, but the smaller screen really wasn’t an issue.

There’s no antiglare option, however, the Air’s LCD screen isn’t nearly as bad as the glossy glass screen that’s standard on all of Apple’s products. Gamut options are pretty limited, as Adobe RGB and sRGB don’t hold a candle to the default Color LCD option. I have two other monitors on my desk, and probably wouldn’t rely entirely on my Air for photographic color correction.

Keyboard.

I was holding out for the backlit keyboard, and am glad I did. The keys feel a bit more springy than my MBP’s, but ultimately they feel more solid once you get accustomed to them.

One really nice touch is that the monitor doesn’t touch the keyboard when closed, meaning I don’t see a greasy grid of keys on the monitor.

Speed.

The biggest selling point for me was the solid state drive. Fortunately for me, I lucked out with one of the faster Samsung SSDs, and it rocks. Firing up applications is fast, as are accessing files. I don’t think I can ever go back…

Audio Quality.

The Air boasts two stereo speakers, though they’re not nearly as profound as the ones on the MBP. They’re not bad, but I always edit audio with headphones, anyway (Shouldn’t everyone?), so it’s not a big selling point.

Ports and lack of disc drive.

It’s got a Thunderbolt port, though with the industry’s lack of peripherals, I don’t see myself using it for much more than for my external monitor (miniDV).

I definitely like having USB ports on both sides, as opposed to the MBP’s two ports strictly on the left.

Regarding the most obvious exclusion, Apple will likely remove disc drives from all of its other products to reinforce downloadable sales off the iTunes store as–well as distance itself further from  Sony’s Blu-ray technology. I don’t like the exclusion of a disc drive for these reasons, however, I can’t ignore the fact that I just don’t use DVDs or CDs much anymore. I can’t afford to go completely cold turkey, but I have enough other computers with disc drives to support this laptop.

Speaking of other disc drives, using the Air’s remote disc option (where you borrow a nearby computer’s disc drive) was a complete nightmare. Trying to install CS5 from my MBP and Mac Pro took forever. Watching DVDs remotely isn’t something they advertise on the box for good reason, either (it just kept stalling).

Portability.

I don’t really need to sell the Air on it’s weight. Suffice to say I was running around in New York last week and definitely appreciated the lighter laptop bag.

Bottom Line.

I’m pretty happy with the transition. I definitely wouldn’t have made the move without accessibility to another monitor (for color correction) or a disc drive, but for day-to-day work, I’m definitely happy with it.