MacBook Pro or MacBook Air for 6th Former.. HELP

Question

Hi, thanks for reading this.
I understand this is a constant discussion on most forums however everyone has different requirements and I'd like to know people's opinions according to my personal situation.
I'm 16 and have been saving for a macbook since I got a job, and I've got to the stage now where I can buy the macbook (yay!!).
I'm going to sixth form in September studying science, maths and history (so nothing intense!), but in my spare time I write music and I'm interested in running Logic Pro X (looks amazing!!) as well as possibly Aperture for some light photo editing, but the main uses will be Pages and safari.
The MacBook Pro looks great, and is really upgradable and I like how you feel as if you're getting more for the money as there's a whole lot more aluminium and the specs are considerably better (bar the SSD). I'd upgrade the RAM to 8GB too.
However the Air has impressive battery life and is stunning as well as having an ssd in built, however it has a (somewhat) piddly processor that I fear could struggle with running 12 or 16 tracks in Logic Pro with effects and safari/emails running too. However I know the pro would manage easy and it would be possible to put in an ssd with 8gb of ram and it would be a demon.
So I'd like to hear people's opinions really - for months I've had my eye set on the air and now I'm going more towards pro bit I'm still undecided. I work in an electronics store where we sell MacBooks so I know my stuff about them to some extent, however the down side to this is that i would have to buy the stock machines and not the made to order ones from apple - i just wanted to hear other people's experiences with the products and hear people's recommendations.
I'd really appreciate your replies,
Thanks in advance :-)!
Lewis.

Answer 1

100% Mac Book Pro - You can swap out the DVD drive and put an SSD in there as well as the traditional HDD, so you have the best of both worlds, i.e. good storage capacity and a quick drive for OSX and Apps to live on.
However, in the real world, i don't think you would really benefit majorily with an SSD when the expense is considered.
They are quick, boot times are quick, apps open quicker etc.  but chances are any sample libraries you have etc. will be on the standard HDD so within an app you may not see a huge performance increase.
The great thing about the macbook (If you're not aware) is closing the lid, opening it and everything is ready to go again in seconds -  So for me startup times etc. have never been an issue, so i'm yet to even try considering an SSD personally.
i5 is great, but the i7 really is much better, it has 4 cores as opposed to the 2 core i5's and software like Logic will make use of those cores.  If you're running a lot of plugins it will excel.  But, trust me, the amount of plug-ins it can handle may well exceed your requirements that an i5 would more than be capable of.  It's very hard to advise without know what plugins may be used in the future!
As an idea, i could quite happily run 20-30 tracks on my i5 loaded up with effects and instruments, it runs hot, but that's because Apple in their wisdom decide to make everything as thin as possible, thus reducing ventilation.   However, i've ran on various different macbooks like this for years now and not one problem, they are very well designed.
Most of my projects hit around 15 tracks, and by that i mean 15 distinct tracks and it's more than comfortable.
Sure, if you start spreading your percussion/drums into their own seperate tracks you can already add 5-6 on tracks on that list, and you can have additional tracks running from the same instrument plugins, and start getting into 30's and 40's which it will run fine with too.
If you think, for the majority, you will be using Logic's built in instruments (Which are great for composing) they are very efficient.
Something else to consider is that on the 13" MBP Logic's interface feels a bit tight, like you haven't got enough room to work within.  So if you're running from the laptops internal screen seriously consider the 15".  On reflection i wish i got the i7 in a 15" now.  But, my 13" supplements my other machines so i would miss how portable it is, it's ideal for work.
If you like the 13" form factor then it's easy to put it out to an external monitor too, you may need to if you're mixing.  You need that screen space, and the resolution can go beyond 1920x1080 if monitor supports it.
Also, from experience, Aperture is a real resource hog - Even the lightest of work on that can push your resources as it's none destructive, i.e. it's rendering any changes in realtime.  So Would also go Macbook Pro for that reason too.
Just one more thing to add, i've ran 20+ tracks on Core2Duo 2.4ghz machines, any modern machine from the apple line-up has plenty of grunt for most people, but as AOS said, the Air really wasn't intended to be used with 'pro' applications.  It must run incredibly hot if put under load!