13″ MacBook Pro 2.2GHz Quad-core Intel i7 Originally released October 2011 15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 1440-by-900 resolution 4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM 500GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm 8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) Intel HD Graphics 3000 and AMD Radeon HD 6750M

VS.

15″ MacBook Air 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 Originally released July 2011 13.3-inch (diagonal) high-resolution LED-backlit glossy widescreen display 4GB memory 256GB flash storage Thunderbolt port with support for up to 2560-by-1600 resolution FaceTime camera Intel HD Graphics 3000

Usage: I do web design. I need a great editor (Coda!) and Adobe Creative suite and I’m pretty much set. I have a ton of other programs, but these are my go to apps.

Both laptops have very similar specs.

Price: Air is about $200 cheaper.

CPU: Pro wins with a quad core I7 – the air would be fine considering my desktops are 3gz Intel duo core. Either of these CPUs will do the job.

Hard Drive: Air wins! it’s a solid state drive. I’m o.k. with it being smaller in size. I’m not going to use this as my main computer and keep tons of media and files on it.

Screen: Pro wins – it’s a 15.4 vs. 13.3

Video: Pro wins. Both have Intel HD 3000 but the Pro has the Radeon HD 6750 mobile.

Memory: Tie out of the box.

Upgradability: Pro and this is the deal breaker for me.

Verdict: PRO!

I really, really wanted the solid state drive in the Air, I know this speeds your system up. After some research, I found that you can’t upgrade the AIR’s hard drive or RAM. Everything is soldered directly onto the motherboard of the Air. My desktops have 4gb RAM and I feel like they struggle with this amount running Firefox, Mail, Coda and Illustrator or Photoshop. Firefox and the Creative Suite apps are real memory hogs!

I plan on putting an SSD in my Pro swapping out drives on the new pro’s looks really easy compared to old Mac books.