Well, see, there's your problem.

The funny thing is, the lack of an ethernet port and optical drive are great since I never use them anyway. I have an iMac in one office, so I don't have to worry about using my laptop to house, and transfer large files cause I can just work on that iMac. Another computer at the other office takes care of that as well. So the way I see this computer is that it's not a work computer in the traditional sense of, "I need to get stuff done on it" - it's more of a "I need this to take notes, maybe watch movies sometimes. I have a desktop that gets processing done for me as well. So really, I'm definitely not hurting for processing power...it seems that portability is becoming more of an important point for me. Though all things considered, both the Air and the Pro would be going into a laptop bag, so...in the end I guess the Air's form factor doesn't matter as much?

Also, they're benchmarking around the same? The SSD makes that much difference? Awesome!

 

SSDs are fantastic. I have a 512 GB SSD in mine and it turns on/off almost instantly. The prices have fallen so much now I'd recommend everyone get one. Faster, more shock proof, and better on battery. The computer is just that much zippier.

 

I've never gotten to compare the performance of the Air vs the Pro though. How much of the computer's functioning comes from the SSD vs the CPU?

Every now and then I'd do data processing that I know taxes the CPU. It was killer on my current MBP and I know an SSD wouldn't change that. But I won't be doing that anymore. I've been looking at some early benchmark numbers and it seems that the MBA that I'd order and it's showing a 6197 on GeekBench. I wonder what the base 13" MBP benchmarks. It seems that the jump from 2 cores to 4 cores is around 2000 points on GeekBench but I haven't benchmarked anything in a while so I don't know how it translates. Last time I benched anything was when I first built my PC rig and that was years ago. Oh how times change, I bet the new MBP are faster than the PC I'm typing on right now!

 

Like I said, when the MB Air comes with a 512GB (or bigger) SSD, I'll replace my current one. It's a fantastic machine and invaluable for someone like me who is always traveling...

 

Here's an interesting article

The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

 

Did they say when these would be shipping with Mountain Lion? Probably gonna order once they do.

 

That's the retina model. That is why I stuck with the normal 13.3. I did get to see the screen on it and it is fantastic but geekbench says its only a little bit faster then my 13.3 and more importantly non of my applications will run at the higher resolution.

Kind of regretting not getting the new air over my pro though. The speed difference is negligible and I have yet to use the DVD drive. I am going to take my 11 air on my next business trip and see how it fairs, plus the dongles. If it works well and I can get a 8gb air I might do the swap. The mac store said when I bought mine that I had 30 days to bring it back if I wanted to swap out to the air or the rentina.

 

The retina 15" MBP base is 40% faster in geek bench than the base 13.3. Should be much faster than that in real world use with the SSD.

Apple gives a 14 day return policy, so you could still get the MBA. I bet you'd be really happy with the 13" MBA, it's a really nice computer, especially since they bumped the RAM capacity up to 8GB now too.

The 13" pro really should have been killed off, it's barely faster than the 13" MBA in geekbench (MBP is only 9% faster) yet it's heavier, has a lower res screen, spinning hard drive, etc. I don't think I've recommended the 13" MBP pro to anyone ever, even when they first released it the machine was nearly identical in functionality to the MacBook which was $200 cheaper.

 

How do you determine the 'fastness' of MBP?

 

Geekbench is the standard for benchmarking software. Check it out: Geekbench - Cross-Platform Processor Benchmark