How I almost cancelled my MacBook Air for a 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro

After I wrote an entry about ordering a fully upgraded 13 inch MacBook Air (MBA) on Sunday night, Solomon, an NYP student from the School of Information Technology and a facebook friend,  sent me a message asking about the configuration.

What ensued was an interesting conversation. Basically, he thought it was crazy to purchase a fully upgraded MBA because I could get a 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro (rMBP) for the same or less money. His logic was unflappable and I agreed with his assessment. You got to love these SIT students from NYP. So I cancelled my order immediately so I could reconsider the rMBP. I say “reconsider” because I have looked at it before, but more on that later.

So I cancelled my order and got out clean right? Not really. Shortly after I announced that I was buying a MBA, Steven, an old friend and colleague from my MINDEF Public Affairs days, graciously offered to give me a casing and keyboard cover for my incoming laptop. I offered to pay for it, but he  refused, which was incredibly nice of him since the retail price of a comparable product is around $60.

He was in possession of the case because he had originally ordered a casing for the MacBook Pro, but the seller sent him the wrong item and was not willing to facilitate an exchange or give him a refund. So we scheduled a meeting for the next day with the proviso that he let me buy him coffee to thank him.

Uh-oh.

The next day I messaged him to inform him of change of plans. But I still wanted to thank him for his gesture so I offered to buy him and  June, his girlfriend, dinner. At this point it occurred to me that with the following day being a public holiday, that night would probably be a date night for them, so I didn’t want to impose on them out too much. But it’s been years since I saw Steven and I was looking forward to catching up with him. Steven is also a techie and I trust his advice so I wanted to pick his brain on the MBA vs rMBP dilemma I was in.

It was also a great opportunity to meet June, who’s a lovely girl by the way.

So I printed out the specifications of the MBA and the rMBP and rushed down to the Medz at Orchard Central to meet them for dinner.  I reached slightly late because I had a lot of loose ends to tie-up in the office. Once again Steven was too gracious to allow me to buy them dinner, but at least I got to buy them drinks.

When I finally showed Steven the specs of the MBA and the rMBP, I was surprised by his recommendation.

“Go for the MBA,” he told me, “it’s a lot lighter and easier to carry around.”

This surprised me because I thought that most techies would recommend the rMBP, especially since at the two configurations I had them at, the rMBP was about $250 more. Surely, it’s worth paying that much for a Retina display.

“But the MBA’s display is also good mah!” he replied, to which I also agreed.

Shortly after, the conversation shifted. I didn’t want to monopolize the conversation or bore June. We had a pleasant dinner and I enjoyed catching up with Steven and getting to know June. It was also nice to get my mind off which Mac to buy. After ensuring that I didn’t impose on the happy couple for too long, I excused myself so they could continue with their date night.

I had a date too. A date withtwo  Macs.

Fortunately, there was a store selling Apple products on the first floor or Orchard Central, so I went in to perform another comparison. This was the 5th or 6th time I was doing a comparison, and despite my misgivings about getting the best ‘value’ I walked away almost the same assessment as before. The MBA is still far superior in terms of portability and it performs remarkably well.

What did change, was my impression of the rMBP. I gained a newly found appreciation for its gorgeous display. It’s truly stunning and exceptionally beautiful. But it has some drawbacks. When I read Nilay Patel’s review of the rMBP on The Verge, I was shocked to discover that the unit occasionally slowed down when performing simple, everyday tasks. An Apple computer slowing down while running Mac OS? Blasphemy!

But you know what? He was right. When I tested the rMBP, I was mindful of his comments and kept an eye out for performance stutters. To my surprise and slight horror, despite the rMBP using a more powerful processor, it still lagged when performing simple tasks like two-finger scrolling on a zoomed-in page of text on Safari. Even simple system tasks like opening a folder in Launchpad resulted in some lag. It wasn’t the smooth, hassle-free experience I expect from a Mac. It did not work like magic.

It was nothing major, but the question is, could I live with occasional perform stutters, albeit minor ones?

Also, the rMBP is noticeably heavier than the MBA.

Then I remembered what Steven told me over dinner, “don’t forget the power brick”. He was right; when I asked the sales staff to show me both, I noticed that the MBA uses the smallest and cutest power brick I’ve ever seen, while the rMBP was once again, noticeably heavier. All that weight was starting to add up.

After spending a good 30-45 minutes playing with both items, I left the store, somewhat more confused, but somewhat clearer at the same time. This was what went though my mind as I left the store:

rMBP (compared to MBA)
Noticeably heavier. The power brick adds more weight.
More ports, including the ever useful HDMI (useful for me anyway)
A smaller footprint than the MBA, but not as thin.
Absolutely gorgeous Retina screen with a smaller bezel, and edge-to-edge glass.
Some performance stutters – not the experience I expect from a Mac.

At this point I was leaning towards the MBA. But that Retina screen was simply too gorgeous to ignore. When I went home, I read a few more reviews and read more comments.  A comment I read coincided with Nilay’s review perfectly. That commenter wrote that the rMBP is a tough value proposition and early adopters were probably going to suffer. Though I understand the appeal of the rMBP and it’s Retina glory, I didn’t want to pay a premium to be a guinea pig for a first generation product, especially when that product comes with noticeably real-world flaws (performance lag, heavier and thicker).

This wasn’t the overall experience I was looking for.

So after a wistful night of careful thinking, I placed an order for the 13 inch MacBook Air again. However, this time I heeded Solomon’s advice about the upgraded SSD drive. Spending over $600 for an extra 256GB didn’t make much sense.

Even though I stayed with the MBA in the end, I’m glad that Solomon contacted me. It made me rethink my options much more critically.

It also made me reassess what I would use the system for. I intend to use it more as a productivity tool to take notes, write long entries (like the one you are reading now), check e-mail and do some Photoshop, Audition and light Premier work. I was thinking about waiting for Haswell for the massive increase in GPU performance, but the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed.

The MBA is meant to be a secondary machine. My main computing device is a Dell XPS 8300 desktop with a Quad Core 3.4 GHz processor, 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6670 Graphics card with 8GB RAM, a 24-inch Dell HD monitor (ST2420L), Logitech G5 mouse, G7 keyboard and a 2.1 Logitech Speaker System Z623 (I really trust and respect Logitech products).

It’s quite a powerhouse, and it is meant to do the heavy lifting, especially when I need to do video editing, sound engineering, complex Photoshop work, web development, or gaming.

When placed in that context, I felt a bit silly expecting the MBA to fill that role, especially when I’ve built a pretty awesome desktop gaming/media editing experience.

My MBA is scheduled to be delivered to the office tomorrow. I can’t wait!