What Mac to get?

[aquilles10]

I have a bit of fun conundrum to figure out. I am about to work out of my first office that is my own, where I will be doing 2D CAD, some light photoshop and some Google Sketchup. I already have a iCore3 iMac at home so I believe i need something a little more portable that I would use primarily at the office but that I could use on the road, or even at home if I need to. I already have an iPad 1 that I share with my wife.

I'm confused which Mac I should get. I saw a 13"MBA and was impressed with the speed and design. It's prefect for me in a lot of ways. However I am concerned with it's power and my needs. I am concerned that I would regret not having a discrete graphics card like the 15" MBP's do. I would want to use an external monitor with the MBA.

I also like the 13" MBP but the same issue with the discrete graphics kind of worry me and I would want to swap out the HD for an SSD seeing how much snappier everything is with an SSD. Also, it feels very bulky compared to the MBA. I also would want to use an external monitor with the 13" MBP.

And of course, I could stretch my budget to the breaking point and get a 15" MBP and be done with it. The screen size is great but it's a tank compared to the 13" MBA, not to mention more expensive.

Or should I get desktop like another iMac or Mac mini?

[mattkime]

i think the biggest problem with the 13" MBA would be the 4GB ram limit. otherwise i'd recommend it.

sounds like you need a better idea of how much power you need. i wonder how you could solve that.

[aquilles10]

The CAD program that I use, PowerCADD is 2D so it's limits are relatively low. This program will be my bread and butter. I eventually want to learn 3D or perhaps use a vector based CAD program like Archicad which have much higher hardware requirements.

I won't be doing any video editing or rendering anything in 3D however I would consider myself a bit of a power user, in that I typically have many programs open at the same time and am constantly multitasking. The lowish 4gb RAM of the MBA are another strike against it. But it's such a great looking design!

[haikuman]

MacBook Pro ~!~ Think Expansion, Speed, Graphics and still Portable . . . :priate:

[aquilles10]

haikuman wrote:
MacBook Pro ~!~ Think Expansion, Speed, Graphics and still Portable . . . :priate:

You make a compelling argument.

[Tommie Milwaukee]

I vote for the Mini but only if you already have a good monitor & keyboard.

[Lew Zealand]

Refurb 15" MBPro wins unless the weight is too high.

And even then it still wins.

[kahuna1342]

I would go with a refurb 15" MacBook Pro that has the high-res screen option. Makes quite a difference in using programs with lots of palettes. I went with a matte screen myself.

[aquilles10]

Seems like my mind has been made. I'll bide my time until the Refurb store has been restocked. I have been looking at the quad core 2.0GHZ MBP for a while since it's the most affordable MBP. I know that there is a cheaper i5 available, but the quad core i7 seems like a much better buy for not that much more money.

[jdc]

13" MBP + add your own SSD.

13" MBP might have middling graphics, but it will easily power any size screen you run at it. even a 30" @ 2560 x 1600.