Would you rather go pro or light?

I WAS recently asked by someone, why should I buy the Macbook Air when the Macbook Pro is the same price, but has the "Pro" tag.

When Apple's new Ivy Bridge line of Macbooks were announced, I asked myself the same question and thought "ah, this fruit brand is so confusing".

The lower end Air is at $1,759, whilst the higher end Air is $2,175 (as listed by re-sellers). Exactly the same for the Pro line.

But for this piece, I'll only be referring to the cheaper models because in the Mac Air's case, both laptops are almost identical, except in the higher end model, you pay around $400 for a 256 GB SSD instead of a 128 GB SSD.

The higher end model also allows you to upgrade its processor to 2.0 GHz instead of 1.8 GHz, which really isn't a worthy upgrade considering that with $400 you can almost get a 480 GB SSD for the Mac Air.

Therefore, the comparison here is with the 1.8 GHz Macbook Air with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB solid state hard drive, versus the 2.5 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 500GB spinning hard disk Macbook Pro.

Face-off below:

CPU

Macbook Pro has a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 with Turbo Boost up to 3.1 GHz whilst the Air has a 1.8 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz.

Obvious winner here is the Macbook Pro, with Primate Labs' Geekbench 2 showing that the 2.5 GHz with a score of 6,690 as compared to the 1.8 GHz's score of 6,108.

Advantage Pro.

Hard Disk

The Macbook Pro comes with 500 GB on a traditional drive spinning at 5,400 rpm which you can upgrade when buying.

However, a solid-state drive is more than three times faster than a traditional disk drive, so I'm not exactly sure why this out-dated hard disk is on the pro.

If the hard disk were at a faster 7,200 rpm or even with the newer and much faster 10,000 rpm drive, it would be more "Pro" equipped.

The Air comes with the base 128 GB model SSD. It is very little but it will give much faster loading and booting times.

If you need to store bulky media, just get an external hard drive which can come relatively cheap now whilst keeping the necessities on the Air's 128 GB capacity.

Advantage Air.

RAM

Both come with 4GB of DDR3 RAM clocked at 1,600 MHz. The 4 GB RAM is pretty much standard in all machines now. Draw.

Graphics

The processor in the Pro can give Intel's HD4000 a little bit more power than the Air's.

However, both are still on the same integrated card so for this department, it's another Draw.

Display

Both are 13-inches but the Air has a 1440x900 resolution as compared to the Pro's lower resolution of 1280x800. Both are LED-backlit and glossy, but it seems the Pro is true to the Pro tag here giving more accuracy to colours than the Air even on a lower display.

So better colour versus better resolution = Draw.

Ports

The new Air has two USB 3.0 with an SD card slot and one Thunderbolt port. The Pro has a Ethernet port, FireWire 800, Thunderbolt and two USB 3.0 slots as well as an SDXC card reader.

And with the Pro, you get a rather obsolete DVD-drive which is able to burn DVD-Rs at 8x speed and CD-Rs as well.

The Pro is also using the old MagSafe, which I would rather have than MagSafe2, particularly if I were an old Apple user, then I would be able to re-use any extra chargers.

Advantage Pro.

Portability

The Macbook Air's main forte is being small and light. The Air is the obvious winner in this department.

Advantage Air.

Battery

The Pro has a 63.5 Whr lithium-polymer battery whilst the Air has a 50 Whr battery.

However, the Air is equipped with the new power saving processors from Intel which runs on lower voltage.

Apple lists both as seven-hours, for average use, that should be good enough to last a day.

Draw.

Conclusion

In terms of pure hardware specifications and design, both are equally matched with the Pro and Air edging each other out in two categories out of eight while the other four ended in a tie.

So there really is no clear-cut winner here.

Previously Apple's Macbook Air sacrificed power to stay small, thin and light, but with Intel's new Sandy Bridge and now the Ivy Bridge, going small doesn't mean that you'll be weak.

Consumers won't have to sacrifice so much power to save themselves from breaking their backs.

On the Macbook Pro, you still get what Apple intended its Pro-line to do. Be able to upgrade if you want. Users can upgrade hard disks, processor or RAM however they see fit, or when they realise they need extra power.

So there is no correct answer to which is the better machine. With the Pro, you get more computer, with the Air, you get more portability.

They both have the same price, so when you're buying, it really depends on whether you want more computer for your money, or more mobility for your money.

The views expressed by the author are his own and do not reflect those of The Brunei Times.

The Brunei Times