MacBook Air for image editing on the go?

dragonfly

dragonfly

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Currently using an ancient 13" unibody MacBook when I'm abroad or in the field. I'm in the process of updating and am thinking of getting an Air to help lighten the load.

Does anyone use Air for editing (photos only) on the go? If so please can you share your experience. Am considering a used 2014 i5 with 4GB RAM and SSD...

Cheers.
 
I was using an i7 with 8GB and 512SSD and it was absolutely fine. Screen is small and I preferred it on my 30" 2560x1600 monitor but for on the road it was absolutely fine.

In comparison I now also have a surface pro 3, which is an i5 8GB with 256GB SSD and truth to be told it is notably slower however still no slouch and very usable.

Personally I would prefer 8GB as it will give you that head room to avoid swap outs. In plain English it will eliminate the need to write to disk unless explicitly saving a file.
 
Thanks. Agree 8GB would be better but don't see many of them about in the used market.
 
I have a late 2013 MBA i5 4GB RAM 11 inch and always use it to edit photos on the go, it works fine.

The screen isn't great and I go through all my photos at home on my Dell Ultrasharp, but apart from that, the performance is absolutely fine for general adjustment and get a sense of the photos.
 
Yes, that what it'll be used for principally, as most of the work will be done on the 27" iMac. I think 13" is my minimum.
 
I have used Air 11'' for almost 4 years now (so pretty ancient tech wise). I use both Photoshop and Lightroom on it occasionally and don't have any complaints. It does the job. I prefer the screen to most win-tel laptops I have used.

Would it be able to handle a few hundred images being bulk processed I don't know. I personally think the Air is great! light, compact, powerful (for its size and weight) and usable.

My next purchase will however but Pro 13, simply because I need more juice a GPU and higher screen resolution.
P.S my Air purchase was a refurb.
 
I think the 13" retina is your machine of choice, not much heavier than the air, slightly smaller actually, more powerful, much better screen, not that much more expensive

Get 8gb, save up if you have to
 
The screens on the Pro definitely a good selling point over the Air. The screen on the air is definitely not Apple's usual high quality, very dated by today's standard.

If I were to buy now, I'd be tempted by the 12 inch Macbook, but that's just me liking its combination of small form factor and screen.
 
Apart from the processor, the Air (referring to the specs from Apple) has the edge on weight (which is important for me), battery life, and resolution (comparing to a non-retina Pro). Did I overlook or misinterpret something?
 
dragonfly said:
Apart from the processor, the Air (referring to the specs from Apple) has the edge on weight (which is important for me), battery life, and resolution (comparing to a non-retina Pro). Did I overlook or misinterpret something?
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No you are right, those were exactly the reasons why I went with the MacBook Air for travelling. And mine is with i7 8GB 512SSD, it is plenty powerful enough to run Adobe CC, and several virtual machines for my software development.

The battery life is amazing, it is very thing, it is light, and the 1440x900 resolution of the screen is absolutely fine. Back at base I plugged it into a 30" 2560x1600 monitor without any issue. If travel and battery life are important than that is the one to have. Heck I didn't even both bringing a charger for a day in the office as it would easily last the whole day, no worries.
 
The issue with the air isn't the display resolution, but quality. Critics seems to slate the display for it's contrast and colour rendition.
 
afasoas said:
The issue with the air isn't the display resolution, but quality. Critics seems to slate the display for it's contrast and colour rendition.
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And from a users perspective it is absolutely fine ;) is there better, yes, is it fine, yes.
 
My 2013 Air i5 with 4Gb RAM works fine for initial LR work. Battery lasts forever! I also take a USB-powered external drive to backup to from it.
 
When I was choosing a travel laptop I looked at the retina pro and the air
Both will do the job but I prefered the screen on the retina pro and went with that even tho it is slightly heavier
both of them are up to the job but it was nicer just looking at photos on the retina pro which has has a superb screen in my opinion
 
I can see no reason to get the air unless you absolutely need the small weight saving. This comes at a significant performance cost and a much poorer screen. There is also little point in getting the non retina pro as that again is a poorer spec and poorer screen.
 
Significant performance cost? Really? Hmm my i7 MBA is fast enough for absolutely everything you want to do to a photo.
 
dragonfly said:
@Rapscallion - would you mind elaborating the bit about significant performance cost please?
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The significant performance difference I was referring to was in their standard spec. I assume dejongj has an upgraded model to have an i7.

But to upgrade an air to i7, 8GB Ram and a 256 gb SSD pushes the price to more than a base spec 13 Pro retina, and unless you need the small weight saving, I think that the 13 pro is a much better machine purely down to the much better display.
 
@Rapscallion - no it does not. The base model of Pro only has 128GB of SSD. Your proposed upgrade would make the Air higher spec than Pro - having an i7 and larger SSD storage.

I think Apple deliberately(?) make it difficult to compare like for like. From their current site, if you update to i7 and 8GB, the Air is still cheaper than the base model Pro, with an i5. The graphics & displays are different through.

Just to add also, that the above is less relevant to me as (a) I'm not looking really looking to get a brand new Pro or Air; (b) therefore, the weight difference between the Pro & Air is more significant - the gap is only much closer with the latest Retina Pro.

Thanks all for sharing your views and experiences, and especially regarding the issue about the display, something that I didn't know about, and will certainly influence my final decision.
 
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@dragonfly - You've got it, that is exactly the deliberation I went through. For me it came down to do I want a retina display on such a small display or not. And then effectively scale it such that I have the same or less resolution to actually read it. And on top of it, I did not find Aperture which is an OpenGL application that smooth at the time to compare it on the Retina version, a moot point these days as Aperture is no longer ;) But yes ultimately if you really want the retina screen than there is only one choice. If you aren't bothered, like I wasn't as at home/office I hook it up to a large external screen anyway, then the extra performance, battery life and storage of the MacBook Air in a more portable package made the difference to as the reason I went for the MBA was portability. To me that was the main reason, your primary reason may be different.

And portability and battery life is brilliant, it has gone around the world with me and always in my loyal Billingham Hadley Pro messenger camera back. It easily slips in as it is nice an thin.
 
dejongj said:
And from a users perspective it is absolutely fine ;) is there better, yes, is it fine, yes.
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for programmer - probably. For photographer and graphics designer it is in the same league as any other cheap TN windows laptop screen - unusable IMHO.
 
daugirdas said:
for programmer - probably. For photographer and graphics designer it is in the same league as any other cheap TN windows laptop screen - unusable IMHO.
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If it is your only screen yes I agree, if it is just for being on the road and a portable option, it is absolutely fine. Gosh how did we do things before the other displays hey ;)
 
dragonfly said:
@Rapscallion - no it does not. The base model of Pro only has 128GB of SSD. Your proposed upgrade would make the Air higher spec than Pro - having an i7 and larger SSD storage.

I think Apple deliberately(?) make it difficult to compare like for like. From their current site, if you update to i7 and 8GB, the Air is still cheaper than the base model Pro, with an i5. The graphics & displays are different through.

Just to add also, that the above is less relevant to me as (a) I'm not looking really looking to get a brand new Pro or Air; (b) therefore, the weight difference between the Pro & Air is more significant - the gap is only much closer with the latest Retina Pro.

Thanks all for sharing your views and experiences, and especially regarding the issue about the display, something that I didn't know about, and will certainly influence my final decision.
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My mistake, however isn't the air upgraded to 2.2 i7 processor and 8gb ram more expensive than the macbook pro with the 256gb hd? you must have to really value the weight advantage (1.35kg vs 1.58kg) and 12hrs battery vs 10hrs for the pro to sacrifice the much better screen in a more expensive machine.
 
dejongj said:
If it is your only screen yes I agree, if it is just for being on the road and a portable option, it is absolutely fine. Gosh how did we do things before the other displays hey ;)
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IPS desktop screens were around for ages, if a little bit smaller. Before that I have no clue - probably wet lab processing?
 
daugirdas said:
IPS desktop screens were around for ages, if a little bit smaller. Before that I have no clue - probably wet lab processing?
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I was talking about laptops, you know mobile solutions.
 
dejongj said:
I was talking about laptops, you know mobile solutions.
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Well MBP retina was the first decent laptop for editing on the go. Before that you'd go home to your IPS screen, end of. Excel sheet or programme code is a whole different matter.

However things have moved on now. Regular retina MBP blows the old Air out of the water and for practical reasons take up similar amount of space and weight. Air has too sharp edges and could cause injury or get destroyed far quicker. I hate that wedge design.
 
The MBA could cause injury. Jeez @daugirdas hope that straw holds you.

Anyway the OP has got all the information. Cause injury, blimey that is just hilarious.
 
Rapscallion said:
My mistake, however isn't the air upgraded to 2.2 i7 processor and 8gb ram more expensive than the macbook pro with the 256gb hd? you must have to really value the weight advantage (1.35kg vs 1.58kg) and 12hrs battery vs 10hrs for the pro to sacrifice the much better screen in a more expensive machine.
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Yes, but you're not comparing like for like - Air will then have an i7 while the Pro an i5. As I said, Apple do make it hard to compare directly.
 
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Yup I found that one post as well. Together with the recall notice for the bendy iPhones, bad reception and many other far fetched stories ;)
 
I think essentially it comes down to: if display is more important, get a Pro; if weight & battery life are more important, Air is the way forward.

Thanks again for the info & thoughts.
 
Base spec 13" 2013 MBA i5 with 4GB and 128GB SSD here.

As a mobile solution works just fine. LR5 and Aperture both run ok for batch processing but would have picked 8GB RAM for slightly more headroom if choosing again. Unless used price differentials are not too great I would still choose the 128GB SSD and if needed add a http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JetDrive-...172?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43dd355e84 or similar at a fraction of the cost of Apple storage.

For me the combination of slim form factor, great battery life and good enough screen works just fine until I can transfer the images to my iMac.
 
dragonfly said:
I think essentially it comes down to: if display is more important, get a Pro; if weight & battery life are more important, Air is the way forward.

Thanks again for the info & thoughts.
Click to expand...

This is essentially it. I bought an Air as an ultra-portable productivity machine, as I wanted the lightest possible solution for ease of travelling. I've loved it, although the battery is weakening now after a couple of years of use. Yes it would be nice to have a retina screen, but I don't want the extra pound in weight - there have been many situations that I really couldn't have carried any more size or weight so a MacBook would be been out of the question. Considering it's an ultra-portable, it's a very productive machine. As for the screen, it's not as bad as people make out. Ok, for critical work I'll hook it up to a Dell at home, but a lot of my photography screen time is sorting, keywording, exporting, backup etc - not visually critical work. The Air does everything I need it to, reasonably quickly. The 128GB storage takes some managing, but with USB3 drives at £10 per 32GB, it's not a problem to slip in another 64 or 128GB. Apple seem to charge £40-50 per 32GB for storage which is daylight robbery.
 
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