The Casual Mac Dilemma

12 June 2012

Apple updated the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro lines of notebooks today. I’ve been looking forward to this update for some time.

The Macbook Air got a significant specification boost including new Core i7 CPUs, up to 8GB of 1600MHz RAM and up to 512GB of SSD storage, on both the eleven and thirteen inch models. The Air also receive two USB3 ports and faster Wifi.

The flagship fifteen inch Macbook Pro got thinner, lighter and more powerful, as you would expect. It also has a Retina display.

This presents me with a dilemma.

Since its introduction in late 2010 I have used an eleven inch Macbook Air as my primary computer. The little Air has been the best machine I have ever owned and despite its size and specifications I have found it to be extremely capable.

But the eleven inch Air has some distinct limitations: The screen is beautiful, but short, which occasionally frustrates. The disk space is very limited at 128GB: I don’t store a lot of music or movies, preferring services like Spotify and iTunes rentals. The CPU is underpowered by modern standards, but it’s not a big deal as I don’t play games or do any intensive graphics work or movie editing.

The Air runs a web browser, the Ruby interpreter and Vim just fine.

My mind was made up months ago: As soon as the Air gets its expected Ivy Bridge refresh, I would upgrade.

Here’s the dilemma: The new Retina Macbook pro weighs almost the same as the thirteen inch Air and is practically as thin. Then there’s the screen. Just as the Retina displays of the iPhone 4 and New iPad called to me like Sirens through the mists of a shipwreck, so the new Macbook Pro is trying to lure me into its comforting glow.

The Retina displays on iOS devices are amazing. Sure, photos look sharper and movies look great, but for me its all about text. If you have an appreciation for the aesthetics of font faces and enjoy reading then you immediately understand why the Retina display is important.

This was supposed to be an easy upgrade. No decisions to be made.

To borrow an appropriate, if hackneyed, phrase: This changes everything.