Just curious if we have any mac book air owners on here that would like to give a review on the pros and cons of owning one vs either a macbook pro or pc laptop.
I have the 13" mac air. It's great for traveling, but I wouldn't use it as my primary portable. It's simply too doggy. It's great for checking email, runs... but no fire-wire, so I cannot hook it up to my Apogee Duet DAC (for music). It's a great vacation machine. I would not recommend it if you're planning on trading from it more than a day a week, or use beyond a pure mobile device. If you're sitting at a desk for any length of time I would suggest an i5 MBP. Very fast and built like a tank. OSX is a bit of a learning curve in GUI and file terms, but nothing that a week of use won't solve. Excellent value for the money (i5 MBP) and battery life is phenomenal. I have VMWare but find that I never want to run windows. I use prorealtime for charting.
Macs are overpriced IMO. Go build one on apples site and build a similar system from dell/hp/sony etc. You also cannot remove the battery your self and Ive heard of heating issues with the i7 MBP. The sony Im using now was 1/3 of the price of a similar mac at the time.
Any machine that runs windows is overpriced, and most of them have crappy displays to boot. Windows is not quality, it's shit that was never designed for networking but wait, the internet came along! I try to help consumers with their windows machines but they are just too stupid typically to take my advice... I won't do it anymore.. the whole security industry is bullshit, I've had ALL the recommended stuff running and still got hacked, never watched porn or shared files either...
The latest MBAirs are fantastic - great screen, indestructible innards, very quick and an absolute joy to use. And of course if you're a *nix guy, there's a real OS never more than a term window away. Good luck with that. Samsung's MBA competitor comes in at $2k+. Dell tried with Adamo, couldn't come close on price, and canned the whole line. A couple of the Vaios come close, but they're wrapped in plastic crap instead of metal.
I meant comparable in power if you want something that is indestructible thats where Panasonic tough books come in. Hell lenovos t series is tougher. In terms of networking. Windows and linux dominate that area. If OSX were so amazing then why did apple drop there server support. Do you think OSX was made for networking/internet use, its based on Unix which is pre Windows. You can have the same OS for free (ubuntu) on a cheaper frame. Now that apple went with intel chips all your paying for is the shiny box. As for security, due to the larger amount of users hackers are targeting OSX as well as mobile platforms. The aluminum case and lack of fan actually contributes to many heat issues. Don't get me wrong, there great computers, but not at the price there offered at. Plus if your trading you'll most likely be using software built for windows. They only thing they have going for them is an easy to use out of the box computer, thin and sleek. If you want to do something with a computer then you'll be switching to windows. Now linus is taking market share from apple in the VFX market. There all dell/hp servers running redhat with ubuntu on user systems.
Hey, you only gave half a day for people to reply! It really depends on what you need it for. The Macbook Air has the following advantages: 1. lighter 2. thinner/smaller 3. quicker startup MBP advantages: 1. more sturdy 2. more proven & reliable 3. longer battery life 4. potential for bigger screen (15", 17") So, which of those advantages is more important for your proposed trading usage? A 13" Macbook Pro is 2kg. That is easily light enough and small enough to carry round anywhere, to use on a cramped aircraft or coach seat, and so on. So IMO the size and weight advantages of the Macbook Air are not significant. That leaves quicker startup as the only real benefit - and when was that last important in any trading application, when trading computers are normally left on all the time and only rebooted overnight after the market close? Sturdiness, reliability, and proven hardware performance are much more important for trading. Longer battery life is useful too, and bigger screen real estate is also very important for trading use. So to me it's pretty obvious, the Macbook Pro is clearly the better choice for a trading laptop. I use a 15" Macbook Pro, because I do not trade on the move very often, so I prefer the bigger screen even though it's a bit too big a laptop to use in planes/coaches/trains, and weighs a bit more. If you want more portability to trade on the move, then the 13" MBP is the one to go for.
Get the mac book pro 15" then replace the stock hdd with an intel x-25m solid state drive and bootcamp it with windows 7. It's lightning fast and runs ib's tws great, even play games. Air is mostly for girls to walk around with looking sexy in starbucks. If you want a real laptop get the mbp, if you want something to just check emails/browsing get the ipad. PC laptop is fail.